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Knowledge, Sociology Of 2482 knowledge, sociology of practices based on the enlargement and diffu- sion of knowledge enable a much larger seg- knowledge, sociology of ment of society effectively to oppose power E. Doyle McCarthy configurations that turned out or are appre- hended to be tenuous and brittle. Among the major but widely invisible social The sociology of knowledge examines the social innovations in modern society is the immense and group origin of ideas, arguing that the growth of the ‘‘civil society’’ sector. This sector entire ‘‘ideational realm’’ (‘‘knowledges,’’ ideas, provides an organized basis through which citi- ideologies, mentalities) develops within the con- zens can exercise individual initiative in the pri- text of a society’s groups and institutions. Its vate pursuit of public purposes. One is therefore ideas address broad sociological questions about able to interpret the considerable enlargement the extent and limits of social and group influ- of the informal economy, but also corruption ence through an examination of the social and and the growth of wealth in modern society, as cultural foundations of cognition and percep- well as increasing but typically unsuccessful tion. Despite significant changes over time, efforts to police these spheres, as evidence classical and contemporary studies in the sociol- of the diverse as well as expanded capacity ogy of knowledge share a common theme: the of individuals, households, and small groups social foundations of thought. Ideas, concepts, to take advantage of and benefit from contexts and belief systems share an intrinsic sociality in which the degree of social control exercised explained by the contexts in which they emerge. by larger (legitimate) social institutions has From its origins in German sociology in the diminished considerably. 1920s, sociology of knowledge has assumed that The future of modern society no longer ideas (knowledge) emerge out of and are deter- mimics the past to the extent to which this has mined by the social contexts and positions been the case. History will increasingly be full of (structural locations) of their proponents. Its unanticipated incertitudes, peculiar reversals, major premise is that the entire ideational realm and proliferating surprises, and we will have to is functionally related to sociohistorical reality. cope with the ever-greater speed of significantly According to its framers, Wissenssoziologie was compressed events. The changing agendas of developed as an empirical and historical method social, political, and economic life as the result for resolving the conflicts of ideologies in Wei- of our growing capacity to make history will also mar Germany that followed the political and place inordinate demands on our mental capaci- social revolutions of the late nineteenth and ties and social resources. early twentieth centuries, conflicts grounded in competing worldviews and directed by intellec- SEE ALSO: Economy, Networks and; Infor- tual and political elites. Outlined in early state- mation Society; Knowledge; Knowledge Man- ments by Max Scheler and Karl Mannheim, the agement; Knowledge, Sociology of; Network new discipline reflected the intellectual needs of Society; Scientific Knowledge, Sociology of an era, to bring both rationality and objectivity to bear on the problems of intellectual and ideolo- gical confusion. It was in this sense that the sociology of knowledge has been described as REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED a discipline that reflected a new way of under- READINGS standing ‘‘knowledge’’ within a modern and ideologically pluralistic setting. The approach Bell, D. (1973) The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. defines a new ‘‘situation’’ (Mannheim 1936), Basic Books, New York. summarily described as ‘‘modernity,’’ a world Stehr, N. (1994) Knowledge Societies. Sage, London. Stehr, N. (2001) The Fragility of Modern Societies: where ‘‘knowledge’’ and ‘‘truth’’ have many Knowledge and Risk in the Information Age. Sage, faces. What we believe that we know varies with London. the cognitive operations of human minds and Webster, F. (2002) Theories of the Information these vary by community, class, culture, nation, Society, 2nd edn. Routledge, London. generation, and so forth. knowledge, sociology of 2483 Contemporary sociology of knowledge theory of ideology in the broader sense: the addresses a related but different set of concerns mental structure in its totality as it appears than those posed by its founders, and its subject in different currents of thought and across matter extends beyond the problem of relati- different social groups. This ‘‘total conception vism and the social location of ideas and ideol- of ideology’’ examines thought on the struc- ogies. Prominent among its current themes are tural level, allowing the same object to take the ‘‘local’’ features of knowledges and the on different (group) aspects. This understand- study of their functions in everyday life. This ing of ideology refers to a person’s, group’s, redirection of the field from the study of con- or society’s way of conceiving things situated flicting ideologies to the study of the tacit and within particular historical and social settings. taken-for-granted understandings of everyday Like ideologies, ‘‘utopias’’ arise out of particular life can be characterized as a shift from concerns social and political conditions, but are distin- with the truth-status of ideas and ideologies to guished by their opposition to the prevailing the concerns of a cultural ‘‘sociology of mean- order. Utopias are the embodiment of ‘‘wish ing.’’ These changes also represent a movement images’’ in collective actions that shatter and away from a study of the ideological functions transform social worlds. Both concepts form of elites and intellectuals to conceptions of part of Mannheim’s broad design for a critical knowledges as discursive (cultural) forms and but nonevaluative treatment of ‘‘ideology,’’ one as part of the entire range of symbolic and that supersedes the sociohistorical determinism signifying systems operating in a society. and relativism of Marxism while moving toward The term sociology of knowledge (Wissensso- a ‘‘relationist’’ notion of truth. From an analysis ziologie) was first used in 1924 and 1925 by of the various and competing social positions of Scheler (1980) and Mannheim (1952). From ideologists and utopians, a kind of ‘‘truth’’ its inception, it described a field of inquiry emerges that is grounded in the conditions of closely linked to problems of European philo- intellectual objectivity and detachment from the sophy and historicism, particularly the nine- social conditions that more directly determine teenth-century German philosophical interest ideas. Ideology and Utopia established the cri- in problems surrounding relativism that were teria for a valid knowledge, albeit a relational linked to the legacies of Karl Marx, Friedrich knowledge, of sociohistorical processes. More Nietzsche, and the historicists, whose cultural important, it raised the problems surrounding philosophy of worldviews (Weltanschauungsphi- the historicity of thought and did this within the losophie) was influential in German social newly emerging academic discourse of sociol- science from the 1890s to the 1930s. ogy. In the process, it gave legitimacy to a new For Scheler (1980), who offered the first set of methodological issues involving the pro- systematic outline of the discipline, the forms blems of objectivity and truth for the sciences of mental acts, through which knowledge is and the humanities. gained, are always conditioned by the structure Despite the many criticisms of Ideology and of society. For this reason, sociology of knowl- Utopia, the work received wide attention and edge is foundational to all specialized studies of appreciation inside and outside the social culture and to metaphysics. While Scheler’s ori- sciences where the problems posed by relativism ginal essays provoked commentary and debate, continued to attract the attention of those work- it was Mannheim’s formulation of the disci- ing in the sciences and the humanities. While pline in Ideology and Utopia that defined the reviews of the work focused on its failure to subject matter of the field for years to come. overcome relativism and Mannheim’s exces- Those who offered their own sociologies of sive reliance on the Marxist conception of knowledge, including Talcott Parsons (1961) ideology, Mannheim’s book provoked discus- and Robert K. Merton (1957), defined their sion and commentary in the decades after its positions relative to Mannheim’s arguments publication. concerning ideology, utopia, and relationism. Werner Stark’s The Sociology of Knowledge Mannheim’s treatise begins with a review and (1991) prompted a major advancement and critique of Marxism and proceeds toward a redirection of the field. It argued for the 2484 knowledge, sociology of embedding of sociology of knowledge within the reciprocal or dialectical relationship of mutual larger field of cultural sociology. Stark’s book constitution. This work placed the sociology of clarified the principal themes of earlier writers, knowledge on a new footing whose focus was especially sociologists, who had addressed the the broad range of signifying systems that form problem of the social element in thinking. He and communicate the realm of social realities. also intended it to serve as an introduction to Since its introduction, the idea of a ‘‘con- the field that would prepare the way for a structed reality’’ has summarized a number
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