Sociology's Asociological "Core": An Examination of Textbook Sociology in Light of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge

Abstract

The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) has challenged many of the core conceptions of theory and method that remain entrenched in sociology textbooks. In conjunction with recent developments in history and philosophy of science, sociologists of science speak of the disunity of science and describe the local-historical origins of particular scientific facts and laws. Core sociology textbooks devote no attention to the methodological implications of recent sociology of science. Elementary textbooks present up-beat versions of the discipline that emphasize sociology's scientific methodology; they describe sociological methods as implementations of general research process designed along hypothetico-deductive lines. Viewed from the vantage point of SSK, such widely disseminated elementary versions of sociology promote an asociological conception of science. In this paper the authors suggest that the epistemic flattening accomplished by SSK's research on the natural sciences provides a valuable antidote to current anxieties about the coherence and scientific status of sociology