The phenomenology in The Social Construction of Reality

CARLOS BELVEDERE

Salt Lake City

Conferencia; Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences 2016; 2016

Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences

In commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the first edition of The Social Construction of Reality I will like to propose a phenomenological reading of what, from this perspective, might be considered as the core argument of this classic book by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann. My claim is that there is a phenomenological nervation of this multifaceted book even though it is not meant to be a work on the phenomenology of the social world. In particular, this phenomenological argument begins in what could be seen as a second start of The Social Construction of Reality, i.e. the first pages of Chapter I, where the subject matter is no longer the sociology of knowledge in general but specifically ?the sociological analysis of the reality of everyday life.? In particular, I will follow the phenomenological passage from habituation to institution. With that aim I will outline the central argument exposed in Chapter II, paragraph 1, of The social construction of reality in six concatenated steps; namely: (a) habitualization; (b) typical meaning; (c) the chrystalization of institutions; (d) objectivation; (e) sedimentation; (f) anonymization.