Causal Social Construction

Authors

  • Riin Kõiv University of Tartu

Keywords:

contrastive causation, social construction, social causation, causal social construction, social ontology

Abstract

In the social constructionist literature, little has been said about what it means for social factors to cause X in such a way that X would count as causally socially constructed. In this paper, I argue that being caused by social factors – and thus being causally socially constructed – is best defined in terms of a contrastive counterfactual notion of causation. Unlike some plausible alternatives, this definition captures what is at stake in actual social constructionist debates. It makes transparent which factors the truth of a causal constructionist claim may depend on. By doing so, it sheds light on what the disagreements over whether X is causally socially constructed may turn on. It also helps us to see under which condition the claim that X is socially causally constructed is compatible with the claim that X is caused by biological factors.

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Published

2019-11-20

How to Cite

Kõiv, Riin. 2019. “Causal Social Construction”. Journal of Social Ontology 5 (1). Vienna, Austria:77-99. https://journalofsocialontology.org/index.php/jso/article/view/6803.

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2019)

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2019 Riin Kõiv

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