Publisher's Synopsis
Western culture has traditionally celebrated the individual mind as the locus of reason and, thus, of knowledge. According to Gergen, however, Descartes's famous dictum, "I think, therefore I am", should more properly be "I communicate, therefore I am". The process of doubt equates not with reason but with language, and meaningful language is less the possession of a single mind than the product of interdependent relationships.;Recent attempts to challenge the primacy of reason - and its realization in foundationalist accounts of knowledge and cognitive formulations of human action - have focused on processes of discourse. Drawing from social and literary accounts of discourse Gergen considers these challenges to empiricism under the banner of "social construction". His aim is to outline the major elements of a social constructionist perspective, to illustrate its potential, and to initiate debate on the future of constructionist pursuits in the human sciences generally and psychology in particular.;When the human sciences are guided by a constructionist perspective, when the relationship, not the individual, is the locus of knowledge, what forms of theory, research and practice result? Gergen revisits standard areas of inquiry in psychology - the self, the emotions, human understanding, pathology and psychotherapy - and opens fresh discussion on narratives, deceit, and morality. In each case he shows how the issues are transformed by constructionist insights.
