ABSTRACT
Pfadenhauer rejects the post-constructivist contention that The Social Construction of Reality is anthropocentric. With reference to her respective research interests (animal and artificial companions, which are marginal social phenomena in Western cultures), she argues that Social Constructions of Reality do not presuppose human actors but rather the ability to act. For an understanding of social constructivism in this sense, the difference between acting (doing) and action (done) and between “Sinn” (subjective meaning) and “Bedeutung” (objective meaning) is relevant. The latter difference is leveled out in the English word “meaning”: For reality is a social construction in the sense that what appears to us to be unquestionably given and valid emerges from subjectively meaningful acting, which, over time, acquires an objective meaning that has become detached from the original subjective meaning. This objective meaning eventually gains general acceptance, that is, it becomes culture. The relevance of animals and machines for the social construction of reality is therefore determined not only by their ability to act but also by their “cultural ability,” that is, the extent to which they are involved in bringing forth socially objectivated (and believed) facts.
