Society and Knowledge: Contemporary Perspectives on the Sociology of Knowledge

Abstract

sociology of knowledge is a critical, evolving field in the analysis of cultural products. Basic to the social sciences and humanities alike, the field is currently undergoing a renaissance. sixteen original contributions to this volume by a group of social scientists, philosophers, and historians drawn from many nations and vantage points of science represent novel theoretical and empirical efforts to transform the sociology of knowledge, its established boundaries, issues, and solutions. essays discuss the dis-torting effect of ideology; recent developments toward sociologically in-formed epistemology; the relationship between common sense knowledge and scientific knowledge; the social organization and practice of science; the interrelations between power and knowledge in modern society; and theories of cognition and a general sociology of knowledge. This is the first major compendium in the sociology of knowledge to be issued in more than a decade. Contents and Contributors: Joseph Gabel, Is Non-Ideological Thought Possible?; Pierre Ansart, Is All Social Ideological?; David Bloor, Durkheim and Mauss Revisited; Michael J. Melkay, Knowledge and Utility; Niklas Luhmann, The Differentiation of Advances in Knowl-edge; Gunther Dux, Strategies a Sociology of Cognition; Betty Barnes, The Conventional Character of and Cognition; Gerard Namer, The Triple Legitimation; Karin Knorr-Cetina, Toward a Microsociology of Scientific Knowledge; Johannes Weiss, Cognitive Radi-calism and Societal Power; Juan Corradi, The Modern Husbandry of Knowledge; Norbert Elias, An Interview with Peter Ludes; Paul Forman, How Cultural Values Prescribed the Character and the Lessons Ascribed to Quantum Mechanics; W. Baldamus, Epistemology and Sociology; Ger-not Bohme, An Essay on the Relations of Scientific and Everyday Knowl-edge; Marie-Noel Stourdze and Helene Strohl, The of the Eater.