From social constructivist epistemology to context realism

Abstract

ABSTRACTNumerous important concepts we use in policy studies lack material being, including collective will, altruism, passion, experience, and social structure. Lack of materiality has not prevented social constructivists, especially feminists and phenomenologists, from making significant intellectual contributions using such concepts. But in this article I envisage that, after the linguistic turn, we could do better by now turning to context realism as informed by quantum theory. Having appreciated Ludwig Wittgenstein’s linguistic, social-constructivist epistemology that brings attention to conventions and context, I turn to Alexander Wendt’s attempt to make quantum theory relevant to the social sciences. I speculate that the quantum wave function accommodates subjective and collective consciousness as part of physical reality, and thus affords reality status to many concepts and dynamics that lack materiality but are nonetheless important in scholarly research.