Realities and Relationships

Download or read book Realities and Relationships written by Kenneth J. Gergen and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent attempts to challenge the primacy of reason--and its realization in foundationalist accounts of knowledge and cognitive formulations of human action--have focused on processes of discourse. Drawing from social and literary accounts of discourse, Kenneth Gergen considers these challenges to empiricism under the banner of "social construction." His aim is to outline the major elements of a social constructionist perspective, to illustrate its potential, and to initiate debate on the future of constructionist pursuits in the human sciences generally and psychology in particular.