The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise on the Sociology of Knowledge;

Published 1966; 208 pages; First Edition.

Reviewed for the Islamic and the Philosophy of Science course by Nik Mohd. Ayman
Haniff bin Raja Azlan.

In ‘The Social Construction of Reality’, Berger and Luckmann strive to understand the
intrinsic character of the reality of everyday life, in order to glean the manner in which
knowledge is disseminated within society and then repurposed to construct individuated
perceptions of reality. The so-called treatise begins with a summative, yet thorough
evaluation of the state of sociology of knowledge as a discipline. As they identify key figures
that, one way or another, have contributed to the discipline’s development, Berger and
Luckmann interrogate their respective contributions in relation to whether further clarity has
been provided on the notions of “reality” and “knowledge”. Unlike philosophers, who they
claim can freely exercise their contemplations on assertions of the world as they know it,
sociologists have no such luxury. For better or worse, the latter are stuck examining societies
as they have been established.

Therefore, it is from this angle that the two authors assert the utility in their empirical
approach. Whilst not totally condemning—and in one particular case, they acknowledge it as
somewhat unavoidable— the fruits of considering the study from philosophical,
epistemological, and ontological avenues, they prefer to refrain from delving into them as
much as possible. The two authors contend that, throughout the years, much of what has been
passed under the label of ‘sociology of knowledge’ has unduly focused on the genealogy of
the field’s intellectual history, even relegating empiricist approaches to merely the theoretical
realm. Berger and Luckmann consider this as an unfortunate outcome of the field; as such,
their goal in writing this book is to essentially clear the muck and recalibrating the lens. Due
to this, this review will only go into the introductory and first chapter of the book, where the
authors engage in the most reflection regarding the field’s key precepts.

According to Berger and Luckmann, sociology of knowledge concerns itself with

investigating “the relationship between human thought and the social context in which it
arises”. Analyses done from this perspective must seek to understand the ways human
“knowledge” has been “developed, transmitted and maintained in social situations”,
regardless of whether said knowledge is valid or otherwise. This is because the field,
ultimately, should deal with the manner in which “realities” are taken as “known” within
human society; the authors elaborate that the lack of understanding in how this takes place
has contributed to a significant myopia pervading both the field and the objects it purportedly
studied.

The authors outline the three dominant strands from 19th century German thought that have
shaped discourses pertaining to the field: the Marxist, the Nietzschean, and the historicist
(Diltheyan). Marxist thought, in particular, has contributed to the sociology of knowledge’s
key proposition: the notion of man’s consciousness being determined by his social being.
This is further compounded by the twin concepts of Unterbau/Ueberbau
(substructure/superstructure). The main takeaway is that human thought is shaped by the
action one engages in and whatever social relations are created from it; hence, Unterbau and
Ueberbau correspond, respectively, to human activity and the consequent world it produces.
While not as clear, the Nietzschean strand added the idea of the “false consciousness” and the
significance of deception and illusion in the pursuit of survival and power. Finally, the
Diltheyan-historicist approach cultivated the understanding of there being a “social location”
to human thought, in that it cannot be understood except by its own terms, bestowing a sense
of relativity onto thought as a human endeavour.

The authors begin the first chapter by centering their analysis on the concept of
consciousness, as it pertains to a person’s awareness of his own immediate world in relation
to ‘multiple realities’ existing peripherally. Berger and Luckmann focuses on clarifying the
nature of consciousness, defining it as always intentional: it is always directed towards the
objects of one’s experience. Such objects, as the person becomes aware, connect to “different
spheres of reality”, whereby he perceives their intra-connectivity through shifting his
consciousness from one reality to another. Going from one’s central sphere of thought to a
peripheral one would not compromise whatever human activity one engages in, so long as
such transitioning contributes to a greater understanding of the coherency of everyday life.

Yet, the one reality demanding his immediate focus would be that of everyday life. This
reality is defined as one directly accessible with his ‘bodily manipulation’. In other words, it
is the reality immediately perceivable via sense-experience—the world “within my reach…in
which I act so as to modify its reality”. A person’s ‘pragmatic motive’—what the person is
doing, has done, or plans to do—determines the urgent necessities occupying his daily
agenda. The “wide-awake” state this requires, the authors explain, leads to an
acknowledgement of this being one’s natural attitude towards the world. Within such a
routine existence, there is no need for him to question whether he truly exists or not; his
simple presence as he takes care of his affairs asserts his direct relationship with his
surrounding world as being true.

Despite the individualistic tone it might exude, Berger and Luckmann point out that there is
an inherent recognition of inevitability regarding people’s everyday lives—their “here and
now”—overlapping with others’. All would stay within their designated spatial realities, yet
all understand that within the same world, the meanings they possess are in a constant
dialectic with the overarching common world that they inhabit. Each person’s “here and
now” would come equipped with their own unique insights; the perspective they hold would
largely be non-identical. The authors add that these opinions relate to their comprehension of
“the objectifications by which the world is ordered”, facilitating the ongoing dialectics
between one’s set of meanings with another’s without completely overlapping. This is borne
from the collective understanding of the temporal structure of reality itself. It is what creates
the urgency within which they strive to fulfil their agendas—there is only so much time
available for what they need to accomplish before death overtakes them. Berger and
Luckmann tie this to every individual being conscious of an “inner flow of time…founded on
the physiological rhythms” borne from the intersection between the cosmic calendar and the
socially-established calendar.

Here, the authors—although implicitly said—seem to derive a relationship between this

notion of time and the ordered nature of reality. As they are born into the world, people are
already imposed pre-existing patterns of phenomena that exist independently of their
understanding of them, yet which they must strive to make sense of within their daily lives.
Said patterns are what engender the objectivation of reality—phenomena understood as
objects from which people glean meaning in their everyday lives. According to the authors,
objectivation enables people to “typify” the cluster of objects they are exposed to via
language, allowing interpretation from the peripheral “finite provinces of meaning” they hail
from to be translated into their subjectivized experiential reality. Within such a premise, the
use of common language bequeaths people with distinct modes of experiences to learn from
each other as they collectively apprehend their lives. The aggregate meaning-making they
engage in becomes what the authors deem as “common-sense knowledge”—the collective
body of knowledge that everyone shares with relation to the “normal, self-evident routines of
everyday life”.
The temporal structure of life, coupled with the pre-set patterns of phenomena, would compel
people to collectively orient themselves in regards to their separate agendas and overall
biographies. Berger and Luckmann aptly describe it as such: “I encounter time in everyday
reality as continuous and finite. All my existence in this world is continuously ordered by its
time, is indeed enveloped by it. My own life is an episode in the externally factitious stream
of time. It was there before I was born and it will be there before I die”. The imposition of
pre-existing order compels people to take advantage of the finitude to which they are bonded,
subsequently facilitating the aforementioned overlapping of lives. The dimension of time
permeating their experiential reality engages their wakeful consciousness, thereby allowing
the perception of how time affects their daily lives and overall trajectory.

The proliferation of meaning within everyday life is only possible through the use of
language in one’s everyday reality. Berger and Luckmann describe language as a mechanism
of signification through which objects constituting one’s environment are interpreted to
represent “an index of subjective meanings”. Declaring it “the most important sign system of
human society”, the authors determine language’s defining characteristic to be its
“detachability”—its ability to express meanings outside of the subjectivity of the “here and
now”. This ability to transcend the immediate present—plus the temporal order of reality
undergirding it—could not be more emphasized by the authors. The detachable nature of
language essentially imbues face-to-face interactions with a sense of creative dynamism:
what is perceived as a normal conversation between two parties is actually, the authors
mused, their spontaneously responding to each other synchronizing to their subjective
experiences. The common language spoken between them becomes a channel for the
subjective meanings they possess to be unveiled, crystalized and further stabilized in the
process of edification vis-à-vis daily life.

Not only is language capable of transcending the “here and now”, it can also “bridge different
zones [of meaning] within the reality of everyday life and integrates them into a meaningful
whole”. The nature of language as inherently detached serves the purpose of a person’s
growth, pulling together disparate subjective experiences throughout his life to construct
semantic fields that tie them together. “Through language”, the authors continue, “I can
transcend the gap between my manipulatory zone and that of the other…synchronize my
biographical time sequence with his…and can converse with him about individuals and
collectivities with whom we are not present in face-to-face interaction”. The transcendent
nature permeating the medium of language explains the seemingly inseparable bond between
one’s experience as conveyed via language, and his corresponding growth within the world.
As Berger and Luckmann would insist, everyday life is possible because of it.

Despite the authors’ proclamations, this reader would have liked to see the study of the social
distribution of knowledge to be explored from a religious or metaphysical perspective. But
the lack of it is no surprise, considering Berger’s belief that religion itself is a product of
human societal activity. Nevertheless, the absence of such an angle obviously does not
preclude the inherent value of the authors’ observations. This reader believes that the insights
and maxims the authors have shared within the first two chapters alone (as shared in the
preceding paragraphs) merit further examination; the findings seem universal enough to be
applicable in whatever fields to do with the development of the human being. At least from
this reader’s perspective, there are certainly parallels that can be drawn between the maxims
propounded in this work and those found in ontologically-oriented studies. Upon further
evaluation, this reader seems convinced that any study incorporating said parallels would
greatly contribute to a more refined understanding of one’s chosen field of study.