Abstract
What exactly do we mean when we refer to disability as a social construction? How viable are the
justifications for this? These questions are explored in this paper. To this end, various theories that are
influential in German-language disability studies are examined and criticised. These include Oliver's social
model, furthermore the "Thomas theorem", Berger and Luckmann's sociology of knowledge, Foucault's
discourse theory and Waldschmidt's theory. Subsequently, social constructivist approaches of Watzlawick
and Gergen and Gergen are discussed. It is shown that a relativistic understanding of social construction can
be used to deny facticity and thus undermines the foundations of scientific knowledge. This danger must be
taken seriously when defending the scientificity of disability studies.