Puzzling Out Sally Haslanger’s Social Constructionism: Constructing a Stable Building or Being Left with Unsolvable Puzzles?

Berger, Annika; Schwalda, Sven; Seidel, Markus; Vetten, David

Abstract

In this paper, the authors focus on Sally Haslanger’s theoretical project of distinguishing between different ways to understand social constructionist theses in general. The goal of this article is to better understand Haslanger’s distinction between different forms of social constructionism. In trying to get a better grasp of Haslanger’s distinctions, the authors will encounter some difficulties that will hinder them getting a coherent picture of these distinctions. For some of these difficulties they will present some possible solutions but, in the end, will ask for further commentary from Haslanger herself to improve on their understanding of her distinction between different forms of social constructionism.