Sociology of knowledge
The sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought, the social context within which it arises, and the effects that prevailing ideas have on societies. It is not a specialized area of sociology. Instead, it deals with broad fundamental questions about the extent and limits of social influences on individuals' lives and the social-cultural basis of our knowledge about the world.[1] The sociology of knowledge has a subclass and a complement. Its subclass is sociology of scientific knowledge. Its complement is the sociology of ignorance.[2][3]
The sociology of knowledge was pioneered primarily by the sociologist Émile Durkheim at the beginning of the 20th century. His work deals directly with how conceptual thought, language, and logic can be influenced by the societal milieu in which they arise. The 1903 essay Primitive Classification,[4] by Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, invoked "primitive" group mythology to argue that classification systems are collectively based and that the divisions within these systems derive from social categories. In his 1912 The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, Durkheim elaborated on his theory of knowledge. In this work, he examined how languages, concepts, and the categories (such as space and time) used in logical thought have a sociological origin. Neither Durkheim nor Mauss specifically coined the term "sociology of knowledge". However, their work was an exceptional contribution to the subject.
The widespread use of the term 'sociology of knowledge' emerged in the 1920s, when several German-speaking sociologists, most notably Max Scheler and Karl Mannheim, wrote extensively on sociological aspects of knowledge.[5] This was followed in 1937 by a much-cited survey of the subject by Robert K. Merton, the American sociologist, 'The sociology of knowledge'.[6] With the dominance of functionalism through the middle years of the 20th century, the sociology of knowledge remained on the periphery of mainstream sociological thought. However, it was reinvented and applied closely to everyday life in the 1960s, particularly by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann in The Social Construction of Reality (1966). It is still central for methods dealing with a qualitative understanding of human society (compare socially constructed reality). The 'genealogical' and 'archaeological' studies of Michel Foucault are of considerable contemporary influence.
History[edit]
The Enlightenment[edit]
Peter Hamilton argues that the thinkers of the Enlightenment produced a sociology of ideas and values when they turned their attention to the scientific analysis of society.[7]: 1 He argues that specific values inherent in critical rationalism, such as anthropocentrism (i.e., the assumption that humans are the most crucial element in understanding reality), were central to these thinkers' understanding of society. Hamilton argues that these thinkers were committed to progress and the freedom of the individual to determine his own beliefs and values, which are at odds with traditional moral considerations in theology. The empirical method of cross-cultural comparison became a methodology for understanding society rather than the idea of revealed truth inherent in sociology, leading to a measure of cultural relativism.[7]
He argues that some thinkers sought to change society based on their theories. These ideas play out in the French Revolution with its Reign of Terror.[7] Hamilton argues that the Enlightenment can be seen as a critical response to the Christian theology used by the Jacobins, which manipulated people's understanding of truth to maintain a feudal order.[7]
Earlier viewpoints[edit]
The sociology of knowledge requires a particular viewpoint that Giambattista Vico first expounded in his New Science in the early 18th century, long before the first sociologists studied the relationship between knowledge and society. The book, a justification for a new historical and sociological methodology, suggests that the natural and social worlds are known in different ways. The former is known through external or empirical methods, while the latter can be known internally and externally. In other words, human history is a construct that creates a critical epistemological distinction between the natural and social worlds, a central concept in the social sciences. Primarily focused on historical methodology, Vico asserts that it is necessary to move beyond a chronicle of events to study a society's history. He examined society's cultural elements, which were termed the "civil world". This "civil world", made up of actions, thoughts, ideas, myths, norms, religious beliefs, and institutions, is the product of the human mind. These socially constructed elements can be better understood than the physical world, as it is in abstraction. Vico highlights that human nature and its products are not fixed entities. Therefore, it necessitates a historical perspective emphasizing the changes and developments implicit in individuals and societies. He also emphasizes the dialectical relationship between society and culture as key in this new historical perspective.[7]
While permeated by his penchant for etymology, Vico's ideas and a theory of cyclical history (corsi e ricorsi), are significant for the underlying premise about our understanding and knowledge of social structure. They are dependent upon the ideas and concepts we employ and the language used. Vico was primarily unknown in his own time. He was the first to establish the foundations of a sociology of knowledge, even though later writers did not necessarily pick up his concepts. There is evidence that Montesquieu and Karl Marx read Vico's work. However, the similarities in their works are superficial, limited mainly to the overall conception of their projects. They were characterized by cultural relativism and historicism.
