The Controversy over the Sociology of Knowledge

Sociology of knowledge as a new sociological discipline came up in Germany in the early twentieth century as a reflection of the social changes taking place in societies in the course of their modernization. The differentiation of social classes and groups with their different worldviews, ideologies and lifestyles made observable the relations between social positions and the corresponding stocks of knowledge orienting social action. Social mobility enabled individuals to change their social positions during their life courses and let them participate in multiple social circles and roles. The social origins of interpretative schemes and their variety became obvious, as did the pivotal impact of these processes on the social life and on the shaping of societies. Social reality became conceivable as depending on its interpretations by acting subjects and social groups. The relations between these interpretations and their social conditions came into focus of the becoming sociology where the term “knowledge” became extended to all forms of concepts orienting action. The meaningful structure inherent in the social world was reconsidered as a substantial attribute of social reality distinguishing it from the subject of natural sciences (Simmel 1968, 21; Dilthey 1974, 164). Thus, to resolve processes of the social construction of knowledge meant at the same time to mark out the distinctiveness of the social sciences and of their specific subject.

At the stake in this discourse, however, was not only the status of social sciences but also the status of scientific assertions in general. If the knowledge should prove to be a social construction, then all its contents would turn out as relative to the social conditions of its producers. The sociology of knowledge as the science aiming at the social origins of knowledge then could not be considered as a mere subdiscipline of social sciences but would deal with the founding conditions of knowledge in general which, as Robert Merton (1968, 513) has noted, would mean an epistemic “Copernican revolution.” Such an imperial claim, of course, was strongly opposed by the other humanities (Srubar 2010). The discussion within the social sciences themselves, however, focused on two central areas of problems.