PENGUIN BOOKS THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY Peter L. Berger is Professor of Sociology at Boston University and Director of the Institute for the Study of Economic Culture. He has previously been Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University, New Jersey, and in the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York. He is the author of many books including Invitation to Sociology, Pyramids of Saa!fice, Facing up to Modernity, The Heretical Imperative and The Capitalist Revolution, and is co-author (with Hansfried Kellner) of SociologyReinterpreted and (with Brigitte Berger) of Sociology: A Biographical Approach and The War over the Family. Thomas.Luckmann is at present Professor of Sociology at the University of Constance, German. Previously he taught at the University of Frankfurt, at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York, and was fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioural Sciences in Stanford. He has published widely, and his titles include The Invisible Religion, The Sociology of Language, Life-IMJrld and Social Realities and The Structures of the Life-!MJrld (with Alfred Schiitz). He is editor of Phenomenology and Sociology and The Changing Face of Religion (with James A. Beckford). Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann The Social Construction of Reality A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge Penguin Books Contents PREFACE 7 PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 STZ. England Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia INTRODUCTION · The Problem of the Sociology Penguin Books Canada Ltd. 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario. Canada M4V 3B2 of Knowledge I I Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Private Bag 102902. NSMC, Auckland. New Zealand Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth. Middlesex. England First published in the USA 1966 Published in Great Britain by Allen Lane ONE · THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE The Penguin Press 1967 IN EVERYDAY LIFE 3 I Published in Penguin University Books 1971 Reprinted in Peregrine Books 1979 1. The Reality of Everyday Life 33 Reprinted in PelicanBooks 1984 Reprinted in Penguin Books 1991 2. Social Interaction in Everyday Life 43 10 9 8 7 6 3· Language and Knowledge in Everyday Life 49 Copyright © Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, 1966 All rights reserved Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St lves plc TWO · SOCIETY AS OBJECTIVE REALITY 63 Set in Monotype Plantin Except in the United States of America. this book is sold subject 1. Institutionalization 65 to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, Organism and Activity 65 re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's Origins of Institutionalization 70 prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in Sedimentation and Tradition 85 which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser Roles 89 Scope and Modes of Institutionalization 97 2. Legitimation 1 IO Origins of Symbolic Universes I 10 Conceptual Machineries of Universe-Maintenance 122 Social Organization fo r Universe-Maintenance 134 CONTENTS Preface THREE • SOCIETY AS SUBJECTIVE REALITY 147 1. Internalization of Reality 149 Primary Socialization 149 Secondary Socialization 157 Maintenance and Transformation of Subjective Reality 166 2. Internalization and Social Structure, 183 3· Theories about Identity 194 The present volume is intended as a systematic, theoretical 4· Organism and Identity 201 treatise in the sociology of knowledge. It is not intended, therefore, to give a historical survey of the development of this discipline, or to engage in exegesis of various figures in this or other developments in sociological theory, or even to CONCLUSION • The Sociology of Knowledge and show how a synthesis may be achieved between several of Sociological Theory 205 these figures and developments. Nor is there any polemic intent here. Critical comments on other theoretical posi­ tions have been introduced (not in the text, but in the NOTES 213 Notes) only where they may serve to clarify the present argu­ ment. INDEXES • Subject Index 237 The core of the argument will befound in Sections Two and Name Index for Introduction and Notes 247 Three('Society as Objective Reality'and 'Societyas Subjective Reality'), the former containing our basic understanding of the problems of the sociology of knowledge,the latter applying this understanding to the levelof subjective consciousness and thereby building a theoretical bridge to the problems of social psychology. Section Onecontains what might bestbe described as philosophical prolegomena to the core argument, in terms of a phenomenological analysis of the reality of everyday life ('The Foundations of Knowledge in Everyday Life'). The reader interested only in the sociological argument proper may be tempted to skip this, but he should be warned that certain key concepts employed throughout the argument are defined in Section One. Although our interest is not historical, we have felt obliged to explain why and in what way our conception of the socio­ logy of knowledge differs fromwhat hashitherto beengenerally understood by this discipline. This we do in the Introduction. At the end,we makesome concluding remarksto indicate what we consider to be the 'pay-of£' of the present enterprise 7 THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY PREFACE critical for sociological theory generally and for certain areas of the continuing comments of Hansfried Kellner (cur­ empirical research. rently at the U�versity of Frankfurt) and Stanley Pullberg The logic of our argument makes a certain measure of (currently at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes). repetitivenessinevitable. Thus some problems are viewed with­ How much we owe to the late Alfred Schutz will become in phenomenological brackets in Section One, taken up again clear in various parts of the following treatise. However, we in SectionTwo with these brackets removed and with an inter­ would like to acknowledge here the influence of Schutz's est in their empirical genesis, and then taken up once more in teaching and writing on our thinking. Our understanding of Section Three on the level of subjective consciousness. We Weber has profited immensely from the teaching of Carl have tried to make this book as readable as possible, but not in Mayer (Graduate Faculty, New School for Social Research), violation of its inner logic, and we hope that the reader will as that of Durkheim and his school has from the interpreta­ understand the reasons for those repetitions that could not be tions of Albert Salomon (also of the Graduate Faculty). avoided. Lu:kman�, _ recollec�ng many fruitful conversations during a Ibn ul-'Arabi, the great Islamic mystic, exclaims in one of penod of JOint teaching at Hobart College and on other occa­ his poems- 'Deliver us, oh Allah, from the sea of names!' We sions, _wishes to express his appreciation of the thinking of _ have often repeated this exclamation in our own readings in Fnednch Tenbruck (now at the University of Frankfurt). Berger would �ike to thank Kurt Wolff (Brandeis University) sociological theory. We have, in consequence, decided to _ eliminate all names from our actual argument. The latter can and Anton ZIJderveld (University of Leiden) for their con­ now be read as one continuous presentation of our own posi­ tinuing critical interest in the progress of the ideas embodied tion, without the constant intrusion of such observations as in this work. 'Durkheim says this', 'Weber says that', 'We agree here with It is customary in projects of this sort to acknowledge Durkheim but not with Weber', 'We think that Durkheim has various intangible contributions of wives, children and other been misinterpreted on this point', and so forth. That our private associates of more doubtful legal standing. If only to position has not sprung up ex nihilo is obvious on each page, contravene this custom, we have been tempted to dedicate but we want it to be judged on its own merits, not in terms of this book to a certainJodler of Brand(Vorarlberg. However, we its exegetical or synthesizing aspects. We have, therefore, wish to thank Brigitte Berger (Hunter College) and Benita placed all references in the Notes, as well as (though always �uckmann (University of Freiburg), not for any scientifically briefly) any arguments we have with the sources to which we Irrelevant performances of private roles, but for their critical are indebted. This has necessitated a sizeable apparatus of observations as social scientists and for their steadfast refusal notes. This is not to pay obeisance to the rituals of Wissen­ to be easily impressed. schaftlichkeit, but rather to be faithful to the demands of Peter L. Berger historical gratitude. GRADUATE FACULTY NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH The project of which this book is the realization was first NEW YORK concocted in the summer of 1962, in the course of some leisurely conversations at the foot of and (occasionally) on top Thomas Luckmann of the Alps of western Austria. The first plan for the book was UNIVERSITY OF FRANKFURT drawn up early in 1963. At that time it was envisaged as an enterprise involving one other sociologist and two philo­ sophers. The other participants were obliged for various bio­ graphical reasons to withdraw from active involvement in the project, but we wish to acknowledge with great appreciation 8 Introduction TheProblem of the Sociology of Knowledge The basic contentions of the argument of this book are imp­ licit in its title and sub-title, namely, that reality is socially constructed and that the sociology of knowledge must analyse the process in which this occurs. The key terms in these con­ tentions are 'reality' and 'knowledge', terms that are not only current in everyday speech, but that have behind them a long history of philosophical inquiry.