Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Methodological Tradition in Economics
- 3 The Breakdown of the Received View within the Philosophy of Science
- 4 The Naturalistic Turn
- 5 The Sociological Turn
- 6 Pragmatism, Discourse, and Situatedness
- 7 Recent Developments in Economic Methodology
- 8 The Economic Turn
- 9 Conclusion
- References
- Web Sites
- Index
5 - The Sociological Turn
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Methodological Tradition in Economics
- 3 The Breakdown of the Received View within the Philosophy of Science
- 4 The Naturalistic Turn
- 5 The Sociological Turn
- 6 Pragmatism, Discourse, and Situatedness
- 7 Recent Developments in Economic Methodology
- 8 The Economic Turn
- 9 Conclusion
- References
- Web Sites
- Index
Summary
Behind Every Fact is a theory and behind that an interest.
[Knight 1922, p. 479]It is our contention, then, that the sociology of knowledge must concern itself with whatever passes for “knowledge” in a society. … And insofar as all human “knowledge” is developed, transmitted and maintained in social situations, the sociology of knowledge must seek to understand the processes by which this is done. … In other words, we contend that the sociology of knowledge is concerned with the analysis of the social construction of reality.
[Berger and Luckmann 1966, p. 3][U]pholding a strong distinction between origins and validity was emotionally rooted in the personal experiences of the founders of Logical Empiricism during the 1930s. For the founders of constructivist sociology of science, by contrast, the formative experiences were those of the 1960s. In Europe these experiences included not only the Vietnam war, but also Prague Spring and the student revolts. Here science was seen not as a savior, but a villain, part of the established authority to be resisted. The project became one of critique, indeed, of undermining the claims of the sciences to any special cognitive authority.
[Giere 1995, p. 7]The naturalistic turn is not the only substantive turn in recent science theory. Another related but separable movement is the sociological turn discussed in this chapter. It is clear from the work examined in the last two chapters that science is fundamentally social; Kuhn and others emphasized that science is a social activity, that science is done in communities, and that collectively held paradigms substantively influence what scientists do and do not “see.”
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- Chapter
- Information
- Reflection without RulesEconomic Methodology and Contemporary Science Theory, pp. 172 - 212Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001