Social Construction is a specter haunting research. Or at least it is one of the focal points of the Science Wars, between figures arguing the objectivity and integrity of science (usually particle physicists) and those arguing the opposite (usually sociologists or historians or anthropologists or some such). Certainly, Hacking was able to find 25 books of the form 'the Social Construction of X", (one for every letter of the alphabet, bar X), but what is socially construction and why does it matter?

As a philosopher of science, Hacking has a broader view than many of us in the trenches. His discussion of major arguments by Latour, Pickering, Kuhn, Lakatos, Quine, and Popper, to name a few of the protagonists is clear and enjoyable. This is a first rate literature review! I think that Hacking is on to something when he points out that this argument is in fact very old, stretching back to Aristotle and Plato, and more commonly invoked in arguments between Nominalists and Realists. The arguments over whether names and categories are arbitrary and human-imposed, or whether they parallel some deeper structure of the universe, are long-standing and likely unresolvable.

Hackings's major contributions in the book are an analysis of the whys and hows of Social Construction. He identifies a six point scale of construction, from least to most radical: historical, ironic, reformist, unmasking, rebellious, and revolutionary. Social construction tends towards radical formulations because it argues against the inevitability of what is, and that the world as we understand it would be better (more just, less oppressive, more joyful) if we rearranged society. A second part are criterion for judging how constructivist an argument is on scales of contingency--could it have developed differently, nominalism, and the importance of internal or external explanations for the stability of a fact.

Unfortunately, Hacking's own work, when it departs from a review of the literature, is far less compelling. He develops a theory of interactive and indifferent kinds. Interactive kinds are exemplified by mental disorders, and their presence in the world changes in accord with our knowledge of the kind. Indifference kinds are like fundamental particles, and do not care what we know of them. Kinds are probably the least rigorous categorizing schema imaginable, nothing more than "things that are alike, somehow." It is no mere linguistic coincidence that the psuedoscience of Genesis-inspired species is called Baraminology, the study of created kinds. Interactive kinds are trivially socially constructed; Hacking is less vocal on the social construction of the scientific objects of indifferent kinds. I'd judge "kinds" to be too floppy of a concept to do philosophy with.

The four case studies, on mental illness, child abuse, weapons, dolomite, and Captain Cook's death, are recycled from other work and not particularly well suited to philosophic theories in Chapters 1 & 3.

One big question, that is not adequately answered, is 'is social construction a worthwhile approach.' Hacking makes a compelling case that some of the leading theorists classified as 'social constructionists', such as Latour and Bloor, are no such thing. Social constructionist research is mostly based on shoddy readings of theories which say no such things, and therefore should be avoided as bad work. However, by linking things, the idea of things, and the social and material matrix in which the thing and its ideas are embedded, social construction opens an immense scope of potential questions and common conversations for scholars. As a research program (in Lakatos's terminology), social construction has been immensely successful. We should know how to use it more precisely.