NAME	READING (pages)	AGENDA ITEM (questions, comments, ideas, screeds, manifestos, etc.)

Ross B. Mitchell	4	Relativism can only be defined contra truth (i.e. as either a lack of truth or as many truths)...however, this book, like just about any other, lacks a definition of truth...therefore the word relativism means absolutely nothing because its definition is hollow.

Ross B. Mitchell	28	Can one ever separate an idea from an object?...My only experience of a thing is as an idea (in my head)...hence it is always already awash in discourse (or whatever else you want to call it).
Ross B. Mitchell		Who else thinks that the entire idea of a "law" (that is, natural law) is silly? The idea of a "law" is nothing more than a left over remnant from the deists that gives the FALSE impression that there is some divine order to things...Wrong!...there are merely necessities. Down with laws!
Ross B. Mitchell		A thought: We killed God who was seemingly replaced by science...now we've killed science which is seemingly being replaced by God (damn dialectics).
Ross B. Mitchell	79	Disbelief in contingency is also a deist artifact...it is to believe in revealing an always there "lawful" god...
Denver		What else can be said to be "socially constructed" (e.g. F=ma?)? What are the steps of announcing/demonstrating that X is a social construction?
Denver	32	If a successful science does not have to develop in the way it did, what are common among those alternative successful ways?
Denver	39	What is the opposite of "social"? Is it "natural", "individual", or "psychological"? What is the opposite of "construction"? Is it "resistance", "facilitate", or "dispensability"?
Denver		How does Constructionism have to do with the evaluation of scientific work?
Denver	53	Is "unmask" "deconstruction"?
Denver	96	Is Hacking's score of Kuhn a reinterpretation of Kuhn?
Denver	125	Certain classification enables and disables certain discussions.
Sonya	22-23 -80	What do we call " Kindnes" ? fact? truth or reality? why Ian uses "elevator words"?
Sonya	15-16	what is atomistic self? is it socially constructed or not? it is just a product of society not interplays of history, social conditioning and the chosen behavior of individual persons? is it correct that because self is inevitable it can not be socially constructed?
Sonya	6,12 and 20	we can generalize the Reformist constructionism claims that if in some religious countries this is an idea -not fact or truth - that "internet" is quite bad as it would be harmful for religious identities (2) , but in some of the present state of affairs in post modern world , internet is an inevitable (0) so religious authorities have modified some aspects of it.This reformist constructionism is a reality.
Sonya	Response to Ross Question 28	we can seperate ideas of objects, for example , Atom is an objective fact ,maybe you, Ross, never had thought about Atom when you were a 3 year old kid, but atom was exist even u had not thought about that object in " your mind ". so this is the belifes of objects such as Atom that are socialy constructed not those objects themselves as they were existed before any socities were made as Iran's exaplme on quarks proves this.
Sonya	Response to Denver 53	I think unmasking is just " questioning functions " not refuting the constructionism . as Ian has discussed it is a grade of commitment to constructionism which s aiming at undermining a thesis (56). Unmasking wants to uncover certain aspect of our thinkings and maybe results to revisionary or reformist ideas on a certain theses as it can give for example more power to refugee women (58).
Sonya	32	Ian claims that in contrary to natural sciences , there are conscious interactions between KInd and Person in the social sciences, my question is that whether virtual interactions in internet spheres are conscious?! if not , does it mean that we can not classify STS in social science field? as it can not be sorted in the natural science as well?! just a question came to my mind
Nicole		nominalism
Sonya		I did not get the relationship of essentialism and social constructionism :(
Sonya	Chapter1	everything that is not determined by the nature of things and is not inevitable ,is socialy constructed therefore is contingent on social and historical processes such as refugee women
Jessica	Chapter 1	Regarding differentiation between rebellious and revolutionary - according to Hacking it seems that someone who does not propose an alternative would be regulated to the rebellious category, but I wonder how many individuals offer a critique without any alternative? Furthermore, what about those that offer an alternative but no methodology for achieving such an alternative? This has always been my beef with Marx - he offers a critique but I have never really seen him outline a way to achieve a new system. Maybe that makes him rebellious and individuals like Bakunin and Kropotkin revolutionaries.
Jessica	General	So why is it that Sal wouldn't allow us to read this book? It seemed like it was supportive of Hacking, but I am not sure if I can see him supporting Hacking's analysis of social construction?
Jessica	Chapter 1	If statement 0 is deliberately weak and vague, is it serving as a straw man argument?
Jessica	Response to Sonya Re: Essentialism	I think what he is saying is that 1. To be called an essentialist is an insult, 2. Part of the reason that it is an insult is because essentialism is used to promote many controversial (and politically incorrrect) stances - the example he used is racism. Social construction can talk about racism without making race itself inherent to the argument (I think?), but essentialism makes thigs like race and gender "essential" properties. Maybe it calls them interent facts in a way?
Jessica	General	I'm not really sure if I know what semiotics is, but it seems like this book might relate to that field?
Jon	Chapters 1 and 4	Early in the first chapter Hacking acknowledges the political nature of the struggle over constructionism. Soon after, however, this crucial element falls out of the analysis and we are left with nothing but the normal and infuriating analytic philosophical practices of boiling everything down to statements which are to be analyzed rationally and build up systematically. Using his statements 0,1,2, and 3 from chapter one, and his three sticking points introduced there and elaborated upon in chapter four, I can see that the 14th century Franscican William of Ockham was a least an unmasking, and possibly even a revolutionary constructionist and that his sticking point scores are something like Contingency: 4, Nominalism: 5, and External . . . :4. But that's obviously pretty absurd, Ockham was a nominalist and conciliarist, but given his historical-intellectual context, it makes little sense to call him a constructionist. Is it true then that constructionism is too historically, socially, and politically loaded to be completely and meaningfully (maybe I should follow Hacking and say nontrivially) encapsulated by such a hidebound philosophical analysis? Can we even analyse social constructionism without first devlving into what might be called the social construction of social constructivism.
Kelly	General	It is quite apparent that social constructionism from historical to revolutionary is inherently a forms of social activism, in that it is more often applied as a tool for the uncovering, undermining, and inevitable disintegration of a given ‘social construct.’ It could be argued that through labeling something a ‘social construct’ the inherent way in which it is dealt with in society is effectively altered or minimalized. In terms of society or politics this would make ‘social constructionists’ the de-constructors and it is not surprising that many social constructionists have a political agenda and are seeking to undermine certain social constructs in that regard. However, I would question if there is not something inherently wrong in the attempt to undermine social constructs by searching for ways of portraying them as constructions of society, politics, religion, etc. in order to specifically undermine those institutions rather than first determining if the construct is in fact flawed.
Logan	32 58	"interactive kinds" "human kinds"" I am interested in Hacking's discussion of kinds, and how they are different from categories of ideas (I cannot tell based on my reading thus far).
Logan	38	process and product as intrinsic to arguments about construction. I was trying to think of a case where this is not true?
Logan	40	does everyone agree with Hacking that the use of the term "social" before the term "constructionism" is obvious and unnecessary? I do not find it so. But I am not (yet) steeped in the literature -- I am new, and to me the first time I heard the words "socially constructed" it was like a bell ringing in my head.
Logan	55	Hacking may be disheartened by my research trajectory then -- Doctors Without Borders is MSF!
Logan	58	"looping effect" how has study of this effect enriched the field/philosophy of social construction?
Kevin	N/A	Why does Hacking spend the first three chapters trashing social construction and then present example after example in the last five chapters reenforcing the concept?
Kevin	13 (and others)	When Hacking says that "everyone says that" or "everyone knows" or "no one will dispute" does he actually believe that every single human being will agree with those claims? I think that Hacking's "everyone" is probably a pretty limited group, and probably consists of those that agree with him.
Kevin	18	The social construction of social construction: Publisher forced Ron Harre to change the title of his book from "Social Production" to "Social Construction" - doesn't this disprove Hacking's thesis that social construction isn't legit?
Kevin	43	Importance of T.S. Kuhn: Hacking says that Kuhn is the "pre-eminent predecessor of the social studies of the sciences" but many people who study the social studies of the sciences don't consider him to be part of that school of thought - rather, he is a historian. In this and other circumstances, Hacking is straw-manning the competition. Is this because Hacking doesn't get the arguments of the competition, or is he purposely ignoring them to make a point? If so, why?
Kevin	N/A	How do the last five chapters fit into the book? It seems as though they don't relate to his core thesis, and they were just bolted on to fill up pages. Am I missing something here, or is Hacking trying to pull a fast one?
Mark	75	Weinberg states: ‘‘If we ever discover intelligent creatures on some distant planet and translate their scientiﬁc works, we will ﬁnd that we and they have discovered the same laws.’’ So many problems with this... the assumption that the alien intelligence will resemble our own insofar as it will be "translatable" - that intelligence will result in the discovery of scientific laws - that laws exist universally independent of context (ie where do the aliens live? What are the circumstances of their existence ie, size relative to physical environment, gravity, propensity for scientific exploration, etc.
Mark	84	the idea of inherent structure. Didn't Pythagoras believe that mathematics existed in nature and that he identified it...something along those lines...
Mark	93	"Great poets mired in poverty may have cultural authority without patrons." Such as?