Causal Social Construction

• Main Author: Kõiv Riin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: De Gruyter 2019-11-01
• Series: Journal of Social Ontology
• Subjects: contrastive causation; social construction; social causation; causal social construction; social ontology
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/jso-2019-0006

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.