Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction

By Kenneth J. Gergen

Book Overview

Western culture has traditionally celebrated the individual mind as the locus of reason and, thus, of knowledge. According to Gergen, however, Descartes's famous dictum, I think, therefore I am, should more properly be I communicate, therefore I am. The process of doubt equates not with reason but with language, and meaningful language is less the possession of a single mind than the product of interdependent relationships.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674749308
• ISBN13: 9780674749306
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.1" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

Important work for Social Constructivism

Another fine work by one of the world's leading post-modern theorists out of the social constructivist school. Gergen focuses on nature of interpersonal relationships in the modern day era in a book that equally intellectually stimulating and eminently readable. Readings on social constructivism are not for everyone. However, Gergen is worth experiencing in some way. Those who are familiar with him remember Gergen (Duke, PhD - Yale) as a prominent and highly cited social psychologist in the 1960 & 70s at Swarthmore College before moving into more theory in the 80s and 90s. His work is truly brilliant, accessible on most levels to the undergraduate but complex and insightful enough to make a Foucault or Virilio scratch his head momentarily before saying, "Ahhhh." The Saturated Self and Realties and Relationships are two of Gergen's most easily accessible yet deeply complex works on the nature of the modern world.