KNOWLEDGE, SOCIOLOGY OF

The study of the relation between products of the mind and existential conditions. The basic assumption of the study is that the development of thought is not independent of the concrete situation in which it takes place. This connection being assumed, the sociology of knowledge aims at defining its nature, whether in general terms or with reference to specific events. The field, therefore, embraces both a theory and a method of investigation; in either case, it differs from disciplines such as epistemology and ethics that focus their attention on the internal coherence, logical antecedents, and final value of a given system. The sociological approach shifts the focus from the intrinsic validity to the external origin and consequences of knowledge, from the objective content of a proposition to the subjective dispositions of its proponents. The distinction between the two approaches is certainly not easy; not seldom one finds sociologists moving from premises and reaching conclusions that are proper to the philosophy of knowledge (see knowledge, theories of).

Sometimes studies in this field give the term knowledge so broad a meaning as to make it virtually equivalent to culture (in the anthropological sense). So understood, the sociology of knowledge tends to encompass in its object all kinds of mental products, from folklore to law and technology. In this sense, it may include the contributions of the French school, e.g., Émile durkheim (1858–1917), Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (1857–1939), Marcel Mauss (1872–1950), and Marcel Granet (1884–1940), which investigated the correspondence between mentality and social structures, especially among primitives.

Central Problem. In principle, there is no reason why sociological analysis should be limited to one rather than to another type of knowledge; except for certain forms of mysticism, learning and communication always occur in a social situation and can, therefore, be analyzed in terms of the concrete conditions of their occurrence. In point of fact, however, students have concentrated mostly on political thought, economic doctrines, social ethics—in a word, on knowledge that implies systematic value judgments with respect to interpersonal relations and human institutions in industrial society.

Two reasons, one theoretical, the other historical, may explain the tendency to concentrate on the history of social thought. It is generally assumed that natural and mathematical sciences are relatively independent of the historical situations in which they develop, at least insofar as the very content of the scientific propositions is concerned. Historically, the sociology of knowledge is rooted in the works of social philosophers and reformers whose main concern has not been to institute a systematic analysis of knowledge as such, but to prove the dependence of political ideologies on class interests and economic structures. This trend is best expressed in the writings of Karl marx (1818–83) and Friedrich engels (1820–95). Actually, the Marxian doctrine of the ideology as a superstructure has played a determining role in the emergence and the initial orientation of the sociology of knowledge. This influence explains also the original tendency to correlate the development of thought with socioeconomic factors much more than with natural conditions, with the cultural milieu rather than the physical environment. Special importance is attributed to a thinker's identification with a status group, whether based on education, prestige, wealth, political power, ethnic or religious affiliation.

All these factors—physical, demographic, economic, sociocultural—constitute the "existential conditions" involved in the development of thought. The most controversial point in the sociology of knowledge is the definition of the nature of this relation. For some, the relation is strictly causal; for others, it is functional or merely symbolic. Often enough, the same author uses different and ill-defined words, such as "correspondence," without giving a definite interpretation of this relation, either theoretically or—even less—on the basis of substantive findings. On the whole, the tendency has been to stress much more the dependence of thought on the existential conditions rather than the reverse side of the relation. With the passing of the years, however, the tendency has been to interpret this dependency less and less in a deterministic way; this trend coincides with a progressive shift from a philosophical to a stricter empirical approach.

Development. The problems raised by the sociology of knowledge are very old; one could trace them back to Francis bacon (1561–1626) and his famous theory of the Idola or even further to the sophists' interpretation of the social origin of law and religion. Formally, however, the very name of the discipline first appeared at the beginning of the 20th century, in an article by Wilhelm Jerusalem, "Soziologie des Erkennens" (Die Zukunft, May 1909). The most significant contributions belong to the period between the two world wars; they are mostly in German, and prefer the name Wissens-soziologie. Particularly important are the works of Max scheler (1874–1928) and Karl Mannheim (1893–1947).

Scheler rejected the Marxian theory of the complete dependence of thought on economic conditions; at the same time, he decried the idealistic view of history as the constant unfolding of the Mind. For him there could be no one-way dependence but only an orderly interaction between the "ideal factors" (the realm of transcendental values) and the "real factors" (racial, economic, demographic, and political conditions). He defined the sociology of knowledge as the study of such interaction as has actually occurred in specific historical periods, and he found most appropriate to this investigation the phenomenological approach of Edmund husserl (1859–1938), intended to detect the incarnation of the essence (Wesen ) in the concrete existence (Dasein ). Scheler's works, including his Versuche einer Soziologie des Wissens (1924), are philosophical rather than sociological in orientation.

Mannheim is probably the best-known exponent of the discipline, especially for his Ideologie und Utopie (1929). He combined in his eclectic system the Marxian views with the spiritual trends of German historicism. He saw all political thought, the proletarian no less than the bourgeois, as existentially conditioned. To him this "total conception" of ideology did not necessarily invalidate the objectivity of knowledge, since each social group develops a particular Weltanschauung that is neither false nor entirely true; full truth, he believed, would come from the synthesis of the various points of view. Ideologies aim at maintaining well-established positions; the "utopia," on the contrary, is a doctrine promoting social progress, a prophecy embodied in a powerful historical movement. In his view, the rise of scientism marked the end of the utopian mentality, hence the risk of stagnation. The sociology of knowledge therefore had a twofold function: to understand the idea systems relative to the various groups and epochs and to restore confidence in the transforming role of ideas in history. Mannheim considered these two functions to be strictly intertwined, so that the same discipline could appear as both an objective method of investigation and a new philosophy of social renewal; each function (verstehen or erklären ) he assigned to a socially free elite (eine freischwebende Intelligenz ) having a role in many respects similar to that of the Marxian proletariat.

In the U.S., the sociology of knowledge gained status after 1930, as a result of the translation of German studies and some original works, such as P. A. Sorokin's Social and Cultural Dynamics (4 v. New York 1937–41). Sorokin's work offers two significant features: a theoretical stand for the dependence of socioeconomic structures on the major value premises in a given culture and a methodological effort to analyze statistically the cultural products of several centuries in order to detect the types of value orientation prevailing in the various epochs. It is difficult to say how much American sociology has contributed to the field, since much research may bear on the problems of the sociology of knowledge without being formally included under the name or within the theoretical framework of the discipline. In this respect, it is possible to cite studies of mass communication; social stratification; cultural change; and, in general, research on one or the other aspect of knowledge, e.g., the sociology of law, religion, art, or education. As a whole, American contributions to this sociological field are mostly methodological, intended to supply a better definition of basic concepts (e.g., existential condition, cultural integration, ideology) and a better definition of particular areas of investigation in order to test the sweeping generalizations that characterized the beginnings of the sociology of knowledge.

Bibliography: f. adler, "The Range of Sociology of Knowledge," in Modern Sociological Theory in Continuity and Change, ed. h. becker and a. boskoff (New York 1957) ch. 13. h. o. dahlke, "The Sociology of Knowledge," in Contemporary Social Theory, ed. h. e. barnes et al. (New York 1940) ch. 4. p. kecskemeti, "Introduction" to k. mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge (New York 1952). j. j. maquet, The Sociology of Knowledge: Its Structure and Its Relation to the Philosophy of Knowledge, tr. j. f. locke (Boston 1951) with bibliog. r. k. merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, Ill. 1957) ch. 12–13. w. stark, The Sociology of Knowledge: An Essay in Aid of a Deeper Understanding of the History of Ideas (Glencoe, Ill.1958). l. wirth, "Preface" to k. mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, tr. l. wirth and e.a. shils (New York 1936). p. berger and t. luckmann, "Sociology of Religion and Sociology of Knowledge," in Sociology and Social Research 47 (1962–63) 417–427. p. l. berger and t. luckman, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, N.Y.1966).

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