sociology of knowledge

| knowledge | sociology of knowledge | 

2006-05-28

Notes from Stehr, N., & Grundman, R. (2005). Knowledge: Critical concepts, Vol. V, Sociology of knowledge and science. London: Routledge. Pages are from this work, not from originals.

p. 64: The sociology of knowledge argues that scientific thought, and especially thought on social and political matters, does not proceed in a vacuum, but in a socially conditioned atmosphere. It is influenced largely by unconcious or subconscious elements. These elements remain hidden from the thinker's observing eye because they form, as it were, the very place which he inhabits, his social habitat. The social social habitat of the thinker determines a whole system of opinions and theories which appear to him as unquestionably true or self-evident. They appear to him as if they were logically and trivially tru, such as, for example, the sentence 'all tables are tables'. This is why he is not even aware of having made any assumptions at all. But that he has made assumptions can be seen if we compare him with a thinker who lives in a very different social habitat; for he too will proceed from a system of apparently unquestionable assumptions, but from a very different one; and it may be so different that no intellectual bridge may exist and no compromise be possible between these two systems. Each of these different socially determined systems of assumptions is called by the sociologists of knowledge a total ideology.

Berger, Peter, & Luckmann, Thomas (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press (sic). 

p. 123:  The basic contentions of the argument of this book are implicit in its title and sub-title, namely, that reality is socially constructed and that the sociology of knowledge must analyse the process in which this occurs. The key terms in these contentions are 'reality' and 'knowledge', terms thata are not only current in everyday speech, but that have behind them a long history of philosophical inquiry. We need not enter here into a discussion of the semantic intricacies of either the everyday or the philosophical usage of these terms. It will be enough, for our purposes, to define 'reality' as a quality appertaining to phenomena that we recognize as having a being independent of our own volition (we cannot 'wish them away'), and to define 'knowledge' as the certainty that phenomena are real and that they possess specific characteristics. It is in this (admittedly simplistic) sense that the terms have relevance both to the man in the street and to the philosopher. The man in the street inhabits a world that is 'real' to him, albeit in different degrees, and 'knows', with different degrees of confidence, that this world possesses such and such characteristics. The philosopher, of course, will raise questions about the ultimate status of both this 'reality' and this 'knowledge'. What is real? How is one to know? This are among the most ancient questions not only of philosophical inquiry proper, but of human thought as such.

p. 124: [...] One could say that the sociological understanding of 'reality' and 'knowledge' falls somewhere in the middle between that of the man in the street and that of the philosopher. The man in the street does not ordinarily trouble himself about what is 'real' to him and about what he 'knows' unless he is stopped short by some sort of problem. He takes his 'reality' and his 'knowledge' for granted. The sociologist cannot do this, if only because of his systematic awareness of the fact that men in the street take quite different 'realities' for granted as between one society and another. The sociologist is forced by the very logic of his discipline to ask, if nothing else, whether the difference between the two 'realities' may not be understood in relation to various differences between the two societies. The philosopher, on the other hand, is professionally obligated to take nothing for granted, and to obtain maximal clarity as to the ultimate status of what the man in the street believes to be 'reality' and 'knowledge'. [...]

p. 124: Sociological interest in questions of 'reality' and 'knowledge' is this initially justified by the fact of their social relativity. What is 'real' to a Tibetan monk may not be real to an American businessman. the 'knowledge' of the criminal differs from the 'knowledge' of the criminologist. It follows that specific agglomerations of 'reality' and 'knowledge' pertain to specific social contexts, and these relationships will have to be included in an adequate sociological analysis of these contexts. The need for a 'sociology of knowledge' is thus already given with the observable differences between societies in terms of what is taken for granted as 'knowledge' in them. Beyond this, however, a discipline calling itself by this name will have to concern itself with the general ways by which 'realities' are taken as 'known' in human societies. In other words, a 'sociology of knowledge' will have to deal not only with the empirical variety of 'knowledge' in human societies, but also with the processes by which any body of 'knowledge'  comes to be socially established as 'reality'.

Bloor, David (1976). Knowledge and social imagery. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

p. 165: The sociologist is concerned with knowledge, including scientific knowledge, purely as a natural phenomenon. His definition of knowledge will therefore be rather different from that of either the layman or the philosopher. Instead of defining it as true belief, knowledge for the sociologist is whatever men take to be knowledge. It consists of those beliefs which men confidently hold to and live by. In particular the sociologist will be concerned with beliefs which are taken for granted or institutionalised, or invested with authority by groups of men. Of course knowledge must be distinguished from mere belief. This can be done by reserving the word 'knowledge' for what is collectively endorsed, leaving the individual and idiosyncratic to count as mere belief.

p. 166: Men's ideas about the workings of the world have varied greatly. This has been true within science just as much as in other areas of culture. Such variations forms the starting point for the sociology of knowledge and constitutes its main problem. What are the causes of this variation, and how and why does it change? The sociology of knowledge focuses on the distribution of belief and the various factors which influence it. For example: how is knowledge transmitted; how stable is it; what processes go into its creation and maintenance; how is it organised and categorised into different disciplines or spheres?