Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T20:42:34.222Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Sociology of Knowledge: Emphasis on an Empirical Attitude

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Kurt H. Wolff
Kurt H. Wolff*
Affiliation:
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Two distinct attitudes have been adopted by investigators in the field of the sociology of knowledge. One of them may be called speculative; the other, empirical. The central interest of an investigator having the speculative attitude lies in developing a theory of the sociology of knowledge. The central interest of investigators having the empirical attitude lies in finding out or explaining concrete phenomena; the theory is employed, implicitly or explicity, for this purpose. The existence of the two attitudes may be in part explained, as far as the German sociology of knowledge is concerned, by reference to the history of this school, which has grown out of and has been determined by a Marxist and materialistic philosophy, and especially by the use of this philosophy as a political instrument in the struggle of the emerging proletariat against the bourgeoisie. This statement, however, must be supplemented by a short location of the four most important contributors to the theory of the German sociology of knowledge. Max Scheler approaches the problem phenomenologically; he was the first and only one to ask the fundamental question, “What is knowledge?” Karl Mannheim, though markedly influenced by the Marxist viewpoint, particularly by Lukács, seems to me more adequately characterized by stressing his development from a more exclusively speculative to a more decidedly empirical attitude, which latter is especially evident in his most recent book, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction (1940). Alexander von Schelting's main contribution is his thorough logical analysis of Mannheim's theory in the light of Max Weber's methodology. Ernst Grünwald has given the most complete survey of the forerunners, the history, and the various contributions of the sociology of knowledge. These four thinkers are indirectly dependent on the historically determined emphasis of the movement on ideology in that they remain on the level of a theoretical discussion without arriving at factual research.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , April 1943 , pp. 104 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1943

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

∗

Part of this paper was presented to the Sociology Section of the Southwestern Social Science Association, Dallas, Texas, April 11, 1941.

References

1 The most important works in this regard are those by Max Scheler, Karl Mannheim, Alexander von Schelting, and Ernst Grünwald. It would, however, be an immense task to collect all philosophical, and other, writing which, explicitly or implicitly, has some bearing on the sociology of knowledge and then to build up a philosophical system of this discipline. Cf. Ernst Grünwald, Das Problem der Soziologie des Wissens, Wien, 1934, Chapter II, esp. pp. 52–55.

2 Cf. Talcott Parsons, “The Rôle of Theory in Social Research,” American Sociological Review, III (1938), 15; Robert S. Lynd, Knowledge for What?, Princeton, 1939, esp. Sections IV and V. Robert K. Merton, in his review of Znaniecki's The Social Role of the Man of Knowledge, American Sociological Review, VI (1941), 112, distinguishes between “sociology of knowledge” and “sociological theory of knowledge”; cf. Arthur O. Lovejoy “Reflections on the History of Ideas,” Journal of the History of Ideas, I (1940), 17–18, and Gerard De Gré, “The Sociology of Knowledge and the Problem of Truth,” ibid., II (1941), 115.—Among “empirical” contributions, in addition to those listed in Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, New York, 1936, pp. 303–304, and in addition to some of the well-known works of Durkheim, Lévy-Bruhl, Halbwachs, Granet, and others, Mannheim's own “Das konservative Denken. Soziologische Beiträge zum Werden des politisch-historischen Denkens in Deutschland,” Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, LVII (1927), and Ernst Kohn-Bramstedt, Aristocracy and the Middle-Classes in Germany: Social Types in German Literature, 1850–1900, London, 1937, may be mentioned. Among works of the pre-wissens-soziologischen phase, an outstanding approach in the sociology of knowledge which has decidedly influenced the entire discussion in the field is exemplified in Max Weber's Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, 3 vols., Tübingen, 1920, 1921, 1921, a famous part of which has been translated by Talcott Parsons as The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York, 1930).—The listing of the large number of “implicit” American contributions would require a special study since “what the sociology of knowledge deals with systematically and explicitly has been touched on only incidentally within the framework of the special discipline of social psychology or has been an unexploited by-product of empirical research.” (Louis Wirth, Preface to Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia, l.c., pp. XX–XXI.)

3 Cf. Grünwald, op. cit., pp. 1–51, esp. 32–42, and 60–61; Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, l.c., pp. 278–280; Gottfried Salomon, “Historischer Materialismus und Ideologienlehre,” in Jahrbuch für Soziologie, Vol. II, Karlsruhe, 1926, pp. 386–423; Helmuth Plessner, “Abwandlungen des Ideologiegedankens, Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie, X (1931), 163 ff.

4 Max Scheler, “Die Formen des Wissens und die Bildung,” in Philosophische Weltanschauung, Bonn, 1929, p. 113.

5 As regards pre-Marxist thinkers who were expressly interested in the “social determination” of knowledge, see Hans Speier, “The Social Determination of Ideas,” Social Research, V (1938), 203–205, 198; Hans Speier, “Militarism in the Eighteenth Century,” Social Research, III (1936), 330; Grünwald, op. cit., pp. 4 ff.; Mannheim, op. cit., p. 55; Werner Sombart, “Die Anfänge der Soziologie,” in Erinnerungsgabe für Max Weber, München, 1923, p. 15.—I acknowledge gratitude to Dr. Harry Estill Moore, University of Texas, for the suggestion of a study of the work of the English institutional historians such as Maine, Maitland, Miss Harris, and Hobhouse, as well as that of Toynbee and Tawney, with reference to their possible contributions to the sociology of knowledge.

6 Scheler, of course, must not be interpreted as a sociologist but as a philosopher.—The controversy between Scheler and the Marxist Max Adler strikingly reveals the two contrasting positions of the metaphysical and the Marxist ideologist (Verhandlungen des Vierten Deutschen Soziologentages, Tübingen, 1925, pp. 118–237).

7 E.g., Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action, New York, 1937, p. 14, note 1. Hans Speier (“The Social Determination of Ideas,” l.c., passim) implies that his “technical” and “promotive” or “theoretical” ideas are rational and fully conscious. C. Wright Mills, “Methodological Consequences of the Sociology of Knowledge,” American Journal of Sociology, XLVI (1940), 316–330, speaks of “inquiries” (passim) as the subject matter of the sociology of knowledge, but seems to imply also that certain types of language (p. 322) and, more generally, “verbal components of actions” (p. 329), are within its field. Alexander von Schelting, Max Webers Wissenschaftslehre, Tübingen, 1934, p. 85, insists that the sociology of knowledge has to distinguish between two spheres, (1) knowledge of empirical data, epistemology, and methodology, and (2) “those structures of thought ... in which this ... empirical world ... is transcended.” He does not decide, however, whether the first or both of these spheres are the subject matter of the sociology of knowledge; neither does he do so in his earlier article, “Zum Streit urndie Wissenssoziologie,” Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, LXII (1929),1–65, where he develops the above distinction more extensively on the basis of Alfred Weber's Kultursoziologie categories.

8 With the exception of Scheler; cf. note 15 below.—This limitation of the sociology of knowledge has hardly been changed by the highly significant contributions of the French school (mainly Durkheim) or by the “irrational-naturalistic” thought of Nietzsche, Pareto, Sorel, probably Freud, and others.—For an excellent general characterization of the German as against the Anglo-French thinker type and of the former’s peculiar “atmosphere,” see Ernst Troeltsch, Der Historismus und, seine Probleme, Tübingen, 1922, pp. 141-143 (Vol. III of Gesammelte Schriften). Cf. also Pitirim A. Sorokin, “Some Contrasts of Contemporary European and American Sociology,” Social Forces, VIII (1929), 57-62.

9 Max Scheler’s term (“Probleme einer Soziologie des Wissens,” in Die Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft, Leipzig, 1926, p. 59).

10 Cf. John Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, New York, 1938, p. 66.—My forthcoming attempt at a theory accounting for the interest in the sociology of knowledge and of the rôle of this discipline—both lasting after, and far more significant than its historical “incipiency”—cannot be outlined here; it has to do with the gradual breakdown of traditions and norms and the possibility of nihilism in the last hundred years in European development as typified in a psychologically accessible process which I call “Iabilization.”

11 It is probably Mannheim whose theories have been most widely discussed, and he may therefore be taken as representative in indicating the ultimate inconclusiveness of attempts at a clear definition of the concepts of “knowledge,” “social setting” (or however else these phenomena may be designated), and their mutual relation. Mannheim’s own terms {cf. Ideology and Utopia, I.e., pp. 239-256), have received much criticism which has revealed their ambiguity and logical insufficiency; the most thorough analysis was made by von Schelting (Max Webers Wissenschaftslehre, I.e., pp. 94-167). The gist of the extensive discussion of the general problem of the sociology of knowledge (see bibliography in Mannheim, op.cit., pp. 300-303) lies in the relation between the “social process” and “knowledge” and in the clarification of these two concepts; particularly, it lies in the determination of “imputation,” i.e., in the question of how a specific piece of knowledge can be ascribed to a specific group or “class,” and what, exactly, may be meant by such terms as “imputation” or “ascription.” Even the most recent treatment of this theme with which I am acquainted, Arthur Child, “The Problem of Imputation in the Sociology of Knowledge,” Ethics, LI (1941), 200-219, does not put the question generally, as the title of the article might suggest, but limits it to an “internal criticism” (p. 200) of Lukács, Grünwald, and Mannheim, thus remaining within the “historical boundaries” mentioned before in this paper.

12 Cf. Morris R. Cohen and Ernest Nagel, An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method, New York, 1934, p. 217.

13 In the process of understanding, relations may become “psychological facts.” See page 7 of this paper.

14 The only purpose of this term is to serve as a one-word name for individuals, groups, and institutions (as explained presently).

15 Cf. von Schelting, op. cit., pp. 78, 85-87.—The most inclusive definition of knowing is, I think, that of Max Scheler. Knowing is “the participation of a being (Seiendes) in the existence (Sosein) of another being” (“Erkenntnis und Arbeit,” in Die Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft, I.e., p. 247). If, however, we try to find the empirical phenomenon, or fact, corresponding to these metaphysical units mentioned, we again must stop at general mental events and thence investigate concrete problems in order to arrive not only at an empirically controllable definition of knowledge but also at the relations between knowledge and other mental processes and their results.

16 This list of phenomena accessible to sense perception (facts) about which the sociologist of knowledge wants to find out something is, of course, not peculiar to this discipline; the specific character of the sociology of knowledge lies in its selection and its treatment of these facts. See below.

17 Among the social units listed, only “individual” and “numerical aggregate” are capable of sense perception while “social group” and “institution” are mental units which may be facts psychologically in the minds both of observers of and of participants in them. Cf. Eric Voegelin, “The Growth of the Race Idea,” The Review of Politics, II (1940), 284.— Almost no term used in sociology, and thus none of the above mentioned, has found a definition that is generally agreed upon. My use of the terms above is based on their “current” conception in American sociology; but this use must be specified in concrete research whenever any doubt arises in the mind of the investigator as to the unambiguousness of a term adopted.

18 Cf. Karl Mannheim, “Ideologische und soziologische Interpretation der geistigen Gebilde,” in Jahrbuch für Soziologie, I.e., Vol. II, pp. 424 ff.

19 My definition of the “universe of discourse” (of an individual or a group) is the totality of concepts used (by that individual or group) plus their implications.

20 I have made no attempt at a definition of “understanding”; this would transcend the scope of this paper. In accordance with the empirical attitude in the sociology of knowledge, I believe in the necessity of concrete research before a logical system (as evolved in such research) can be defined. I fully realize that in any such attempt the problem of understanding will be of the greatest importance. The attack on it, I think, will be largely based on Max Weber’s conception as contained, especially, in “Ueber einige Kategorien der verstehenden Soziologie,” in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, Tübingen, 1922, pp. 403-450, and “Methodische Grundlagen der Soziologie,” ibid., pp. 503-523, and on its analyses by von Schelting, op. cit., and Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action, I.e., esp. pp. 610-639; and special attention is likely to be given to such concepts as “causal reference,” “ideal-types,” “aktuelles” and “motivationsmässiges Verstehen,” “a-causal complexes of meaning,” etc. Strictly speaking, we must distinguish between the primary method of the sociology of knowledge—that of understanding—and various secondary methods the use of which has the purpose of enhancing understanding and of checking the results reached in the process of understanding. The selection of these auxiliary methods is determined by the particular problem under examination. They may involve the use of statistical devices, various kinds of tests, scores, and scales, etc. In the discussion of the chronological course of the process of understanding, I proceed without regard to possible auxiliary methods.

21 Cf. John Dewey, op. cit., p. 67.

22 Cf. a similar aspect of “fact” in Cohen and Nagel, op. cit., p. 218, “2.”

23 “This is the fate, more, this is the sense of scientific work …: every scientific ‘fulfillment’ means new ‘questions’ and wants to be ‘surpassed’ and become obsolete… . Fundamentally, this process is infinite.” (Max Weber, “Wissenschaft als Beruf,” in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, I.e., pp. 534-535.)

24 Franz Rosenzweig, “Das neue Denken,” in Kleinere Schriften, Berlin, 1937, pp. 375-376.

25 This presentation of the “central attitude” is itself an example of an attempt at conveying a “single thought.” The concept—still speaking by way of illustration—is an element which can be understood as a function of an attitude to be coordinated with other elements and attitudes; and this process of understanding eventually leads the investigator to a conception of the central attitude of the author of the concept which gave rise to the investigator’s study.

26 See “typical central attitude,” pp. 15 ff., below.

27 Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, New York, 1940, p. 257.

28 On “chances of perception” see note 47 below.

29 Thus, my general characterization of the process of understanding as given on page 6 above might become obsolete—but cf. my reference to “scientific progress” in note 23 above.

30 “Typical central attitude” is an ideal-typical structure; on “ideal-type” (Max Weber’s term) see Max Weber, “Methodische Grundlagen der Soziologie,” I.e., esp. pp. 505-506; Talcott Parsons, op. cit., pp. 653 ff., 716; von Schelting, op. cit., pp. 329 ff.; Marcel Weinreich, Max Wéber, L’Homme et le Savant, Paris, 1938, pp. 96-113.

31 “Typical central attitude”—a concept—has nothing to do with a discussion of “human nature” which aims at establishing variable and invariable human properties.

32 This statement does not imply that we do not have to assume changeless components in mental processes, such as certain processes of thought or of feeling (a syllogism, the feeling of anxiety). The important problem of changeless vs. changeable elements in mental processes, has to my knowledge, as yet not found a detailed examination with respect to the establishment of a sociology of knowledge (in spite of the works of Durkheim, Lévy-Bruhl, Grånet, and others). The most explicit statement about it has been made, I think, by von Schelting (“Zum Streit um die Wissenssoziologie,” I.e., p. 31). According to him, nobody has as yet succeeded in proving “that the fundamental forms of apperception and categories and the basic forms of the contemplative, explicatory, concluding, and systematizing forms of the human intellect … have … changed.” As a hypothesis I assume that there are certain logical and emotional processes whose function, rather than nature, changes with the typical central attitudes in which they appear.—Cf. also Francis M. Cornford, The Laws of Motion in Ancient Thought, Cambridge (England), 1931, and other works of his. Alvin P. Bradford’s forthcoming thesis (University of Texas), “An Approach to the Philosophy of Adjustment: A Consideration of Organic Categories and the Sociology of Knowledge,” should throw light on this problem.

33 This hypothesis, of course, does not concern a fundamental assumption of the sociology of knowledge as well as of sociology and psychology, namely, the possibility of explaining how attitudes originate in a given case and, eventually, of establishing a typology of attitudes and coordinated causes. In attempting such an explanation and such a typology on the basis of research, however, the process of understanding the attitude itself comes first.

34 Without daring to answer the question regarding “human nature” raised in note 31 above. Of course, actions are performed in the “spirit” of these attitudes. But we can understand them, at least more easily, through the understanding of these attitudes. Cf. p. 16 above: in many cases understanding may be attained through reference to the “social activity attitude” (a practical attitude).

35 E. Β. Tylor, quoted by and from Sigmund Freud, “Totem and Taboo,” in The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, Modern Library, p. 868.

36 See, e.g., Eliphas Lévi, Histoire de la Magie, Paris, 1892, p. 1. This book, as well as Levi’s two others—Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (2 vols., Paris, 1894) and La Clef des Grands Mystères (Paris, n.d.)— contains a multitude of descriptions of magical practices among “civilized” peoples. Being themselves magically biased, the three works are apt to familiarize the reader with the magical attitude.

37 Cf. Max Scheler, “Probleme einer Soziologie des Wissens,” I.e., p. 64.

38 G. H. Mead, “The Nature of Aesthetic Experience,” International Journal of Ethics, XXXVI (1926), 384.

39 Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Buch der Freunde, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1929, p. 36.

40 Ibid., p. 39.

41 Martin Heidegger, Was ist Metaphysik?, Bonn, 3rd ed., 1931, p. 28. Similarly Max Scheler, Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos, Darmstadt, 1930, pp. 105-107. A position which stresses the constructive aspect of the “philosophical shock” is adopted by Karl Jaspers; see, e.g., his Existenzphilosophie, Berlin, 1938, p. 1, and his Man in the Modern Age, London, 1933, p. 186.

42 Max Scheler, “Erkenntnis und Arbeit,” I.e., p. 253.—It is obvious that these quotations and references refer to an attitude entirely different from that of American pragmatic philosophy, especially C. S. Peirce and John Dewey, which is in part determined by the emphasis on practice as against reflection; see, e.g., John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action, New York, 1929, p. 37. For a discussion of pragmatism, especially Peirce and William James, from the Schelerian position, see Max Scheler, I.e., pp. 259-324.—The autonomy of the philosophical attitude is more evident in the former quotations (with their “philosophy for philosophy’s sake”) than in the pragmatic, less self-sufficient position.

43 John Dewey, Logic, I.e., p. 66.

44 See the quotation from Max Weber in note 23 above; the passage cited continues to discuss the meaning of science in the light of occidental intellectualization and rationalization (I.e., pp. 535-536). For the development of science in the occident, cf. Wilhelm Dilthey, Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften (1883), 3rd ed., Leipzig, 1933, pp. 150-386.

45 Spinoza, Ethic, Oxford University Press, 1910, p. 181.

46 Ibid., p. 188.

47 It may be noted that sufficient research with respect to “distance” may enable us to find typical distances that may be ordered according to the degree of their frequency (with the possible result of finding relatively permanent and relatively variable distances) within certain historical periods or according to types of scientists and sciences.—The distance-taken-for-granted-residual approach seems to me more specific, i.e., more easily verifiable through research, than Mills's utilization of G. H. Mead's concept of the “generalized other” (“Language, Logic, and Culture,” American Sociological Review, IV [1939], 672–676), or Mannheim's “chances of perception” (Ideology and Utopia, l.c., pp. 237–278, passim). I cannot enter here, however, into an examination of the relatedness of these concepts.

48 I owe this expression to Talcott Parsons' term “residual category” (op. cit., pp. 16–20); however, the meanings of “residual category” and “residual area” are different.

49 Again with the exception of Scheler and certain scholars of the French school.

50 Cf. page 12 above.

51 This consideration might be taken into account when one seeks to examine the conditions which were necessary for the rise of the sociology of knowledge, in addition to what Mannheim wrote about this question (in Ideology and Utopia, l.c., pp. 252–253, “The Acquisition of Perspective as a Pre-Condition for the Sociology of Knowledge”).

52 In a fashion, perhaps, similar to the way in which Harold D. Lasswell has utilized psychoanalysis in his consideration of politics.

53 One suggestion of how to develop this problem may be found in the distinction between symbolic and actual behavior as indicated in Richard T. LaPiere and Paul R. Farnsworth, Social Psychology, New York, 1936, pp. 232–233.

54 In the direction of such studies as, e.g., Ogden and Richards, The Meaning of Meaning.

55 It is obvious that there already exists much literature which is useful, directly or indirectly, in connection with these projects or with certain of their aspects and which should be consulted with respect to their eventual formulation and execution.