1

Realism, Constructionism and the Natural World

Ted Benton University of Essex, UK

Ted Benton (1991) Biology and Social Science: Why the Return of the Repressed should be given a (Cautious) Welcome Sociology 25, 1: 1-29. Kate Burningham and Geoff Cooper (1999) Being Constructive: Social Constructionism and the Environment Sociology 33, 2: 297-316. Peter Dickens (2000) Society Space and the Biotic Level: An Urban and Rural Sociology for the New Millenium Sociology 34, 1: 147-64.

The articles in this small selection are all drawn from the BSA journal Sociology. They take up very different positions on three closely related topics concerning the nature, scope and use of sociological knowledge-claims. The topics are, first, the epistemic relationship between sociological knowledge claims and their objects, or referents. Can rival sociological accounts be reasonably evaluated in terms of their greater or lesser adequacy to their objects, better or worse use of the available evidence, and so on? The polar opposites in this particular dispute tended to use the labels ‘realism’ versus ‘constructionism’. Second, there are disputes about the relationship between sociological knowledge-claims and those produced through the practices of other disciplines – other social ‘science’ disciplines, psychology or, more controversially, the life-sciences (‘biology’) and physical sciences. Should sociology ‘mind its own business’ and deal only with social phenomena, should it extend its methodology to incorporate the practices and cognitive achievements of the other disciplines into its own domain, or should it seek constructive/critical alliances across disciplinary boundaries? Third, sociologists disagree about the proper relation between sociological practice and

© The Author(s), 2012

2

the wider public domain. Should research strategies be constructed in relation to normative or political projects external to the discipline, should sociologists rather see themselves as disinterestedly seeking understanding, leaving it to others to use the results of our investigations as they see fit, or, more subtly, should sociological research be aimed at ‘deconstructing’ the established assumptions of the powerful, the ‘common sense’ of the policy-makers? An article by Burningham and Cooper (1999) was a spirited defence of ‘constructionism’ in sociology from what they saw as a rising tide of critique from ‘realist’ scholars – especially in the fields of sociology of scientific knowledge and environmental sociology. Though by no means uncritical defenders of ‘constructionism’, Burningham and Cooper set out to defend some versions of it – or, more centrally, successful uses of some versions of it in case studies – against two general claims made against it by the realists. These claims, according to Burningham and Cooper, are that ‘radical’ constructionists deny or marginalise the independent reality, or existence, of the objects of sociological investigation and that they are in some sense morally reprehensible, since, in denying the reality of objective problems, they distract us from the obligation to contribute to solutions. Following the practice of self-professed social constructionist writers, they distinguish between ‘mild’ or ‘contextual’ constructionism and more radical ‘strict’ constructionisms. In their view, most empirical research in environmental sociology uses the milder form of constructionist methodology, explicitly distancing itself from radical constructionism. As this body of research does not deny the reality of nature, or of environmental problems, then the realist critique is simply misplaced. As the realists they mention explicitly support constructionist method as an indispensable aspect, or moment in environmental sociology, there is little to separate the approaches. However, Burningham and Cooper go further, in offering a defence of strict constructionism. They read strict constructionists as not denying the reality of the objects of sociological investigation, but rather insisting on the indeterminacy of possible interpretations, or meanings that might be given to such realities. They also characterise strict constructionism rather differently, as ‘radical scepticism about ontological claims’. Such a position, they argue, is quite consistent with taking a political stand on the issues concerned. All it involves is a non-foundational politics, which eschews the attempt to play ‘the ontological trump card’, or the claim to an ‘unmediated access’ to an ‘incontestable’ reality. Here (as they admit) Burningham and Cooper could be accused of falling into just as misleading a caricature of realist views as they claim realists offer of constructionism. None of the realists they cite, including myself, have ever made such claims. Most of us would, I suspect, agree with Burningham and Cooper that our interventions are simply contributions to the environmental debate, alongside those of other participants. We may make knowledge-claims about social practices and their interconnections with wider physical and biological processes, and we may attempt to justify these by appeals to reason and evidence, but there is no claim to holding an ‘ontological trump card’. There is, of course, a large gulf between ‘radical scepticism about ontological claims’ and action based on a

Key Articles in British Sociology Realism, Constructionism and the Natural World

Benton

British Sociological Association

3

grounded but provisional understanding of our environmental predicament. Burningham and Cooper do not make out a case for the consistency of effective political activism with the former philosophical position. This is not, of course, to say that sociological approaches have to justify themselves in this way – only that Burningham and Cooper do not succeed in showing that strict constructionism can be so justified. My article, which is grounded in a version of critical realism, starts by situating itself within the ‘constructions’ of various forms of social and political activism. It argues that the way social movements that contest discrimination, develop an alternative politics of health, protest environmental degradation and the mistreatment of non-human animals all transcend binary oppositions such as nature/society, body/mind, human/animal, cause/meaning. Far from attempting to play an ontological trump card over the conceptualisations of ‘participants’, the argument runs in the opposite direction: the practices and claims of a wide range of ‘new’ social movements call into question the ontological underpinnings of the dominant traditions in sociology – and are especially challenging for the ‘constructionist’ approaches. The article goes on to provide a historical analysis of the ways in which dualist ontologies have seemed necessary to defend the disciplinary autonomy of the human social sciences. Versions of Darwinism applied to the human case have (contra Darwin’s own work) repeatedly promoted reductionist views of human nature that rightly proved unacceptable to humanist scholars. The prevalence of the reductionist neoDarwinisms has been one of the most significant obstacles to integrating understanding of humans as embodied beings, dependent, like all others, on their ecological life-support systems with recognition of distinctively human powers and potentials. Finally, the article explores the great diversity of explanatory strategies in a range of life-sciences in an effort to show that the options never were restricted to the sterile opposition between reductionism or the dualist sequestration of human social life from its material grounding. New kinds of disciplinary realignment are both possible and required if some of the keenest sources of critical political engagement are to be taken seriously. One of the most provocative (though introduced as ‘ironic’) articles to have been published in Sociology was the late Ian Craib’s ‘Social constructionism as a social psychosis’ (Craib 1997). Despite its pretence to assign psychiatric disorders to the thought, if not the persons, of his colleagues, this intervention contains some powerful arguments in favour of putting sociology in its place, and combining our insights with those of cognate disciplines. While Craib’s concern was with the relation between the socio-cultural and the psychological and biological aspects of individual subjects, a key article by leading urban sociologist Peter Dickens argued for disciplinary realignment ‘outwards’, so to speak – to link social processes to their spatial distribution and environmental dimensions. He begins: ‘This paper proposes an urban and rural sociology (and perhaps a sociology generally) which looks beyond its immediate disciplinary confines and uses recent developments in psychology and the life

Key Articles in British Sociology Realism, Constructionism and the Natural World

Benton

British Sociological Association

4

sciences, particularly as these disciplines elucidate questions of human nature and human identity.’ (Dickens 2000: 147). Dickens notes the early work of Chicago School urban sociologist who took account of a ‘biotic level’. Justifiable criticism of the way Chicago theorists understood this level have given rise to alternative approaches that have drawn on political economy, and, more recently to approaches that emphasise diversity of ‘cultural constructions’ of the meaning of place. Dickens appreciatively reviews some of the applications of such cultural sociologies of urban and rural society, accepting the value of their insights. However, he goes on to make the case for a realist analysis that makes reference to causal mechanisms underlying the plurality of cultural meanings. Here, he makes the useful distinction between ‘construal’ and ‘construction’, and cites Kate Soper’s (1995) point that ‘the hole in the ozone layer is not a hole in language. It is a hole in the ozone layer.’ This takes Dickens on to a critical engagement with available ways of restoring recognition of the ‘biotic level’ in urban and rural sociology. The ‘evolutionary psychology’ of Pinker, the socio-biology of Dawkins and Saunders are reviewed sceptically in favour of views of human nature and potential derived from the early Marx and as well as more recent developments in developmental psychology and neurophysiology. Dickens has continued to develop these ideas, in the journal Sociology (Dickens 2001), and at monograph length (e.g. Dickens 2004).

Key Articles in British Sociology Realism, Constructionism and the Natural World

Benton

British Sociological Association

References Benton, T. (1991) ’Biology and Social Science: Why the Return of the Repressed

should be given a (Cautious) Welcome’, Sociology 25, 1: 1-29. Burningham, K. and Cooper, G. (1999) ’Being Constructive: Social

Constructionism and the Environment’, Sociology 33, 2: 297-316. Craib, I. (1997) ‘Social Constructionism as a Social Psychosis’, Sociology 31, 1:

1-15. Dickens, P. (2001) ‘Linking the Social with the Natural Sciences: Is Capital

Modifying Human Biology in its Own Image?’ Sociology 35, 1: 93-110. Dickens, P. (2004) Society and Nature: Changing our Environment, Changing

Ourselves. Cambridge: Polity. Dickens P. (2000) ’Society Space and the Biotic Level: An Urban and Rural

Sociology for the New Millenium’, Sociology 34, 1: 147-64. Soper, K. (1995) What is Nature? Culture, Politics and the Non-human. Oxford:

Blackwell.

5

Key Articles in British Sociology Realism, Constructionism and the Natural World

Benton

British Sociological Association

Any views or opinions expressed in this collection are those of the contributors only. They are not endorsed by and do not reflect the views of the British Sociological Association.

Ted Benton

Ted Benton is professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, UK. His Philosophical Foundations of the Three Sociologies (1977) was a pioneering work in critical realism as a philosophy for the social sciences. He is author of numerous other publications on history and philosophy of the life sciences, environmental sociology, animal rights and socialist thought. He was a founder member of the Red-Green Study Group and the subject of S. Moog & R. Stones (eds) 2009 Nature, Social Relations and Human Needs: Essays in Honour of Ted Benton (Palgrave). He is also a well known natural history writer and photographer.