Social Constructivism Argumentative Analysis

The realism and anti-realism debate is centred around whether something is real or not real. Stuart Brock and Edwin Mares (2014) try to grapple with the arguments of why something might be real or not real. They ultimately come to the conclusion that something is real if it both exists and is objectively mind independent. I accept this claim about whether or not something is real. A social constructivist takes an anti-realist stance. From this point on the “something” or “entity” that is being disputed to be real or not will be referred to as X. This is because they believe that X exists and is dependent on the mind which entails that it is not real. X can exist but it does not always mean X is real. A social constructivist believes that an X exists but is solely dependent on the mind. Subsequently, social constructivism is the belief that X is constructed by the human mind. In this essay, I will first set out to answer what it means for X to be socially constructed. Then using gender as a case study I set out a social constructivist argument. Firstly, looking at an argument opposed to gender being social constructed, biological determinism. Then I will look to refute biological determinism on the basis that gender is not superfluous to our explanatory needs using the social learning theory to explain this. Finally, I will use the social learning theory to further explain why gender is socially constructed and cannot be regarded as anything else. …show more content…
For X to be socially constructed it must be causally dependent on society, metaphysically dependent on society and intentionally dependent on society. A society is this sense is a group of individuals; this could be anything from a group of friends to a whole