The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge Paperback – July 11, 1967

This is a rich compact book. I came across it while doing reading on epistemology. This book is well suited for an organized reading group. It is short but dense and should probably both be read slowly and read again. I have read it without the benefit of a reading group. Until I have read the book again, the best summary I can give is the following passages from the book.“It will be enough, for our purposes, to define ‘reality’ as a quality appertaining to phenomena that we recognize as having a being independent of our own volition (we cannot ‘wish them away’), and to define ‘knowledge’ as the certainty that phenomena are real and that they possess specific characteristics.”“It is our contention, then, that the sociology of knowledge must concern itself with whatever passes for ‘knowledge’ in a society, regardless of the ultimate validity or invalidity (by whatever criteria) of such ‘knowledge.’ And insofar as all human ‘knowledge’ is developed, transmitted and maintained in social situations, the sociology of knowledge must seek to understand the processes by which this is done in such a way that a taken-for-granted ‘reality’ congeals for the man in the street. In other words, we contend that the sociology of knowledge is concerned with the analysis of the social construction of reality.”“The theoretical formulations of reality, whether they be scientific or philosophical or even mythological, do not exhaust what is ‘real’ for the members of a society. Since this is so, the sociology of knowledge must first of all concern itself with what people ‘know’ as ‘reality’ in their everyday, non- or pre-theoretical lives. In other words, commonsense ‘knowledge’ rather than ‘ideas’ must be the central focus for the sociology of knowledge. It is precisely this ‘knowledge’ that constitutes the fabric of meanings without which no society could exist.”Two earlier writers on the sociology of knowledge cited by Berger and Luckmann are Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge and Werner Stark, The Sociology of Knowledge: Toward a Deeper Understanding of the History of Ideas.

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The important takeaway here is that man is in an eternal dialectic with society. Mans reality is always at war with competing realities which form the basis of his "world-understanding".

This is Berger's fundamental perspective underlying all of his voluminous writings.. His focus is clear in the title. The very way we see "reality" is socially constructed. Almost all of his works deal with Religion--He even writes articles weekly in the American Interest Magazine a website--not free!Berger himself is fluent in several languages. English is not his first language! Because of this language skill Berger is aware of "the linguistic shift that takes place in the nonverbal realm when moving from one language to another" as identified in by Bruce B. Lawrence in his book "Defenders of God." ISBN 0-06-250509-2. (See page 47 at the bottom for the quote. In other words, even from his youth, Berger could sense the way language change changes the way we sense the world. In other words, language is an "interpretive filter."Note the word "sense" was used. It is more comprehensive than "understand."

This book should be considered absolutely required reading for anyone studying sociology or psychology, or anything else. This book is written so well it elucidates some of the most profound and insightful psycho-social theories in plain english, although some familiarity with basic social science terminology is a prerequisite for thorough comprehension. Its impossible to give a complete synopsis of it in a brief review, but overall the book covers the construction of social reality in complete detail, from institutions to the microsocial world of individual identity construction. The section on society as subjective reality, and the subsection on identity, is of absolute importance for psychologists like myself who work with identity problems like DID. Too often psychotherapy of the self and identity ignores the underlying fact that these are dialectic social products. The foundation of self improvement and change is this awareness of the socially constructed self. This book explains all of this with great clarity and alot of useful examples.