文档介绍：THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF WHAT?
Copyright © 1999 The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Copyright © 1999 The President and Fellows of Harvard College
IAN HACKING
THE SOCIAL
CONSTRUCTION
OF WHAT?
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
AND LONDON, ENGLAND • 1999
Copyright © 1999 The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Copyright ᭧ 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hacking, Ian.
The social construction of what? / Ian Hacking.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-674-81200-X (alk. paper)
1. Knowledge, Sociology of. I. Title.
1999
121—dc21 98-46140
CIP
Copyright © 1999 The President and Fellows of Harvard College
CONTENTS
Preface vii
1 Why Ask What? 1
2 Too Many Metaphors 36
3 What about the Natural Sciences? 63
4 Madness: Biological or Constructed? 100
5 Kind-making: The Case of Child Abuse 125
6 Weapons Research 163
7 Rocks 186
8 The End of Captain Cook 207
Notes 227
Works Cited 239
Index 257
Copyright © 1999 The President and Fellows of Harvard College
For Catherine
Copyright © 1999 The President and Fellows of Harvard College
PREFACE
Social construction is one of very many
ideas that are bitterly fought over in the American culture wars. Com-
batants may find my observations rather like the United Nations reso-
lutions that have little effect. But a lot of other people are curious about
the fray going on in the distance. They are glad to hear from a foreign
correspondent, not about the wars, but about an idea that has been crop-
ping up all over the place.
Ihave seldom found it helpful to use the phrase ‘‘social construction’’
in my own work. When Ihave mentioned it Ihave done so in order to
distance myself from it. It seemed to be both obscure and overused.
Social construction has in many contexts been a truly