The social construction of reality

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1. kelseyfrogDec 2025
   The Social Construction of Reality[1][2] provided me a method of examining the things that I assumed where obviously true and describes the process by which human ideas are transformed from beliefs into real tangible objects and natural truths. It forever changed the way I look at claims of human behavior framed as universal laws and my ears pearl up whenever I hear phrases like reality, truth, and nature used to justify personal beliefs.

   1. Berger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Penguin Books, 1991.

   2. https://amstudugm.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/s...

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2. EzkuJan 2024
   This book is probably about a very different kind of ”engineering” than what you had in mind, but it’s been highly influential to my thinking:

   “The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge.” Berger & Luckmann 1966.

   Perhaps the core insight to me is that not only does every practice of engineering exist as embedded in the context of a socially constructed reality, but the practice of engineering itself also fundamentally involves the continual construction of such realities. In other words, for a software engineer to be able to do their job, they must among other things be a kind of applied social epistemologist.

   I expect this framing doesn’t make much sense to many readers — I’m hoping the following articles might serve to illustrate:

   “Programming as Theory Building.” Peter Naur, Microprocessing and Microprogramming 1985 (https://doi.org/10.1016/0165-6074(85)90032-8)

   > … suggests that programming properly should be regarded as an activity by which the programmers form or achieve a certain kind of insight, a theory, of the matters at hand. This suggestion is in contrast to what appears to be a more common notion, that programming should be regarded as a production of a program and certain other texts.

   “Interpretation, Interaction and Reality Construction in Software Engineering: An Explanatory Model.” Kari Rönkkö, Information and Software Technology 2007 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2007.02.014)

   > Floyd’s paper Outline of a Paradigm Change in Software Engineering requested that we move from a product oriented paradigm to a process oriented paradigm.

   > Naur’s paper Programming as Theory Building made it painfully clear to us that exemplary resources in the form of material and available support are not enough when modifying others’ programs. In fact, if Floyd’s claims had been taken seriously by the software developers in Naur’s study, and if the same developers had access to an explanatory model … their difficulties could have been both anticipated and prevented.

   > This article … explains from a natural language point of view, how interpretation takes place, and discusses the consequences of this in relation to interaction and reality construction in software engineering practice.

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3. wunderlustSep 2022
   My field of study (what I really like to think and learn about) isn't my field of work, but I like the question so I'll spill some thoughts.

   I spend a lot of time thinking about philosophical-ish stuff, so here are some books that have had the strongest residual effects (whether that's changing how I think, changing what I think about, changing my values, or simply getting the thought ball rolling faster):

   Ishmael (Daniel Quinn)

   1984 (George Orwell)

   Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)

   Godel, Escher, Bach (Douglas Hofstadter)

   The Republic [imp. "the allegory of the cave"] (Plato)

   The Genealogy of Morals (Friedrich Nietzsche)

   The Social Construction of Reality (Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann)

   Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (L. Wittgenstein)

   Dissemination [imp. "The Pharmakon"] (Jacques Derrida)

   The Quest for Reality (Barry Stroud)

   Languages of Art (Nelson Goodman)

   The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Thomas Kuhn)

   Concepts (Jerry Fodor)

   The Web of Life (Fritjof Capra)

   Foucault's Pendulum (Umberto Eco)

   Naming and Necessity (Saul Kripke)

   Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig)

   There are others, and a lot of essays (by thinkers like Bertrand Russell, Carl Hempel, Hilary Putnam, WVO Quine, Karl Popper, Alfred Tarski, Gottlob Frege, David Chalmers, Daniel Dennett, Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard, Mikhail Bakunin, CS Peirce, and David Hume, among many others), but these seem apropos as they most readily came to mind.

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4. kelseyfrogMay 2022
   The questions I listed are specifically addressed in works like The Social Construction of Reality[1] and Frame Analysis[2]. From what I gather, they are widely read influential works and to put one in terms of the other, helped me frame modern social currents in a more through understanding.

   1. Berger 1967 ISBN13:978-0385058988

   2. Goffman 1986 ISBN:9780930350918

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5. kelseyfrogDec 2021
   The Social Construction of Reality[1]. This book helped me in my personal life coming to terms with my identity. But it also helped me understand the art of discourse much more deeply. It gives the tools to easily and quickly identify implicit assumptions in arguments and drill down into why and how they are made. It also makes it very clear that people in general construct very poor arguments. You may already believe this, but just how poor they are is almost unbelievable.

   1. Berger, Luckmannn1966 ISBN 978-0-385-05898-8 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-38...

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6. throwaway1254Feb 2018
   the social construction of reality. Read and watch your world unravel
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