The sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human

thought In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to conscious cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, an ...

and the social context within which it arises, and the effects that prevailing ideas have on societies. It is not a specialized area of

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...

. Instead, it deals with broad fundamental questions about the extent and limits of social influences on individuals' lives and the social-cultural basis of our

knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is disti ...

about the world. The sociology of knowledge has a subclass and a complement. Its subclass is Sociology of scientific knowledge. Its complement is the sociology of ignorance. The sociology of knowledge was pioneered primarily by the sociologist

Émile Durkheim David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, al ...

at the beginning of the 20th century. His work deals directly with how conceptual thought, language, and logic can be influenced by the societal milieu in which they arise. The 1903 essay ''Primitive Classification'', by Durkheim and

Marcel Mauss Marcel Mauss (; 10 May 1872 – 10 February 1950) was a French sociologist and anthropologist known as the "father of French ethnology". The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss, in his academic work, crossed the boundaries between sociology and ...

, invoked "primitive" group

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...

to argue that classification systems are collectively based and that the divisions within these systems derive from social categories. In his 1912 ''

The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life ''The Elementary Forms of Religious Life'' (french: Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse), published by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim in 1912, is a book that analyzes religion as a social phenomenon. Durkheim attributes the de ...

'', Durkheim elaborated on his theory of knowledge. In this work, he examined how language and the concepts and categories (such as space and time) used in logical thought have a sociological origin. Neither Durkheim nor Mauss specifically coined the term "sociology of knowledge". However, their work was an important first contribution to the subject. The widespread use of the term 'sociology of knowledge' emerged in the 1920s, when several German-speaking sociologists, most notably

Max Scheler Max Ferdinand Scheler (; 22 August 1874 – 19 May 1928) was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. Considered in his lifetime one of the most prominent German philosophers,Davis, Zacha ...

and

Karl Mannheim Karl Mannheim (born Károly Manheim, 27 March 1893 – 9 January 1947) was an influential Hungarian sociologist during the first half of the 20th century. He is a key figure in classical sociology, as well as one of the founders of the sociolo ...

, wrote extensively on sociological aspects of knowledge. This was followed in 1937 with a much-cited survey of the subject by Robert K. Merton, the American sociologist, ‘The sociology of knowledge’. With the dominance of functionalism through the middle years of the 20th century, the sociology of knowledge remained on the periphery of mainstream sociological thought. However, it was reinvented and applied closely to everyday life in the 1960s, particularly by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann in ''

The Social Construction of Reality ''The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge'' (1966), by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, proposes that social groups and individual persons who interact with each other, within in a system of social classe ...

'' (1966). It is still central for methods dealing with qualitative understanding of human society (compare ''

socially constructed reality Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The theor ...

''). The 'genealogical' and 'archaeological' studies of

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and ho ...

are of considerable contemporary influence.

History

The Enlightenment

Peter Hamilton argues that the thinkers of

the Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...

produced a sociology of ideas and values when they turned their attention to the scientific analysis of society. He argues that specific values inherent in critical rationalism, such as

anthropocentrism Anthropocentrism (; ) is the belief that human beings are the central or most important entity in the universe. The term can be used interchangeably with humanocentrism, and some refer to the concept as human supremacy or human exceptionalism. F ...

(i.e., the assumption that humans are the most crucial element in understanding reality), were central in these thinkers' understanding of society. Hamilton argues that these thinkers were committed to progress and the freedom of the individual to determine his own beliefs and values at odds with traditional moral considerations in

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing th ...

. The empirical method of cross-cultural comparison became a methodology for understanding society rather than the idea of revealed truth inherent in sociology, leading to a measure of

cultural relativism Cultural relativism is the idea that a person's beliefs and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture. Proponents of cultural relativism also tend to argue that the norms and values of one culture should not be evaluated ...

. He argues that some thinkers sought to change society based on their theories. These ideas play out in the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

with its

Reign of Terror The Reign of Terror (french: link=no, la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First French Republic, First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public Capital punishment, executions took pl ...

. Hamilton argues that the enlightenment can be seen as a critical response to the Christian theology used by

the Jacobins A Jacobin (; ) was a member of the Jacobin Club, a revolutionary political movement that was the most famous political club during the French Revolution (1789–1799). The club got its name from meeting at the Dominican rue Saint-Honoré M ...

that manipulated people's understanding of truth to maintain a feudal order.

Earlier viewpoints

The sociology of knowledge requires a particular viewpoint that

Giambattista Vico Giambattista Vico (born Giovan Battista Vico ; ; 23 June 1668 – 23 January 1744) was an Italian philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist during the Italian Enlightenment. He criticized the expansion and development of modern rationa ...

first expounded in his ''New Science'' in the early 18th Century, long before the first sociologists studied the relationship between knowledge and society. The book, a justification for a new historical and sociological methodology, suggests that the natural and social worlds are known in different ways. The former is known through external or empirical methods, whilst the latter can be known internally and externally. In other words, human history is a construct that creates a critical epistemological distinction between the natural and social worlds, a central concept in the social sciences. Primarily focused on historical methodology, Vico asserts that it is necessary to move beyond a chronicle of events to study a society's history. He examined society's cultural elements, which was termed the "civil world". This "civil world", made up of actions, thoughts, ideas, myths, norms, religious beliefs, and institutions, is the product of the human mind. These socially constructed elements can be better understood than the physical world, as it is in abstraction. Vico highlights that human nature and its products are not fixed entities. Therefore, it necessitates a historical perspective emphasizing the changes and developments implicit in individuals and societies. He also emphasizes the dialectical relationship between society and culture as key in this new historical perspective. While permeated by his penchant for etymology, Vico's ideas, and a theory of cyclical history (''corsi e ricorsi),'' are significant for the underlying premise that our understanding and knowledge of social structure. They are dependent upon the ideas and concepts we employ and the language used. Vico was primarily unknown in his own time. He was the first to establish the foundations of a sociology of knowledge, even though later writers did not necessarily pick up his concepts. There is evidence that

Montesquieu Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (; ; 18 January 168910 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher. He is the principa ...

and

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

had read Vico's work. However, the similarities in their works are superficial, limited mainly to the overall conception of their projects. They were characterised by cultural relativism and historicism.

Approaches to Sociology of Knowledge

Émile Durkheim

(1858–1917) is credited as having been the first professor to successfully establish the field of sociology, institutionalizing a department of sociology at the Université de Bordeaux in the 1890s. While his works deal with several subjects, including suicide, the family, social structures, and social institutions, a large part of his work deals with the sociology of knowledge. While publishing short articles on the subject earlier in his career (for example, the essay ''De quelques formes primitives de classification'' written in 1902 with Marcel Mauss), Durkheim worked mainly out of a Kantian framework and sought to understand how logical thought concepts and categories could arise out of social life. He argued, for example, that the types of space and time were not ''a priori''. Instead, the category of space depends on a society's social grouping and geographical use of space and a group's social rhythm that determines our understanding of time. In this Durkheim sought to combine elements of

rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy' ...

and empiricism, arguing that certain aspects of logical thought common to all humans did exist, but that they were products of collective life (thus contradicting the tabula rasa empiricist understanding whereby categories are acquired by individual experience alone), and that they were not universal ''a priori'' truths (as

Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aest ...

argued) since the content of the categories differed from society to society. Another key elements to Durkheim's theory of knowledge is his concept of ''représentations collectives'' ( collective representations), which is outlined in ''

''. ''Représentations collectives'' are the symbols and images that come to represent the ideas, beliefs, and values elaborated by a collectivity and are not reducible to individual constituents. They can include words, slogans, ideas, or any number of material items that can serve as a symbol, such as a cross, a rock, a temple, a feather etc. As Durkheim elaborates, ''représentations collectives'' are created through intense social interaction and are products of collective activity. As such these representations have the particular, and somewhat contradictory, aspect that they exist externally to the individual (since they are created and controlled not by the individual but by society as a whole), and yet simultaneously within each individual of the society (by virtue of that individual's participation within society). Arguably the most important "représentation collective" is

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

, which according to Durkheim is a product of collective action. And because language is a collective action, language contains within it a history of accumulated knowledge and experience that no individual would be capable of creating on their own. As Durkheim says, 'représentations collectives', and language in particular:

add to that which we can learn by our own personal experience all that wisdom and science which the group has accumulated in the course of centuries. Thinking by concepts, is not merely seeing reality on its most general side, but it is projecting a light upon the sensation which illuminates it, penetrates it and transforms it.

As such, language, as a social product, literally structures and shapes our experience of reality, an idea developed by later French philosophers, such as

Karl Mannheim

The German political philosophers

(1818–1883) and

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' The German Ideology'') and elsewhere that people's ideologies, including their social and political beliefs and opinions, are rooted in their class interests, and more broadly in the social and economic circumstances in which they live: : "It is men, who in developing their material inter-course, change, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Being is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by being." (''Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe'' 1/5) Under the influence of this doctrine, and of

Phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...

, the Hungarian-born German sociologist

(1893–1947) gave impetus to the growth of the sociology of knowledge with his ''Ideologie und Utopie'' (1929, translated and extended in 1936 as ''Ideology and Utopia''), although the term had been introduced five years earlier by the co-founder of the movement, the German philosopher, phenomenologist and social theorist

(1874–1928), in ''Versuche zu einer Soziologie des Wissens'' (1924, ''Attempts at a Sociology of Knowledge''). Mannheim feared that this interpretation could be seen to claim that all knowledge and beliefs are the products of socio-political forces since this form of

relativism Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assessed. There ...

is self-defeating (if it is true, then it too is merely a product of socio-political forces and has no claim to truth and no persuasive force). Mannheim believed that

was a strange mixture of modern and ancient beliefs in that it contained within itself a belief in an absolute truth which was true for all times and places (the ancient view most often associated with

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institutio ...

) and condemned other truth claims because they could not achieve this level of objectivity (an idea gleaned from Marx). Mannheim sought to escape this problem with the idea of relationism. This is the idea that certain things are true only in certain times and places (a view influenced by

pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...

) however, this does not make them less true. Mannheim felt that a stratum of free-floating intellectuals (who he claimed were only loosely anchored to the class structure of society) could most perfectly realize this form of truth by creating a "dynamic synthesis" of the ideologies of other groups. The sociology of Mannheim is specified by a particular attention to the forms of transmission of culture and knowledge. It follows the constellations of senses and options that through the generations are related to the transmission and reproduction of values.

Phenomenological sociology

Phenomenological sociology is the study of the formal structures of concrete social existence as made available in and through the analytical description of acts of intentional consciousness. The "object" of such an analysis is the meaningful lived world of everyday life: the "Lebenswelt", or life-world (Husserl:1889). The task, like that of every other phenomenological investigation, is to describe the formal structures of this object of investigation in subjective terms, as an object-constituted-in-and-for-consciousness (Gurwitsch:1964). The utilization of phenomenological methods are what make such a description different from the "naive" subjective descriptions of the man in the street, or those of the traditional, positivist social scientist. The leading proponent of phenomenological sociology was

Alfred Schütz Alfred Schutz (; born Alfred Schütz, ; 1899–1959) was an Austrian philosopher and social phenomenologist whose work bridged sociological and phenomenological traditions. Schutz is gradually being recognized as one of the 20th century's leadi ...

(1899–1959). Schütz sought to provide a critical philosophical foundation for

Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist and political economy, political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of Modernity, ...

's interpretive sociology through the use of phenomenological methods derived from the transcendental phenomenological investigations of

Edmund Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...

(1859–1938). Husserl's work was directed at establishing the formal structures of intentional

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

. Schütz's work was directed at establishing the formal structures of the Life-world (Schütz:1980). Husserl's work was conducted as a transcendental phenomenology of consciousness. Schütz's work was conducted as a mundane phenomenology of the Life-world (Natanson:1974). The difference in their research projects lies at the level of analysis, the objects taken as topics of study, and the type of phenomenological reduction that is employed for the purposes of analysis. Ultimately, the two projects should be seen as complementary, with the structures of the latter dependent on the structures of the former. That is, valid phenomenological descriptions of the formal structures of the Life-world should be wholly consistent with the descriptions of the formal structures of intentional consciousness. It is from the latter that the former derives its validity and

truth value In logic and mathematics, a truth value, sometimes called a logical value, is a value indicating the relation of a proposition to truth, which in classical logic has only two possible values ('' true'' or ''false''). Computing In some prog ...

(Sokolowski:2000). The phenomenological tie-in with the sociology of knowledge stems from two key historical sources for

Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's ...

's analysis: Mannheim was dependent on insights derived from Husserl's phenomenological investigations, especially the theory of meaning as found in Husserl's Logical Investigations of 1900/1901 (Husserl:2000), in the formulation of his central methodological work: "On The Interpretation of Weltanschauung" (Mannheim:1993:see fn41 & fn43) – this essay forms the centerpiece for Mannheim's method of historical understanding and is central to his conception of the sociology of knowledge as a research program; and The concept of "Weltanschauung" employed by Mannheim has its origins in the hermeneutic philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey, who relied on Husserl's theory of meaning (above) for his methodological specification of the interpretive act (Mannheim: 1993: see fn38). It is also noteworthy that Husserl's analysis of the formal structures of consciousness, and Schütz's analysis of the formal structures of the Life-world are specifically intended to establish the foundations, in consciousness, for the understanding and interpretation of a social world which is subject to cultural and historical change. The phenomenological position is that although the facticity of the social world may be culturally and historically relative, the formal structures of consciousness, and the processes by which we come to know and understand this facticity, are not. That is, the understanding of any actual social world is unavoidably dependent on understanding the structures and processes of consciousness that found, and constitute, any possible social world. Alternatively, if the facticity of the social world ''and'' the structures of consciousness prove to be culturally and historically relative, then we are at an impasse in regard to any meaningful scientific understanding of the social world which is not subjective (as opposed to being objective and grounded in nature ositivism or inter subjective and grounded in the structures of consciousness henomenology, and relative to the cultural and idealization formations of particular concrete individuals living in a particular socio-historical group.

Michel Foucault

A particularly important contemporary contribution to the sociology of knowledge is found in the work of Michel Foucault. '' Madness and Civilization'' (1961) postulated that conceptions of madness and what was considered "reason" or "knowledge" was itself subject to major

culture bias Cultural bias is the phenomenon of interpreting and judging phenomena by standards inherent to one's own culture. The phenomenon is sometimes considered a problem central to social and human sciences, such as economics, psychology, anthropology, ...

– in this respect mirroring similar criticisms by

Thomas Szasz Thomas Stephen Szasz ( ; hu, Szász Tamás István ; 15 April 1920 – 8 September 2012) was a Hungarian-American academic and psychiatrist. He served for most of his career as professor of psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate ...

, at the time the foremost critic of

psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial p ...

, and now, an eminent psychiatrist. Foucault and Szasz agreed that sociological processes played the major role in defining "madness" as an "illness" and prescribing "cures". In '' The Birth of the Clinic: An Archeology of Medical Perception'' (1963), Foucault extended his critique to institutional clinical medicine, arguing for the central conceptual metaphor of " The Gaze", which had implications for

medical education Medical education is education related to the practice of being a medical practitioner, including the initial training to become a physician (i.e., medical school and internship) and additional training thereafter (e.g., residency, fellowship, ...

, prison design, and the carceral state as understood today. Concepts of

criminal justice Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other ...

and its intersection with medicine were better developed in this work than in Szasz and others, who confined their critique to current psychiatric practice. ''The Order of Things'' (1966) and ''The Archeology of Knowledge'' (1969) introduced abstract notions of mathesis and taxonomia to explain the subjective 'ordering' of the

human sciences Human science (or human sciences in the plural), also known as humanistic social science and moral science (or moral sciences), studies the philosophical, biological, social, and cultural aspects of human life. Human science aims to expand our u ...

. These, he claimed, had transformed 17th and 18th century studies of "general grammar" into modern "

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...

", " natural history" into modern "

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditar ...

", and "

analysis of wealth Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an I ...

" into modern "

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analy ...

"; though not, claimed Foucault, without loss of meaning. Foucault believed that the 19th century transformed what knowledge was. Foucault's stated that "Man did not exist" before the 18th century. Foucault regarded notions of humanity and of

humanism Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...

as inventions of

modernity Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the "Age of Reas ...

. Accordingly, a

cognitive bias A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, ...

had been introduced unwittingly into science, by over-trusting the individual doctor or scientist's ability to see and state things objectively. Foucault roots this argument in the rediscovery of Kant, though his thought is significantly influenced by

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ca ...

– that philosopher declaring the "death of God" in the 19th century, and the anti-humanists proposing the "death of Man" in the 20th. In ''Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison'', Foucault concentrates on the correlation between

and power. According to him, knowledge is a form of power and can conversely be used against individuals as a form of power. As a result, knowledge is socially constructed. He argues that knowledge forms discourses which, in turn, form the dominant ideological ways of thinking which govern our lives. For him, social control is maintained in 'the disciplinary society' through codes of control over sexuality and the ideas/knowledge perpetuated through social institutions. In other words, discourses and ideologies subject us to authority and turn people into 'subjected beings', who are afraid of being punished if they sway from

social norms Social norms are shared standards of acceptance, acceptable behavior by groups. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into wikt:rule, rules and laws. Social normat ...

. Foucault believes that institutions overtly regulate and control our lives. Institutions such as schools reinforce the dominant ideological forms of thinking onto the populace and force us into becoming obedient and docile beings. Hence, the

dominant ideology In Marxist philosophy, the term dominant ideology denotes the attitudes, beliefs, values, and morals shared by the majority of the people in a given society. As a mechanism of social control, the dominant ideology frames how the majority of the p ...

that serves the interests of the ruling class, all the while appearing as 'neutral', needs to be questioned and must not go unchallenged.

Knowledge ecology

Knowledge ecology The idea of a knowledge ecosystem is an approach to knowledge management which claims to foster the dynamic evolution of knowledge interactions between entities to improve decision-making and innovation through improved evolutionary networks of c ...

is a concept originating from

knowledge management Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organisational objectives by making ...

and that aimed at "bridging the gap between the static data repositories of knowledge management and the dynamic, adaptive behavior of natural systems", and in particular relying on the concept of interaction and

emergence In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own, properties or behaviors that emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole. Emergen ...

. Knowledge ecology, and its related concept information ecology has been elaborated by different academics and practitioners such as Thomas H. Davenport,

Bonnie Nardi Bonnie Nardi is an emeritus professor of the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine, where she led the TechDec research lab in the areas of Human-Computer Interaction and computer-supported cooperative work. She is well ...

, or Swidler.

New Sociology of Knowledge

The New Sociology of Knowledge (a postmodern approach considering knowledge as culture by drawing upon Marxist, French structuralist, and American pragmatist traditions) introduces concepts that dictate how knowledge is socialized in the modern era by new kinds of social organizations and structures.

Robert K. Merton

American sociologist Robert K. Merton (1910–2003) dedicates a section of Social Theory and Social Structure (1949; revised and expanded, 1957 and 1968) to the study of the sociology of knowledge in Part III, titled ''The Sociology of Knowledge and Mass Communications''.

Legitimation code theory

Legitimation code theory (LCT) emerged as a framework for the study of knowledge and education and is now being used to analyse a growing range of social and cultural practices across increasingly different institutional and national contexts, both within and beyond education. The approach primarily builds on the work of

Basil Bernstein Basil Bernard Bernstein (1 November 1924 – 24 September 2000) was a British sociologist known for his work in the sociology of education. He worked on socio-linguistics and the connection between the manner of speaking and social organizatio ...

and

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence ...

. It also integrates insights from sociology (including Durkheim, Marx, Weber and Foucault), systemic functional linguistics, philosophy (such as Karl Popper and critical realism), early cultural studies, anthropology (especially Mary Douglas and

Ernest Gellner Ernest André Gellner Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, FRAI (9 December 1925 – 5 November 1995) was a British people, British-Czech people, Czech philosopher and social anthropology, social anthropologist describ ...

), and other approaches. The LCT-Centre for Knowledge-Building is at the University of Sydney. Parlo Singh, a sociologist of education, has been highly critical of how LCT builds on the work of Basil Bernstein suggesting that LCT is a masculinist framework that neglects the feminist turn in Bernstein's work.

Southern Theory

Southern theory is an approach to the sociology of knowledge that looks at the global production of sociological knowledge and the dominance of the

global north Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...

.Connell, Raeywyn (2007
Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Sciences
Allen & Unwin It was first developed by Australian sociologist

Raewyn Connell Raewyn Connell (born 3 January 1944), usually cited as R. W. Connell, is an Australian sociologist. She gained prominence as an intellectual of the Australian New Left. She was appointed University Professor at the University of Sydney in 2004, ...

in her book ''Southern Theory'', with colleges at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public university, public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one o ...

and elsewhere. Southern theory is a kind of decolonising perspective within the sociology of knowledge that seeks to emphasize perspectives from the

global south The concept of Global North and Global South (or North–South divide in a global context) is used to describe a grouping of countries along socio-economic and political characteristics. The Global South is a term often used to identify regio ...

to counter bias towards the perspectives of theorists and social scientists from the global north.

References

Notes

External links

* * {{Authority control Social epistemology Émile Durkheim