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Social construction of “reality”

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Abstract

The world we live in could be so simple. We could commission people to find out what the truth is (so-called “scientists”). We would listen to their objective results and would behave according to the facts, the reality the experts discovered. We would have experts for every single problem, be it medical, psychological, technical, economic, legal, cultural, or political. Being reasonable individuals, we wouldn’t discuss the cognition of the experts. Because we would want to survive, we would follow the unequivocal expertise produced by the knowledge-elite: You cannot live against the reality, otherwise you die. In the enlightened society, the scientists have taken the place of the priests, who were the ones giving advice in earlier societies. In my point of view, however, the guidance by scientists fails, because there are as many “realities” as there are scientists. If reality was such a helpful orientation point, why are there always such intense disputes between the scientists about this very reality? Why are there so many different factions within the sciences, competing each other over the real knowledge?

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Dieth, E. (2011). Social construction of “reality”. In: Integration by Cooperation. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-99416-0_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-99416-0_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-211-99415-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-211-99416-0

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