The Social Construction of Reality

Introduction

Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, who had both studied at the New School for Social Research in New York, where Alfred Schutz taught, published the book in 1966. They redefine the sociology of knowledge: it should deal with everything that passes for knowledge in everyday life, not just with the ideas of intellectuals. Drawing on Schutz, George Herbert Mead, Marx, Weber, Durkheim and the philosophical anthropology of Arnold Gehlen and Helmuth Plessner, they describe a dialectic of externalisation, objectivation and internalisation: habitual actions harden into institutions, are legitimated by stories and theories, and are passed on to new generations through primary and secondary socialisation. The title became a catchphrase, often used for positions more radical than the authors’ own.

Connections

Builds on

• Mind, Self, and Society1934 · George Herbert Mead

More works by Peter L. Berger

• 1967The Sacred Canopy