2482 , of practices based on the enlargement and diffu- sion of knowledge enable a much larger seg- knowledge, sociology of ment of 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 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’’ (‘‘,’’ ideas, provides an organized basis through which citi- , mentalities) develops within the con- zens can exercise individual initiative in the pri- text of a society’s groups and . 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 . 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. 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 . 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 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 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 ‘‘,’’ a world Stehr, N. (1994) Knowledge . 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 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 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 , 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 , Friedrich knowledge, of sociohistorical processes. More Nietzsche, and the historicists, whose cultural important, it raised the problems surrounding of worldviews (Weltanschauungsphi- the historicity of thought and did this within the losophie) was influential in German social newly emerging academic 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 (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 . 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 of detailed and comprehensive history of the concerns of writers in the sciences and huma- sociology of knowledge and its most significant nities that may be described as the problem of ideas: theories of ideology of Marx and Man- meaning and the use of philosophical, literary, nheim; philosophical speculations of the neo- and historical approaches to study its social Kantians Heinrich Rickert and ; construction. Berger and Luckmann’s treatise views of the German phenomenological school subsumed knowledges within a framework of of the 1920s, especially Scheler. Stark’s stron- interpretation, a hermeneutics that was decidedly gest affinity was with Scheler’s struggle to re- cultural and semiotic, concerned with the sym- concile the antithetical claims of idealism and bolic and signifying operations of knowledges. materialism, and his view of the sociology of More recently, the ‘‘new sociology of knowl- knowledge as the foundation for a knowledge edge’’ (Swidler & Arditi 1994; McCarthy 1996) of ‘‘eternal values.’’ The sociology of knowledge can be seen as part of this larger movement in is concerned with the ‘‘social determination of the social sciences, distinguished by a turn away knowledge,’’ not with the problem of ideology. from materialism and toward This distinction is an indispensable precondi- semiotic theories that focus on the ways in which tion of the sociology of knowledge. It directs a society’s meanings are communicated and attention to the study of mental life as grounded reproduced. Swidler and Arditi (1994) focus on in social and historical conditions, granting to how social organizations (e.g., the media) order ‘‘social determination’’ a depth that the theory knowledges, rather than examining social loca- of ideology does not accomplish. While the tions and group interests. In light of new the- theory of ideology will always play a vital role ories of social power and practice (Michel in sociology and the history of ideas, it remains Foucault and ), they also exam- outside the principal concerns of the sociology ine how knowledges maintain social hierarchies of knowledge. and how techniques of power are simultaneously Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construc- and historically linked to knowledges. They join tion of Reality (1966) advanced a sociology of others in pointing out that newer theories of knowledge that was compatible with the view of power, gender, and knowledge depart from the sociology as a humanistic discipline and the economic, class, and institutional focus of the notion that ‘‘human reality’’ is a ‘‘socially con- classical sociology of knowledge. structed reality.’’ The work moved the field Proponents of the new sociology of knowl- further away from theoretical knowledge or edge do not claim that the subfield has been ideas and toward the (pre-theoretical) knowl- entirely superseded by newer work in sociology edge that social actors draw from in everyday and cultural studies. However, they note that life. Their treatise also redirected the traditional the new sociology of knowledge is not a unified theory of social determination of ideas by social field, an argument also advanced by earlier realities: itself is a construct. It writers who treated the sociology of knowledge integrated the perspectives of classical Eur- as a ‘‘frame of reference’’ rather than a body of opean social thought (Marx, Durkheim, Weber) theory in its own right (Curtis & Petras 1970: 1; with the social psychology of the American cf. Remmling 1973). pragmatist philosopher , Two overriding factors can account for the thereby advancing Meadian social psychology persistence of a broad approach to knowledges. as a theoretical complement to European sociol- First, the propositions of Scheler, Mannheim, ogy of knowledge (see Curtis & Petras 1970; and other early writers in this field (e.g., in the Remmling 1973). What the authors proposed US, works by , C. Wright was that knowledge and social reality exist in a Mills, and Edward Shils) today serve as working Komarovsky, Mirra (1905–99) 2485 propositions for a range of social scientists as J. R. (Eds.), Theories of Society, Vol. 2. Free Press, well as for specialists in other disciplines, New York. including the subfields of the history of ideas, Remmling, G. (1973) Towards A Sociology of Knowl- social psychology, social studies of science, fem- edge. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. inist theories, and cultural studies. For this Scheler, M. (1980 [1924]) Problems of a Sociology of Knowledge. Trans. M. S. Frings. Routledge & reason, a sociology-of-knowledge perspective – Kegan Paul, London. concerning group life and mind – has been Stark, W. (1991 [1958]) The Sociology of Knowledge. incorporated into the many subfields of sociol- Intro. E. D. McCarthy. Transaction, New Bruns- ogy as well as sister disciplines from anthro- wick, NJ. pology to history. Furthermore, as long as Swidler, A. & Arditi, J. (1994) The New Sociology knowledges are understood as preeminently cul- of Knowledge. Annual Review of Sociology 20: tural phenomena, the more likely it is that the 305–29. sociology of knowledge will be seen as a broadly inclusive set of theories and studies rather than a subfield with a distinct subject matter. Knowl- edges are no longer confined to the domain of ‘‘superstructure.’’ They operate across the full Komarovsky, Mirra extent of society, from the realm of everyday affairs to the institutions of law, politics, art, (1905–99) and religion, to the various sites and fields where Vicky M. MacLean knowledges are produced. The new sociology of knowledge examines the observable properties of knowledges in texts, modes of communica- Mirra Komarovsky’s , teaching, and tion, and forms of speech within specific insti- advocacy on behalf of women mark her as a tutional settings. pioneer in the and feminist scholarship. She was the second woman to SEE ALSO: Collective Memory; Construction- serve as president of the American Sociological ism; Ideology; Knowledge; Knowledge Manage- Association, thus furthering opportunities for ment; Knowledge Societies; Mannheim, Karl; women in the profession of sociology. Major Scientific Knowledge, Sociology of contributions to sociology include her critique of the Parsonian functionalist perspective on gender roles, research on women’s education and changing feminine identities, and the study REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED of men and masculinity. Komarovsky’s research READINGS focused on the nature of conflict and strains in gender roles during periods of uneven social Berger, P. L. & Luckmann, T. (1966) The . Her 1953 book Women in the Modern Construction of Reality. Doubleday, New York. Curtis, J. E. & Petras, J. W. (1970) The Sociology of World: Their Education and Their Dilemma Knowledge. Praeger, New York. anticipated Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mys- McCarthy, E. D. (1996) Knowledge as Culture: The tique by more than a decade. Methodological New Sociology of Knowledge. Routledge, New contributions include refining the use of the York. qualitative case study method using in-depth Mannheim, K. (1936 [1929]) Ideology and Utopia. interviewing and synthesizing sociological sche- Harcourt, Brace, & World, New York. dules and surveys with psychological tests of Mannheim, K. (1952 [1925]) The Problem of a personality and gender. Sociology of Knowledge. In: Mannheim, K., Born to a Jewish family in in 1905, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge. Ed. P. Kecs- Komarovsky migrated with her family from kemeti. Harcourt, Brace, & World, New York, pp. 134–90. to the in 1921, fleeing Merton, R. K. (1957) Social Theory and Social Struc- anti-Semitism and Bolshevik attempts to eradi- ture. Free Press, Glencoe, IL. cate the middle class. Her childhood education Parsons, T. (1961) Culture and the Social System. in Russia was primarily from private tutors. In In: Parsons, T., Shils, E., Naegele, K. P., & Pitts, the United States Mirra’s family initially