The ‘vocation’ redux: A post-Weberian perspective from the sociology of knowledge

Abstract

This article engages the Weberian view on the scholarly vocation from a perspective informed by ‘strong reflexivity’. The reflexivist perspective is grounded in a sociological understanding of knowledge that calls for a coherent reformulation of the relation between the social nature and social function of science, and of the cognitive and axiological posture of scholarship understood as socio-political praxis. Drawing on the sociology of knowledge, the article argues that Weber’s perspective is untenable conceptually and practically. Strong reflexivity, here illustrated through Standpoint Feminism and Bourdieusian sociology, permits a coherent delineation of the problem of the scholarly vocation, in a way that reconciles the social origins, efficacy and responsibility of science, and hence allows for a more realist reformulation of the cognitive, social and moral dilemmas we face as scholars, educators, and citizens.