The Social Construction of What?
E659166
The Social Construction of What? is a 1999 philosophical book by Ian Hacking that critically examines and clarifies the concept of social construction across science, knowledge, and reality.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Social Construction of What? canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T7353202 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Social Construction of What? Context triple: [Ian Hacking, notableWork, The Social Construction of What?]
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A.
Rethinking Social Inquiry
Rethinking Social Inquiry is a methodological volume in political science that critiques and extends the quantitative, positivist approach of Designing Social Inquiry by advocating for pluralistic, case-based, and mixed-method research strategies.
-
B.
Reality as Social Process
Reality as Social Process is a major philosophical work by Charles Hartshorne that develops a process-oriented, relational view of reality within the tradition of process theology and metaphysics.
-
C.
Modern Social Imaginaries
Modern Social Imaginaries is a philosophical work by Charles Taylor that explores how shared social understandings and collective imaginaries shape modern Western institutions, practices, and identities.
-
D.
Strength and Weakness of the Social Sciences
"Strength and Weakness of the Social Sciences" is a critical work by biologist and philosopher Gunther Stent that examines the methodological limits, explanatory power, and epistemological status of the social sciences in comparison to the natural sciences.
-
E.
The Social Framework
The Social Framework is an influential economics book by John R. Hicks that presents a systematic introduction to the structure and functioning of a modern economic system.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Social Construction of What? Target entity description: The Social Construction of What? is a 1999 philosophical book by Ian Hacking that critically examines and clarifies the concept of social construction across science, knowledge, and reality.
-
A.
Rethinking Social Inquiry
Rethinking Social Inquiry is a methodological volume in political science that critiques and extends the quantitative, positivist approach of Designing Social Inquiry by advocating for pluralistic, case-based, and mixed-method research strategies.
-
B.
Reality as Social Process
Reality as Social Process is a major philosophical work by Charles Hartshorne that develops a process-oriented, relational view of reality within the tradition of process theology and metaphysics.
-
C.
Modern Social Imaginaries
Modern Social Imaginaries is a philosophical work by Charles Taylor that explores how shared social understandings and collective imaginaries shape modern Western institutions, practices, and identities.
-
D.
Strength and Weakness of the Social Sciences
"Strength and Weakness of the Social Sciences" is a critical work by biologist and philosopher Gunther Stent that examines the methodological limits, explanatory power, and epistemological status of the social sciences in comparison to the natural sciences.
-
E.
The Social Framework
The Social Framework is an influential economics book by John R. Hicks that presents a systematic introduction to the structure and functioning of a modern economic system.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
philosophy book ⓘ |
| author | Ian Hacking NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | Canada ⓘ |
| critiques |
overuse of the term social construction
ⓘ
relativist interpretations of science ⓘ strong social constructionism ⓘ |
| examines |
social construction of classifications
ⓘ
social construction of gender ⓘ social construction of knowledge ⓘ social construction of mental illness ⓘ social construction of objects ⓘ social construction of people ⓘ social construction of race ⓘ social construction of reality ⓘ social construction of scientific facts ⓘ uses of the phrase "social construction" ⓘ |
| genre |
epistemology
ⓘ
philosophy of science ⓘ |
| hasISBN | 9780674004122 ⓘ |
| hasPart |
chapter on construction of facts
ⓘ
chapter on construction of ideas ⓘ chapter on construction of objects ⓘ chapter on construction of reality ⓘ chapter on social construction in science ⓘ |
| influenced |
debates on social constructionism
ⓘ
philosophy of social science ⓘ science and technology studies ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
philosophy of science
ⓘ
realism and anti-realism ⓘ scientific knowledge ⓘ scientific realism ⓘ social constructionism ⓘ social ontology ⓘ sociology of knowledge ⓘ |
| mediaType | print ⓘ |
| notableFor |
analyzing construction of ideas versus objects
ⓘ
bridging analytic philosophy and sociology of knowledge ⓘ clarifying varieties of constructionist claims ⓘ |
| pageCount | 288 ⓘ |
| placeOfPublication | Cambridge, Massachusetts NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| proposes |
distinction between different senses of construction
ⓘ
framework for analyzing construction claims ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1999 ⓘ |
| publisher | Harvard University Press NERFINISHED ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Social Construction of What? Description of subject: The Social Construction of What? is a 1999 philosophical book by Ian Hacking that critically examines and clarifies the concept of social construction across science, knowledge, and reality.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.