On the Textuality of Being: Towards an Invigorated Social Constructionism

This paper addresses some of the common criticisms directed against social constructionism. Criticisms which hold constructionism to be a disguised form of behaviourism, a doctrine of subjectivist relativism and an approach of political naivete and impotence are specifically discussed. The analytic of Textuality is introduced as a way of invigorating the constructionist position and rendering such criticism ill-judged and invalid. Textuality, in affirming both the material substance of language and the textual substance of material, is presented as both a defining feature of Being, and as a way of addressing Being. Textuality thereby represents a challenge to modes of inquiry which are predicated upon a subject/object duality. Finally, these issues are contextualized within what we call a contemporary ‘climate of problematization’.