This paper discusses the reception and impact of Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality. The article will, first, address Berger and Luckmann themselves and their approach to the book. In the next part, we will sketch the diffusion of the basic concept of the book. Then we want to show that the reception exhibits a particular open form, which allowed it to disperse into extremely different disciplines not only of the social sciences and the humanities. It is the (...) disciplinary distance in particular that detaches the diffusion of the concept from reference to the book. In the next part, we can see that this detachment leads to the variation of approaches to social construction. Particularly, it is the misidentification with constructivism that leads to misunderstandings, which will then be clarified in contrast to our reconsideration of the basic thesis of SCR. The conclusion will state that Berger and Luckmann’s concept therefore constitutes the common denominator of social constructivist approaches. (shrink)

In the context of calls for "postpositivist" sociology, realism has emerged as a powerful and compelling epistemology for social science. In transferring and transforming scientific realism --a philosophy of natural science--into a justificatory discourse for social science, realism splits into two parts: a strict, highly naturalistic realism and a reflexive, more mediated, and critical realism. Both forms of realism, however, suffer from conceptual ambiguities, omissions, and elisions that make them an inappropriate epistemology for social science. Examination of these problems in (...) detail reveals how a different perspective--centered on the interpretation of meaning--could provide a better justification for social inquiry, and in particular a better understanding of sociological theory and the construction of sociological explanations. (shrink)