Social construction is incoherent

To understand why, let’s consider how it handles the claims of its rival theory, realism.

Consider X, where X is something claimed to be socially constructed.

For example, sex: whether you are male or female (or, in rare cases, something else).

If X is socially constructed then it follows that a society of realists who believe that X is an objective reality that exists independent of any construct would socially construct X as precisely that: an objective reality that exists independent of any construct. But this would produce an obvious contradiction whereby X would be true only as a social construct yet also as an objective reality that exists independent of any construct. Both cannot be the case. So social construction undercuts itself and ought to be rejected as irrational.

But wait, the constructivist may object, such a society of realists would be deceived. Even though it constructs X as an objective reality that exists independent of any construct, X still only exists as a construct.

But this move offers only an escape into further contradiction. To claim that the realists are deceived because what they take to be real is actually socially constructed is to claim that social constructs can be false in an objective, construct-independent way.

The claim here, put another way, is that realism fails as a construct because it fails to acknowledge the reality that realism is a construct.

The self-undercutting nature of this position should be obvious: it cannot be defended without conceding the premise that truth exists apart from—and can be established independent of—constructs. It stands or falls on the assumption that social construction can in the end make valid claims about construct-independent reality.

Again: To claim that realism is not really what it claims to be but is really just a construct is to contradict the central claim of social construction: that such knowledge is unavailable. To claim that it is impossible to know what is true objectively, as it exists independent of any social construct, is to smuggle in the assumption that the theory of social construction can itself make valid claims about construct-independent truth, i.e., that it can describe states of affairs as they really exist, i.e., that reality-as-such can be known in exactly the sort of way that the theory denies is possible.

So the idea that realists are deceived leads only to further incoherence.

To prevent a complete route, the advocate of social construction might attempt to pull one last-ditch maneuver: he may concede that social construction does not claim to offer a “privileged” theory of knowledge. According to this view, the claim that all knowledge is a construct includes the theory of social construction itself.

A clever bit of rhetorical ju jitsu. But this final attempt at consistency is also doomed, because now he is stuck with the position that competing theories of knowledge are merely incommensurable with respect to each other. If the knowledge that all knowledge is a construct is itself a construct—or, put negatively, if the knowledge that all knowledge has its source in something other than construct-independent reality has its source in something other than construct-independent reality—then there can be no construct-independent rational basis for choosing one theory over another. The most that can be said is that the theories don’t match up. But we already knew that.

If there can be no construct-independent rational basis for choosing one theory over another, then there can be no reason to choose social construction over realism, and realism—which explicitly rejects social construction with its claim that X is an objective reality that exists independent of any construct—is once again safe from charges that it is socially constructed. To insist otherwise would be to put social construction back on its “privileged” perch. And so realism remains perfectly intellectually respectable.

So far, it’s been pretty rough going for social construction. But there is a further problem.

This last-ditch stratagem—to admit, coyly, that even social construction is socially constructed as a way to 1) deflect charges that the theory smuggles in realism while 2) still recasting realism as a construct—relies on circular logic. How so? Because it entails that any possible set of criteria that could be used to assess realism against social construction would itself be the product of a construct. Any appeal to such criteria would be blatantly question-begging: one can only reduce competing theories to incommensurable constructs by assuming that all knowledge is a social construct. That, of course, is exactly the issue at hand, and that is exactly the premise that social construction is unable to establish without undercutting itself. So the social constructionist has merely attempted to push the problem once again into the background.

Conclusion: When we apply the theory of social construction to itself, we see that it disqualifies itself at every turn. Either it must suppose that it is just the sort of construct-independent knowledge of reality that it denies is available, or it can offer no reason why we ought to choose one construct over another because it must deny the possibility of a construct-independent reference point from which to assess rival constructs (and even this second option smuggles in the assumption made in the first, rendering the second option question-begging).

Social construction is hopelessly self-undercutting and should be abandoned.

End note: The core error here is the denial that we can know reality-as-such. This radical position simply cannot be maintained in a consistently rational way because in order to keep theorizing and criticizing, antirealist theories like social construction must assume the role formerly occupied by realism—they must proceed on the assumption that their conclusions are objectively compelling and apply to all people in all circumstances at all times. But again, that is precisely the sort of claim that antirealist theories like social construction deny. Realism does not suffer from these blatant and obvious contradictions.

(Essay revised slightly 5/24/2022.)