Editing Truth (section)

====Constructivist====
{{Main|Constructivist epistemology}}

[[Constructivist epistemology|Social constructivism]] holds that truth is constructed by social processes, is historically and culturally specific, and that it is in part shaped through the power struggles within a community. Constructivism views all of our knowledge as "constructed," because it does not reflect any external "transcendent" realities (as a pure correspondence theory might hold). Rather, perceptions of truth are viewed as contingent on convention, human perception, and social experience. It is believed by constructivists that representations of physical and biological reality, including [[Race (classification of human beings)|race]], [[Human sexuality|sexuality]], and [[gender]], are socially constructed.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kukla |first=André |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AFmkqMbS0LoC |title=Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science |date=2000 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-0-415-23419-1 |language=en}}</ref>

[[Giambattista Vico]] was among the first to claim that history and culture were man-made. Vico's [[epistemology|epistemological]] orientation unfolds in one axiom: ''verum ipsum factum''—"truth itself is constructed". [[Hegel]] and [[Marx]] were among the other early proponents of the premise that truth is, or can be, socially constructed. Marx, like many critical theorists who followed, did not reject the existence of objective truth, but rather distinguished between true knowledge and knowledge that has been distorted through power or ideology. For Marx, scientific and true knowledge is "in accordance with the dialectical understanding of history" and ideological knowledge is "an epiphenomenal expression of the relation of material forces in a given economic arrangement".<ref>{{cite book |author1=May, Todd |author-link1=Todd May (philosopher) |title=Between Genealogy and Epistemology: Psychology, Politics, and Knowledge in the Thought of Michel Foucault |date=1993 |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |location=University Park |isbn=978-0-271-02782-1|oclc= 26553016}}</ref>