ABSTRACT
AT the heart of Shotter and Gergen’s wide-ranging and provocative account of social constructionism (hereafter “constructionism”) there is a contradiction. Constructionism, 1 Shotter and Gergen argue, does not “in any way disclose that final form of life that we all, as human beings, should live. There is no attempt here at a ‘God’s-eye view’” (p. 28, second italics added). We are told that constructionism seeks to promote a “dialogi- cal, multivoiced” tradition that “affords an extended array of positions … with the different positions all giving rise to their own ‘situated knowl- edges’ ” (p. 8). At the same time, we are asked to take constructionism seriously—or, at least, seriously enough to accept the constructionist claim that to represent the practical, communicative order of everyday life in the manner of traditional epistemology “is to falsify it” (p. 27, italics added). What is to become of the position of traditional epistemology in the mul- tivoiced tradition favored by constructionism? Is it to be treated as a voice of equal power and authority to that of constructionism; or is it to be treated as a voice that is irredeemably false? 2
