Plausibility structure

In sociology and especially the sociological study of religion, plausibility structures are the sociocultural contexts for systems of meaning within which these meanings make sense or are made plausible. Beliefs and meanings held by individuals and groups are supported by and embedded in sociocultural institutions and processes.

The term was coined by Peter L. Berger, who says he draws his meaning of it from the ideas of Karl Marx, G. H. Mead, and Alfred Schutz (The Sacred Canopy, 1967. 45, 192). For Berger, the relation between plausibility structure and social "world" is dialectical, the one supporting the other which, in turn, can react back upon the first. Social arrangements may help, say, a certain religious world appear self-evident. This religious outlook may then help to shape the arrangements that contributed to its rise.

Berger was particularly concerned with the loss of plausibility of the sacred in a modernist/postmodern world.

See also

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Further Reading

• Peter L. Berger. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Doubleday, 1967.
• The Sacred Canopy published in the UK as The Social Reality of Religion. London: Faber & Faber, 1969
• Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Doubleday, 1966.
• James W. Sire, Naming the elephant: worldview as a concept, InterVarsity Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8308-2779-X, p.112-113
• PLAUSIBILITY, Encyclopedia of Religion and Society