SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE

Intellect, Wisdom, Memory, Knowledge, Sociologyindex, Books On Sociology Of Knowledge, Sociology Books 2012

Knowledge is a store of information (as in a database) available to draw on. The fact or condition of having information acquired by study or research, or of being instructed. A person's range of information or learning.

Sociology of knowledge is the study of the social bases of what is known, believed or valued both by individuals and society.

The essential idea is that knowledge itself, how it is defined and constituted, is a cultural product shaped by social context and history. Scholars have convincingly demonstrated over the past decade that natural scientific knowledge is a product of social, cultural, historical and political processes.

In this view knowledge cannot be treated as a thing in itself, as an objective, universally true body of facts and theory, but must be understood in the social context in which it originated.

The principal ideas of postmodernism are closely linked to this long tradition in philosophy and the social sciences.

"increased awareness of diversity has altered the way we view the world." Richard Harvey Brown, University of Maryland.

From Hegel to the Sociology of Knowledge: Contested Narratives - Austin Harrington
Examines Randall Collins's magnum opus, The Sociology of Philosphies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change in relation to a number of discourses bearing on the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of philosophies, from Hegel and 19th-century historicism to Mannheim, Foucault, Bourdieu and Gillian Rose's Hegel Contra Sociology. Explicates Collins's dual theory of intellectual networks and institutional conflict as factors in the explanation of intellectual change. The article interprets Collins's work as a classic application of Durkheimian sociological principles to the analysis of knowledge. The article argues that Collins is less successful in accounting for the internal normative motives of inquiry and the problem of what Hegel saw as the claims of reason in history based on the orientation to truth.

Knowledge and Utility: Implications for the Sociology of Knowledge - Michael Mulkay
An attempt is made to widen the scope of the current debate about the possibility of subjecting scientific knowledge to sociological analysis. It is suggested that in identifying scientific knowledge as epistemologically special, and as exempt from sociological analysis, sociologists have tended to make two basic assumptions; namely that scientific theories can be clearly validated by successful practical application and that the general theoretical formulations of science do regularly generate such practical applications. These assumptions, as customarily interpreted, pose a major challenge for any sociological analysis which views scientific knowledge as the contingent outcome of interpretative and context-dependent social acts. It is argued, however, in some detail, that the validity of these assumptions is doubtful and that the usefulness of science is no barrier to the full sociological analysis of scientific knowledge.

Social Work and the Sociology of Knowledge - JOHN PALEY
Department of Social Policy, School of Policy Studies, Cranfield Institute of Technology, Cranfield, Bedford MK43 0AL.
The research literature on social workers' use of theory suggests that social work, conceived as a form of knowledge in action, is amenable to a sociology of knowledge approach. Paper tries to illustrate the relevant parallels, and uses both empirical and philosophical themes in the recent sociology of science to identify a strategy for social work research.

Idealism and the Sociology of Knowledge - David Bloor
Science Studies Unit, Department of Sociology, University of Edinburgh, 21 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LN, Scotland, UK. Fax: +44 131 650 6886.
The sociology of scientific knowledge is an empirical discipline, but occasionally it can be fruitful to reflect on its methodological basis. Critics have sometimes claimed that it is committed to a form of `idealism' — that is, to discounting or playing down the input of the material world. This arises because sociologists often sum up their conclusions by saying that `knowledge is a social institution', or that `concepts are institutions'. If we think of social institutions according to the self-referential or performative model outlined by Barry Barnes, this may at first seem to reinforce and justify the charge of idealism. The main argument of this Comment is to show that while an `idealist' account of institutions is correct, the conclusion alleged by the critics does not follow. A secondary purpose is to compare Barnes' account of institutions with recent work by John Searle, and to show the significance of their different underlying assumptions about the nature of meaning.

Sociology of Knowledge: New Perspectives - Part One - Norbert Elias
Amsterdam and at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague
The core problems of sociological and philosophical theories of knowledge remain insoluble and unrelated as long as both theories start from static models. The problems can be solved, and the respective theories related to each other, without undue difficulties if the acquisition of knowledge is conceptualized as a long-term process which takes place within societies also considered as long-term processes. This approach has the added advantage of being in closer agreement with the evidence. Paper indicates what needs to be unlearned and what to be learned in order to prepare the way for such a unified theoretical framework which can serve as a guide to, and which can be in turn corrected by, empirical sociological studies of all types of knowledge, scientific and practical as well as non-scientific or ideological.

Sociology of Knowledge: New Perspectives - Part Two - Norbert Elias
The Hague and Leicester
The assumption underlying most philosophical theories of science, that one can apply to any scientific theory the concept of `truth', is, with its implication of absolute finality, a hangover from the period when Newtonian physics was regarded as an absolute end state. The hidden mourning about the passing of this ideal science gives present philosophical approaches to science and scientific method their common stamp. The alternative seems to be the retreat into a sociological relativism. The paper shows that it is possible to work out a science-theoretical paradigm which avoids the pitfalls of both philosophical absolutism and sociological relativism. It suggests that instead of discussing criteria of a fictitious absolute end-state of knowledge, one might try to discover criteria and conditions for the advance of knowledge, non-scientific and scientific. A theory of this kind has the added advantage that it can be tested by, and can serve as a guide for, empirical studies of sciences and of knowledge generally. The paper also suggests that discussions about `value-freedom' should be abandoned in favour of enquiries into the use of scientific and non-scientific values in scientific work.

The Sociology of Knowledge as a Tool for Research Into the History of Economic Thought
By Jon D. Wisman
Hill and Rouse's formulation of Mannheim's framework for the sociology of knowledge as a means of examining the history of economic thought is rejected although it is held that they render an important service to economics by arguing the need for employment of the sociology of knowledge as a research tool. They have not appropriated Mannheim's categories authentically and they apply them in an overly simplified and undialectical manner. Even Mannheim's authentic formulation of the sociology of knowledge suffered limitations which more recent work enables us to overcome. What is believed to be a superior sociology of knowledge framework for investigating the evolution of economic thought is constructed by joining the Berger-Luckmann model of legitimation with Habermas's philosophical anthropology. Increasingly economists are recognizing that their discipline is in a state of crisis. The crucial issue is how we can better understand the sociological nature of economic thought—its social functioning—to enable us to formulate our own economic theory so as to maximize human welfare.

Books On Sociology Of Knowledge

Society & Knowledge: Contemporary Perspectives In The Sociology Of Knowledge & Science
Book by Nico Stehr, Volker Meja (Editors)

The Sociology of Knowledge: Toward a Deeper Understanding of the History of Ideas Book by Werner Stark

Knowledge As Culture: The New Sociology of Knowledge
Book by E. Doyle McCarthy
Dallas Morning News
"McCarthy's book emphasizes that increased awareness of diversity has altered the way we view the world."
Richard Harvey Brown, University of Maryland, College Park
"Doyle McCarthy's book brings the sociology of knowledge into the 21st century.... [Her strategy of interpretation] enables her not only to update the sociology of knowledge, but also to enrich postmodern approaches to the study of knowledge, science, and culture. This is an important book.."

Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the SOCIOLOGY (740) of Knowledge Book by Karl Mannheim
Mannheim, a pioneer in the field of SOCIOLOGY (740), here analyzes the ideologies that are used to stabilize a social order and the wish-dreams that are employed when any transformation of that same order is attempted. Translated and with a Foreword by Louis Wirth and Edward Shils; Preface by Wirth; Indices.

Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge
Book by Gerard Radnitzky, W. W. Bartley (Editor)
A great collection, Reviewer: Rafe Champion (Sydney)
Evolutionary epistemology applies Darwinian principles of natural selection to scientific theories and to knowledge generally. It is concerned with problem-solving and error elimination under various forms of selective pressure, in contrast with schools of thought which are concerned with the justification of beliefs or the explication of concepts.
The major emphasis in this book is on the biological line of thought, with some attention to William W. Bartley's work on rationality. The articles were not originally planned for this volume; most are based on papers delivered at a series of seminars during the early 1980s and some are much older pieces that are reprinted because they make a specially significant contribution to evolutionary epistemology. The volume stands in need of an introduction to make visible the skeleton of ideas that provides a degree of coherence to the collection. The absence of this guide will create some problems for people who are not familiar with evolutionary epistemology in general, and with Popper's work in particular .
In Part I the philosophers William W. Bartley and Rosaria Egidi, the scientists Gunter Wachterhauser and Gerhard Vollmer, and the psychologist Donald Campbell, together with Popper, contribute eight chapters which make up almost half the book. Bartley criticises a version of subjectivism or idealism ("the world is my dream") which he labels 'presentationalism'. His critique is relevant to all those epistemologies which equate knowledge with true belief, though few are prepared to follow the consequences with the rigor of presentationalists such as Ernst Mach (1838-1916.) Mach argued that there is no such thing as a real tree, out there in the garden, because when we claim to see it, what we actually see is an image of a tree as it is presented to our mind by our sensory and cognitive apparatus.
This anthropomorphic account of the external world can be criticised on biological grounds, as Bartley does in a section titled "About a frog, idealistically disposed". Frogs register only four kinds of visual effects because only four types of signal can be sent to their brains. These visual effects are sufficient to enable frogs to perform tasks such as catching small moving objects and leaping towards dark spaces if a predator appears. The world of the frog, as a projection of its limited visual capacity, is very impoverished and not one that we would accept as the full story even, with our own fairly limited senses. Yet a presentationalist frog would claim that the world consists only of the contrasts, the small dark objects, the moving shadows and sudden dimming of light which it perceives. Thus it would ignore the possibility that its knowledge of the world is not 'given' but is the product of the evolved sense organs which reflect some, but not all, aspects of the world which frogs inhabit. This view might seem absurd if it were advanced by a frog, but its human equivalent dominates Western philosophy, with apparent support from the findings of modern physics.
Bartley suggests that the roots of the theory that he labels presentationalism
"may be not only deep but psychological, and even metaphysical...for it seems to me that philosophers of science do not ordinarily choose presentationalism; rather they are driven to it by certain deep structural assumptions that permeate most of western philosophy."
Among those assumptions which he identifies are reductionism, determinism and positivism. These theories, with some others of a more technical nature such as instrumentalism (theories are nothing but instruments) and subjectivist interpretations of the calculus of probability, constitute what could be called the dominant framework of Western thought, especially scientific thought. The basic assumptions that support evolutionary epistemology contradict the old framework at almost every point. Hence it is possible to detect a "new program" for western philosophy, with the following elements: non-justificationism, objectivism, non-determinism and non-reductionism.
Part II treats Bartley's ideas. He has the first and last word, with John F. Post (three short pieces), John W. N. Watkins and Gerhard Radnitzky sandwiched in between. The point of departure is the theory of rationality and the limits of criticism which Bartley advanced in The Retreat to Commitment. Bartley's theory of rationality generalizes Popper's critique of the notion that a belief is nothing if it is not positively justified. This approach abandons the quest for positive justification and instead settles for a critical preference for one option rather than others, in the light of critical arguments and evidence offered up to that point. As Radnitzky puts it, "Questions of acceptance are replaced by questions of preference". Many people are likely to regard this result as a purely verbal 'solution' to the problem of justification, merely shifting the problem from the source of justification to the source of critical preference. But the shift is from the impossible task of justification to productive tasks such as exploring the types of criticism that can be used to form critical preferences.
Part III of the volume, titled "Rationality and the Sociology of Knowledge, " branches off in various directions with essays from Peter Munz, Antony Flew and Bartley (again). Munz responds to Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, which contends that philosophers should not try to compete with scientists in solving problems but, instead, should sustain elegant conversations. Munz shows that Rorty has ignored evolutionary epistemology as an alternative to the 'mirror' theory that the mind passively copies the world (which Rorty rejects) and to the appeal to a select community of peers for settling knowledge claims (which Rorty apparently accepts).
Evolution...the answer?, August 6, 2001
Reviewer: Berek Qinah Smith (Tokyo)
The traditional problems in epistemology led to the binary oppositions of Descartes, Kant, etc. The scholastic "quod" vs. "quo" distinction, the Cartesian subject-object dualism, and the Kantian ding-an-sich versus appearence dualism have been the centers of a considerable amount of debate in the history of epistemological kibitzing. Now, with Sir Karl Popper in the lead, some philosophers have set out to solve the problems of epistemology by approaching it in an evolutionary way! To me, this is all hogwash. I say, prove the theory of evolution BEFORE you use it as the basis for an epistemology! Show us the billions of missing links! Explain to us how in the world language came out of non-verbal life-forms. But, before that, how on earth did life appear from non-life? Is the theory of evolution falsifiable? NO! Actually, what I really want to know is, how did something come from nothing. It is an unfalsifiable presupposition. Furthermore, it is taken for granted that nothing comes from nothing, now. Well, I did give the book 3 stars. I found the part on Rorty, by Peter Munz, to be quite entertaining, as well as insighful. No one, that I know of, can quite criticize Rorty the way that Munz does. But, hey, it is a very scholarly book. Written by many great minds. It is interesting, even if wrong.

Society and Knowledge: Contemporary Perspectives on the Sociology of Knowledge
Book by Nico Stehr, Volker Meja (Editor)

Foundations of African Social Thought: A Contribution to the Sociology of Knowledge
Book by J. M. Assimeng, Mas Assimeng

The Sociology Of Knowledge: Social Theory And Methodology (International Library of Sociology)
Book by Werner Stark

Philosophy, Science, and the Sociology of Knowledge
Book by Irving Louis Horowitz

Women and dualism: A sociology of knowledge analysis
Book by Lynda M Glennon

The Sociology of Knowledge: Its Structure and Its Relation to the Philosophy of Knowledge: A Critical Analysis of the Systems of Karl Mannheim and Pitirim A. Sorokin
Book by Jacques Jerome Pierre Maquet

Society and Ideology: An Inquiry into the Sociology of Knowledge (Perennial works in sociology)
Book by Gerard Degre, Lewis A. Coser (Editor), Walter W. Powell (Editor)

Knowledge and Reflexivity : New Frontiers in the Sociology of Knowledge
Book by Steve Woolgar (Editor)
Scholars working in the area broadly described as `social studies of science' have convincingly demonstrated over the past decade that natural scientific knowledge is a product of social, cultural, historical and political processes. The eight contributors to this volume - newly available in paper - argue that it is high time that social science itself is seen as actively generated by those same forces.
The tool that they use to analyze the social scientific text is that of reflexivity - at its simplest, a term which connotes self-reflection and self-referral. Knowledge and Reflexivity examines the wide-ranging implications of reflexivity for ethnography, discourse analysis, textual analysis, medical sociology and the sociology of science. A number of contributors - such as Trevor Pinch and Bruno Latour - are critical of the use of reflexivity. Each chapter is followed by a `reflexion' from another contributor to give an unusual format to the book.
The contributors are concerned to develop a practice in which the interrogation of the methods proceeds simultaneously with, and as an integral part of, the investigation of the object. Knowledge and Reflexivity brings debates within the social studies of science to a new frontier and will be stimulating reading for all researchers within the social sciences.

Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge: Karl Mannheim: Collected English Writings Volume 5 (Routledge Classics in Sociology)
Book by Bryan Turner

Critical Theory and the Sociology of Knowledge: A Comparative Study in the Theory of Ideology
Book by Leon Bailey

The Sociology of Knowledge (The International Library of Critical Writings in Sociology, 12) (Hardcover) (March, 2000)
Book by Volker Meja, Nico Stehr (Editors)
- Karel M�ller, Canadian Journal of Sociology Online, January 2001
...a very suitable source of information and understanding ...sociology, and the sociology of knowledge in particular.

The Social Construction of Reality : A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge
Book by Peter Berger, Thomas Luckmann

Conservatism: A contribution to the Sociology of Knowledge: Karl Mannheim: Collected English Writings Volume 11 (Routledge Classics in Sociology) Book by Karl Mannheim, Mannheim

Knowledge in a Social World
Book by Alvin I. Goldman
"ALL men by nature desire to know..."
Knowledge in a Social World offers a philosophy for the information age. Alvin Goldman explores new frontiers by creating a thoroughgoing social epistemology, moving beyond the traditional focus on solitary knowers. Social, cultural, and technological changes present new challenges to our ways of knowing and understanding, and philosophy must face these challenges. Against the tides of postmodernism and social constructionism Goldman defends the integrity of truth and shows how to promote it by well-designed forms of social interaction. He urges that social discourse promises more than the mere politics of consensus, and that suitably norm-governed debate and belief-revision can increase veridical knowledge.

Contested Knowledge: Social Theory Today (September, 2003)
Book by Steven Seidman
Contested Knowledge has established itself as a leading text that brings social theory into the present day by providing the most up-to-date perspectives on social theory by one of the most important thinkers of our time, Steven Seidman. The book tracks the work of the major figures in the field, from the classical sociologists – Durkheim, Marx, Weber – to contemporary theorists, including Giddens, Foucault, Bourdieu, and Judith Butler. Through exploring contemporary social theories and movements (including feminism, poststructuralism, African-American thought, and queer theory), the author presents a compelling new approach to the tradition of sociological theory and its established canon.
Contested Knowledge combines social analysis and moral advocacy, showing how social theory can and does – and sometimes doesn’t – work within the public and political sphere. This third edition has been reorganized to be even more accessible for the student. The book now includes sections on white studies, masculinity studies, critical heterosexuality studies, and a section on Empire. There is also a new chapter on social theory today, as well as invaluable section introductions, and 33 short biographies on major social theorists.
Steven Seidman is Professor of Sociology at State University of New York at Albany. He is a world renowned social theorist working in the areas of social theory, culture, sexuality, comparative sociology, theory of democracy, nationalism and globalization. He is the author and editor of several books including Embattled Eros: Sexual Politics and Ethics in Contemporary America (1992), The Postmodern Turn : New Perspectives on Social Theory (editor, 1995), Queer Theory/Sociology (Blackwell, 1996), The New Social Theory Reader: Contemporary Debates (edited with Jeffrey C. Alexander, 2001), and Beyond the Closet: The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life (2002).

The Fate of Knowledge. (December 1, 2001)
Book by Helen E. Longino
This is the first compelling diagnosis of what has gone awry in the raging 'science wars.' Rising above both sides to see what each can contribute, it presents a powerful constructive account of how to overcome the dichotomy between those who see science as rational and those who see it as the product of social forces. It offers a novel account of knowledge that accommodates the concerns of both philosophers and sociologists. Finally, it contributes to the development of pluralistic theories of science by demonstrating the varieties of pluralism exhibited by actual instances of scientific theorizing.
Review
An interesting and important book by the one of the most important philosophers engaged in the debates about the rational and the social in science.

Challenging Knowledge: The University in the Knowledge Society (May 14, 2001)
Book by Gerard Delanty
Drawing from current debates in social theory about the changing nature of knowledge, this book offers the most comprehensive sociological theory of the university that has yet appeared. The famous philosophical conceptions of the university from the Enlightenment to postmodern thought are discussed along with the major writings in modern social theory on the university, such as those of Weber, Parsons, Habermas, Gadamer, Lyotard and Bourdieu. In this far reaching contribution to the sociology of knowledge, Delanty views the university as a key institution of modernity and as the site where knowledge, culture and society interconnect. He assesses the question of the crisis of the university with respect to issues such as globalization, the information age, the nation state, academic capitalism, cultural politics and changing relationships between research and teaching. Arguing against the notion of the demise of the university, his argument is that in the knowledge society of today a new identity for the university is emerging based on communication and new conceptions of citizenship. It will be essential reading for those interested in changing relationships between modernity, knowledge, higher education and the future of the university.
Gerard Delanty is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Liverpool, UK.

A Social History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot (December, 2000) Book by Peter Burke
In this book Peter Burke adopts a socio-cultural approach to examine the changes in the organization of knowledge in Europe from the invention of printing to the publication of the French Encyclop�die. The book opens with an assessment of different sociologies of knowledge from Mannheim to Foucault and beyond, and goes on to discuss intellectuals as a social group and the social institutions (especially universities and academies) which encouraged or discouraged intellectual innovation. Then, in a series of separate chapters, Burke explores the geography, anthropology, politics and economics of knowledge, focusing on the role of cities, academies, states and markets in the process of gathering, classifying, spreading and sometimes concealing information. The final chapters deal with knowledge from the point of view of the individual reader, listener, viewer or consumer, including the problem of the reliability of knowledge discussed so vigorously in the seventeenth century. One of the most original features of this book is its discussion of knowledges in the plural. It centres on printed knowledge, especially academic knowledge, but it treats the history of the knowledge 'explosion' which followed the invention of printing and the discovery of the world beyond Europe as a process of exchange or negotiation between different knowledges, such as male and female, theoretical and practical, high-status and low-status, and European and non-European. Although written primarily as a contribution to social or socio-cultural history, this book will also be of interest to historians of science, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers and others in another age of information explosion.
Asa Briggs is Chancellor of the Open University and Provost of Worcester College, Oxford.
Peter Burke is Professor of Cultural History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers: Comparative Studies in the Sociology of Scientific and Indigenous Knowledge (Aug 1, 2000) Book by David Turnbull
John Law of History of Consciousness Department, University of California at Santa Cruz
"This beautiful, passionate and inspiring book is essential reading for everyone interested in post colonialism and science and technology studies." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Science and technology have created many of the problems besetting us at the turn of the century, yet, paradoxically, we cannot address them without their assistance. This beautifully illustrated book takes a fresh approach to resolving the problems of progress and modernity by reframing science and technology.
In an eclectic and highly original study, Turnbull brings together a wide range of traditions as diverse as cathedral building, Micronesian navigation, cartography and turbulence research. He argues that all our differing ways of producing knowledge, including science, are messy, spatial and local. Every culture has its own ways of assembling local knowledge, thereby creating space through the linking of people, practices and places. The spaces we inhabit and assemblages we work with are not as homogeneous and coherent as our modernist perspectives have led us to believe-rather they are complex and heterogeneous motleys.

Durkheim's Philosophy of Science and the Sociology of Knowledge : Creating an Intellectual Niche (Science and Its Conceptual Foundations series)
Book by Warren Schmaus
In this demonstration of the link between philosophy of science and scientific practice, Warren Schmaus argues that Durkheim's philosophy is crucial to his sociology. Through a reinterpretation of the relation between Durkheim's major philosophical and sociological works, Schmaus argues that Durkheim's sociology is more than a collection of general observations about society--it reflects a richly constructed theory of the meanings and causes of social life.
Schmaus shows how Durkheim sought to make sociology more rigorous by introducing scientific methods of analysis and explanation into the study of society. Durkheim tried to reveal how implicit, commonly held beliefs actually govern people's lives. Through an original interpretation of Durkheim's landmark writings, Schmaus argues that Durkheim, in his empirical studies, refined both the methods of sociology and a theory about society's shared knowledge and practices.
This book opens a new window on the development of Durkheim's thought and demonstrates how a philosophy of science can inspire the rise of a new science.

Postmodern approaches to the study of knowledge

Books on Sociology of Knowledge:

Intellect, Wisdom, Memory, Knowledge

Intellect: The faculty of knowing and reasoning; power of thought; understanding; analytic intelligence.

Wisdom: The quality of being wise regarding conduct and the choice of means and ends. The combination of experience and knowledge with the ability to apply them judiciously. Practical sense.

Memory: The faculty by which things are remembered; the capacity for retaining, perpetuating, or reviving the thought of things past; an individual's faculty to remember things.

Knowledge: The fact or condition of having information acquired by study or research, or of being instructed. A person's range of information or learning. Knowledge is a store of information (as in a database) available to draw on.

Cleverness: mental skill or agility.

Cunning: selfish cleverness or selfish insight.

Reason: The mental faculty which is characteristic of humankind used in adapting thought or action to some end; the guiding principle of the human mind in the process of thinking.

Rationality: The fact of being based on reason; a rational or reasonable view or practice.

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Sociology Index

Sociology Books 2011

Sociology Topical Subject Index