Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Analytic social epistemology
- Common sense versus collective memory
- Consensus versus dissent
- Criticism
- Disciplinarity versus interdisciplinarity
- Epistemic justice
- Evolution
- Expertise
- Explaining the cognitive content of science
- Explaining the normative structure of science
- Feminism
- Folk epistemology
- Free enquiry
- Historiography
- Information science
- Knowledge management
- Knowledge policy
- Knowledge society
- Kuhn, Popper and logical positivism
- Mass media
- Multiculturalism
- Naturalism
- Normativity
- Philosophy versus sociology
- Postmodernism
- Progress
- Rationality
- Relativism versus constructivism
- Religion
- Rhetoric
- Science and technology studies
- Science as a social movement
- Science wars
- Social capital versus public good
- Social constructivism
- Social epistemology
- Social science
- Sociology of knowledge
- Translation
- Truth, reliability and the ends of knowledge
- Universalism versus relativism
- University
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Analytic social epistemology
- Common sense versus collective memory
- Consensus versus dissent
- Criticism
- Disciplinarity versus interdisciplinarity
- Epistemic justice
- Evolution
- Expertise
- Explaining the cognitive content of science
- Explaining the normative structure of science
- Feminism
- Folk epistemology
- Free enquiry
- Historiography
- Information science
- Knowledge management
- Knowledge policy
- Knowledge society
- Kuhn, Popper and logical positivism
- Mass media
- Multiculturalism
- Naturalism
- Normativity
- Philosophy versus sociology
- Postmodernism
- Progress
- Rationality
- Relativism versus constructivism
- Religion
- Rhetoric
- Science and technology studies
- Science as a social movement
- Science wars
- Social capital versus public good
- Social constructivism
- Social epistemology
- Social science
- Sociology of knowledge
- Translation
- Truth, reliability and the ends of knowledge
- Universalism versus relativism
- University
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Knowledge Book is an interdisciplinary reference work for students and researchers concerned with the nature of knowledge. It is probably the first work of its kind to be organized on the assumption that whatever else knowledge might be, it is intrinsically social. This explains the selection and treatment of the forty-two alphabetically arranged entries. Generally speaking, the entries gather around the intersection of philosophy and sociology, what used to be called sociology of knowledge but is nowadays increasingly called social epistemology. Even the entries that hail from the heartland of philosophy – such as rationality and truth, reliability and the ends of knowledge – are given a sociological treatment. Several of the entries reflect knowledge-based issues of contemporary concern, such as feminism, multiculturalism and knowledge society. Pride of place is given to topics relevant to science and technology studies, an emerging field that over the past quarter-century has posed the most interesting normative and empirical questions about the nature of knowledge. And while it is fair to say that The Knowledge Book takes science to be the paradigmatic case of knowledge, folk epistemology, mass media, religion and rhetoric are among several entries that come to terms with organized forms of enquiry that relate to science in interesting ways but are not usually themselves regarded as scientific.
The entries consist of self-contained essays of between 1000 and 3000 words.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Knowledge BookKey Concepts in Philosophy, Science and Culture, pp. vii - xPublisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2007