The Social Determination of Knowledge

This chapter discusses the birth of modern sociology of knowledge. Its initial focus was on understanding the “existential basis” of knowledge (Merton. The sociology of science. Theoretical and empirical investigations. The University of Chicago Press, p. 12; 1973). The new perspective SK develops is that knowledge is a social creation, has a social basis; its first problem, then, is coming to terms with the social determination of collective and individual knowledge. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels resolve this problem by conceiving of the social organization of human labour as the basis for knowledge production. Karl Mannheim expands on Marx’s concepts by studying how thinkers are situationally determined by their social position or standpoint (Standortgebundenheit), and how thought is bound to social existence (Seinsverbundenheit) (“Seinsverbundheit” has been translated as “existential determination of knowledge”; see Mannheim. Ideology and Utopia: An introduction to the sociology of knowledge. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, p. 239; 1954). As a note here explains, this does not refer to a strong cause-effect sequence—the concrete correlation is a question of empirical research. Stehr and Meja (Society and knowledge: contemporary perspectives in the sociology of knowledge. Transactions, p. 2; 2005) translate “Seinsverbundenheit” as “existential connectedness”. Finally, Émile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss emphasize in a generalizing way the social functionality of the orders of knowledge, and point to social experiences of collectivity and social structures as bases for knowledge formation.