Editing Social reality

{{Short description|Distinct from biological reality or individual cognitive reality}}
{{sociology}}
'''Social reality'''<ref>{{Cite book|title = The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion|last = Berger|first = Peter|publisher = Doubleday & Company, Inc.|year = 1967|location = Garden City, NY|pages = 3–28}}</ref> refers to a socially constructed perspective of the world, consisting of the accepted social [[wikt:tenet|tenet]]s of a [[community]] involving laws and [[social representation]]s.<ref>Ireke Bockting, ''Character and Personality in the Novels of William Faulkner'' (1995) p. 25</ref> It is distinct from biological [[reality]] or [[individual]] cognitive reality, representing as it does on a [[phenomenology (psychology)|subjective]] level created through [[social interaction]] and thereby transcending individual motives and actions.<ref>{{Cite book|title=reality and human subjectivity|last1=MacKinnon| first1=N. J |last2= Heise| first2= D. R.|publisher=Palgrave|year=2010|pages=219–234}}</ref> [[Radical constructivism]] would cautiously describe social reality as the product of uniformities among observers (whether or not including the current observer themselves).<ref>[[Niklas Luhmann]], ''Theories of Distinction'' (2002) p. 136</ref>

==Schütz, Durkheim, and Spencer==

The problem of social reality has been treated exhaustively by philosophers in the [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenological]] tradition, particularly [[Alfred Schütz]], who used the term "social world" to designate this distinct level of reality. Within the social world, Schütz distinguished between social reality that could be experienced directly (''umwelt'') and a social reality beyond the immediate horizon, which could yet be experienced if sought out.<ref>George Walsh, "Introduction", Alfred Schütz, ''The Phenomenology of the Social World'' (1997)p. xxvii</ref> In his wake, [[ethnomethodology]] explored further the unarticulated structure of our everyday competence and ability with social reality.<ref>John O'Neill, ''Sociology as a Skin Trade'' (London 1972) p. 217</ref>

Previously, the subject had been addressed in [[sociology]] as well as other disciplines. For example, [[Émile Durkheim]] stressed the distinct nature of "the social kingdom. Here more than anywhere else the idea is the reality".<ref>Quoted in T. van der Eyden, ''Public Management of Society'' (2003) p. 487</ref> [[Herbert Spencer]] had coined the term ''[[superorganism|super-organic]]'' to distinguish the social level of reality above the biological and psychological.<ref>Herbert Spencer, ''The Principles of Sociology'', Vol. 1, Part 1. "The Data of Sociology"(1876)</ref>

==Searle==

[[John Searle]] has used the theory of [[speech act]]s to explore the nature of social/institutional reality, so as to describe such aspects of social reality which he instances under the rubrics of "marriage, property, hiring, firing, war, revolutions, cocktail parties, governments, meetings, unions, parliaments, corporations, laws, restaurants, vacations, lawyers, professors, doctors, medieval knights, and taxes, for example".<ref>John R. Searle, ''The Construction of Social Reality'' (Penguin 1996) p. 79</ref>

Searle argued that such institutional realities interact with each other in what he called "systematic relationships (e.g., governments, marriages, corporations, universities, armies, churches)"<ref>Searle, p. 97</ref> to create a multi-layered social reality.

For Searle, language was the key to the formation of social reality because "language is precisely designed to be a self-identifying category of institutional facts"; i.e., a system of publicly and widely accepted symbols which "persist through time independently of the urges and inclinations of the participants."<ref>Searle, p. 73 and p. 78</ref>

==Objective/subjective==

There is a debate in [[social theory]] about whether social reality exists independently of people's involvement with it, or whether (as in [[social constructionism]]) it is only created by the human process of ongoing interaction.<ref>Antony Giddens, ''Sociology'' (2006) p. 152</ref> 

[[Peter L. Berger]] argued for a new concern with the basic process of the social construction of reality.<ref>John O'Neill, ''Sociology as a Skin Trade'' (London 1972) p. 168</ref> Berger stated that the social construction of reality was a process made up of three steps: externalization, objectivation and internalization. In similar fashion, post-[[Sartre|Sartrians]] like [[R. D. Laing]] stress that, "once certain fundamental structures of experience are shared, they come to be experienced as objective entities...they take on the force and character of partial autonomous realities, with their own way of life".<ref>R. D. Laing, ''[[The Politics of Experience]]'' (Penguin 1984) p. 65</ref> Yet at the same time, Laing insisted that such a socially real grouping "can be nothing else than the multiplicity of the points of view and actions of its members...even where, through the interiorization of this multiplicity as synthesized by each, this synthesized multiplicity becomes ubiquitous in space and enduring in time".<ref>Laing, p. 81</ref>

The existence of a social reality independent of individuals or the ecology would seem at odds with the views of [[perceptual psychology]], including those of [[J. J. Gibson]], and those of most [[ecological economics]] theories.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Lawson|first= Tony |date=March 2012|title=Ontology and the study of social reality: emergence, organisation, community, power, social relations, corporations, artefacts and money| url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24232451 |journal=Cambridge Journal of Economics |volume=36 |issue= 2 |pages= 345–385 |doi= 10.1093/cje/ber050 |jstor= 24232451 |quote=[Features classified as social are] "those, if any, that ''could not'' exist in the absence of human beings and their doings."|url-access=subscription }} </ref>

Scholars such as John Searle argue on the one hand that "a socially constructed reality presupposes a reality independent of all social constructions".<ref>Searle, p. 190</ref> At the same time, he accepts that social realities are humanly created, and that "the secret to understanding the continued existence of institutional facts is simply that the individuals directly involved and a sufficient number of members of the relevant communities must continue to recognize and accept the existence of such facts".<ref>Searle, p. 190 and p. 117</ref>

==Socialisation and the Capital Other==

[[Freud]] saw a child's induction into social reality as consolidated with the passing of the [[Oedipus complex]] and the internalisation of the parents: "the same figures who continue to operate in the [[super-ego]] as the agency we know as conscience...also belong to the real external world. It is from there that they were drawn; their power, behind which lie hidden all the influences of the past and of tradition, was one of the most strongly-felt manifestations of reality".<ref>Sigmund Freud, ''On Metapsychology'' (PFL 11) p. 422</ref>

[[Jacques Lacan|Lacan]] clarified the point by stressing that this was "a highly significant moment in the transfer of powers from the subject to the Other, what I call the Capital Other...the field of the Other – which, strictly speaking, is the Oedipus complex".<ref>Jacques Lacan, ''The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis'' (Penguin 1994) p. 129 and p. 205</ref> Lacan considered that "the Oedipus complex...superimposes the kingdom of culture on that of nature",<ref>Jacques Lacan, ''Écrits: A Selection'' (1997) p. 66</ref> bringing the child into [[The Symbolic|the Symbolic Order]].

Within that order, [[Lacanianism|Lacanians]] consider that "institutions, as ''signifying practices'', are much more extensive structures than romantic notions allow and they thus implicate us in ways which narrower definitions cannot recognize...exceed any intersubjective intention or effect".<ref>Joan Copjec, in Jacques Lacan, ''Television'' (London 1990) p. 51-2</ref> In similar fashion, Searle asserts that "institutional power – massive, pervasive, and typically invisible – permeates every nook and cranny of our social lives...the invisible structure of social reality".<ref>Searle, p. 94 and p. 4</ref>

==Measuring trust==
{{Off topic|date=July 2022}}
If one accepts the validity of the idea of social reality, scientifically, it must be amenable to measurement, something which has been explored particularly in relation to [[trust (social sciences)|trust]]. "Trust is...part of a community's [[social capital]], as [[Francis Fukuyama]] argues, and has deep historical and cultural roots".<ref>Will Hutton, ''The State to Come'' (London 1997) p. 31</ref>

Theories of the measurement of trust in the sociological community are usually called theories of social capital, to emphasize the connection to [[economics]], and the ability to measure outputs in the same feeling.

== See also ==
*[[Belief]]
*[[Ideology]]
*[[Sociology of gender]]
*[[Social identity theory]]
*[[Social construction of gender]]
*[[Sociology of human consciousness]]

==References==
{{reflist|colwidth=40em}}

== Further reading ==

* Alfred Schutz, ''The Problem of Social Reality'' (1973)
* Berger, P. L. and Luckmann, T. 1966 . ''[[The Social Construction of Reality]]: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge'', New York: Penguin Books

==External links==

*[http://www.colorado.edu/Sociology/gimenez/soc.5001/durk1.html Introduction to Durkheim's Sociology: Social facts]

{{Gender and sexual identities|state=collapsed}}
{{Conformity|state=collapsed}}

[[Category:Social constructionism|Reality]]
[[Category:Social philosophy|Reality]]
[[Category:Sociological theories|Reality]]
[[Category:Systems theory]]
[[Category:Reality]]


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