Knowledge Essay ⋆ Sociology Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Knowledge is relevant to sociology as the principle that social relations can be organized in terms of the differential access that members have to a common reality.

Until the late eighteenth century, Plato’s Republic epitomized the role of knowledge as a static principle of social stratification. However, the Enlightenment introduced a more dynamic conception, whereby different forms of knowledge could be ordered according to the degree of freedom permitted to their possessors. An individual or a society might then pass through these stages in a process of development. Thus, thinkers as otherwise diverse as Hegel, Comte, and Mill came to associate progress with the extension of knowledge to more people.

However, this dynamic conception of knowledge produced a paradox: The distribution of knowledge and the production of power seem to trade off against each other. The more who know, the less it matters. Knowledge only seems to beget power if relatively few people enjoy it. The distinctly sociological response to this paradox was to jettison Plato’s original idea that a single vision of reality needs to be the basis for knowledge. This response, popularly associated with philosophical relativism, asserts simply that different forms of knowledge are appropriate to the needs and wants of its possessors. Much of what is called the ”sociology of knowledge” takes this position as its starting point.

As the sociological tradition emerged in the nineteenth century, it became clear that some forms of knowledge enable its possessors to adapt to, if not outright overcome, obstacles in the environment, be they of natural or human origin.

Such knowledge was commonly called ”ideological,” implying a disjuncture between mind and reality. This meant that knowledge did not so much ”represent” reality as strategically distort reality in favor of the knowledge possessors. Marxists associated ”science” with an accurate representation of reality, the possession of which enabled the possibility of a form of knowledge that could benefit everyone, and hence be truly ”emancipatory.”

However, starting in the 1960s, science itself was subject to ”ideology critique” by the Frankfurt School, and since the 1970s has been subject to many case studies in ”science and technology studies” that have together served to challenge the intrinsic rationality of science. Were scientists judged in terms of all the consequences of their activities, both intended and unintended, might they not appear as ”irrational” as, say, priests and politicians? How, then, should the socially and ecologically transformative, sometimes even destructive, character of science be taken into any overall assessment of its ”rationality.” This challenge has been taken up most directly by ”social epistemology,” which attempts to reconstruct a normative order for science in light of this socially expanded sense of consequences.

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the sociology of knowledge today is science’s tendency to become embedded in the technological structure of society. Under the circumstances, science’s character as a form of knowledge is reduced to its sheer capacity to increase the possessor’s sphere of action. Such a reduction characterizes the definition of ”knowledge” used by sociologists who argue that we live in ”knowledge societies.” For them, knowledge is a commodity traded in many markets by many producers. In this emerging political economy, institutions traditionally dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge like universities no longer enjoy any special advantage.

Bibliography:

Berger, & Luckmann, T. (1967) The Social Construction of Reality. Doubleday, Garden City, NY.
Fuller, S. (1988) Social Epistemology. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN.
Mannheim, (1936/1929) Ideology and Utopia. Harcourt Brace & World, New York.
Stehr, N. (1994) Knowledge Societies. Sage, London.