# Quote — Peter Berger, The Social Construction of Reality

> On this level of legitimation, the reflective integration of discrete institutional processes reaches its ultimate fulfilment. A whole world is created. All the lesser legitimating theories are viewed as special perspectives on phenomena that are aspects of this world. Institutional roles become modes of participation in a universe that transcends and includes the institutional order. In our previous example, the 'science of cousinhood' is only a part of a much wider body of theory, which, almost certainly, will contain a general theory of the cosmos and a general theory of man.

- Author: [Peter Berger](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-berger.md)
- Book: [The Social Construction of Reality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-berger/the-social-construction-of-reality.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_L._Berger#The_Social_Construction_of_Reality,_1966) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-berger/the-social-construction-of-reality/on-this-level

## More from this book

> A society’s stock of knowledge is structured in terms of what is generally relevant and what is relevant only to specific roles… the social distribution of knowledge entails a dichotomization in terms of general and role-specific relevance… because of the division of labor, role-specific knowledge will grow at a faster rate than generally relevant and accessible knowledge… The increasing number and complexity of [the resulting] sub universes [of specialized knowledge] make them increasingly inaccessible to outsiders.

p. 77 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-berger/the-social-construction-of-reality/a-societys-stock.md)

> Specific procedures of universe-maintenance become necessary when the symbolic universe has become a problem. As long as this is not the case, the symbolic universe is self-maintaining, that is, self-legitimating by the sheer facticity of its objective existence in the society in question.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-berger/the-social-construction-of-reality/specific-procedures-of-universe-maintenance.md)

> Modern science is an extreme step in this development, and in the secularization and sophistication of universe-maintenance.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-berger/the-social-construction-of-reality/modern-science-is-an-extreme.md)