simulo reviewed The Social Construction of Reality by Peter L. Berger
None
3 stars
This was very interesting, but hard to read. I liked that it provided some very interesting, coherent ideas of what “reality” is for people and how it is “build”. For this, it introduces some key concepts like objectification, externalization, internalization and reification. Good for understanding the concepts was the use of examples.
Nevertheless, the language was very abstract and it seems that some basic knowledge in the terminology of marxism as well as A. Schütz’s phenomenology would have been useful. Furthermore, the book uses a lot of latin phrases. It might have been normal when the book was written, but today the liberal use of “ipso facto”, “Ergo sum” and “in actu” seems dated and makes it hard to read (for the non-latin speakers, at least)
I made extensive notes which speaks for the book.
