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Epistemology and the Sociology of Knowledge: The Contributions
of Mannheim, Mills, andMertonAuthor(s): Derek L. PhillipsReviewed
work(s):Source: Theory and Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring, 1974),
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Theory and Society 1(1974) 59-88 59 ?Elsevier Scientific
Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in the Netherlands
EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE: THE CONTRIBUTIONS
OF MANNHEIM, MILLS, AND MERTON
DEREK L. PHILLIPS
In the natural and social sciences alike, there exists a rather
rigid separation between those thinkers concerned with the practice
of knowledge and those concerned with questions about the theory of
knowledge. This is in contrast to the situation for the early
Greeks and, much later, for such seventeenth century thinkers as
Descartes and Locke, where there clearly existed an ex- plicit
concern with the connection between the theory and practice of
know- ledge. Just as clearly, the twentieth century has witnessed
an obvious sepa- ration between the interest and practices of
scientists and philosophers, and, consequently, between "science"
and "epistemology".
This distinction between the theory and practice of knowledge is
heightened at present by the gulfs dividing different intellectual
disciplines. Such a separation has been especially pronounced in
sociology, where an emphasis on imitating certain methodological
practices of the natural sciences seems to have reproduced the
latter's indifference to what are regarded as "philosoph- ical"
problems. It is perhaps partially because of their collective
insecurity about the "genuine" scientific status of their
discipline that sociologists have reacted with either indifference
or antagonism to questions about the status of their knowledge.
There is, nonetheless, one branch of sociology where problems of
knowing
I wish to thank my colleague, Alvin W. Gouldner, for his
suggestions and comments - both substantive and editorial - on
earlier versions of this essay. The essay itself is a product of
our continuing dialogue over the past eighteen months, regarding
questions of science and knowledge. I also owe a continuing debt to
Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philo- sophical Investigations, New York:
Macmillan, 1958; Lectures and Conservations, Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1972; Remarks on the Foundation of Mathe-
matics, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1972), who, more than anyone
else, recognized the fully social nature of science and
knowledge.
Universiteit van Amsterdam
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60
and knowledge have been an explicit focus of attention: the
sociology of
knowledge. Here, as well as in the sociology of science which
forms one of its
subparts, there has been some interest in certain aspects of
knowledge, in-
cluding epistemological questions. As these fields have
developed in recent
years, however, their practitioners have tended to ignore
epistemological questions in favor of questions concerning such
matters as the origin of scientific ideas, their communication to
other scientists, scientific productivi- ty, the reward systems in
science, and related matters. Indeed, the direction of
these fields is, I believe, very much at odds with many of the
earlier formula- tions of the sociology of knowledge and
science.
Many sociologists of knowledge and science have been concerned
with the
origins of scientific ideas, and with the relation of these
"discoveries" to social and cultural factors and contexts. Robert
K. Merton (1970a), for exam- ple, systematically reviews a number
of questions pertaining to the social
origins of knowledge, while generally omitting questions about
the validity or
justification of the knowledge-claims involved. This distinction
between the genesis of scientific ideas and their evaluation,
between what Reichenbach
(1938) termed the contexts of discovery and justification, is
ignored by most sociologists. Indeed the division of labor between
philosophy and sociology, authorized by sociologists, is maintained
in the practice of sociology. This, of
course, leaves epistemological matters to the philosopher and
(more recently) to the historian of science.
By ignoring epistemological issues, sociologists have put
themselves in the
position of having very little to say about two problems of
great concern to
many contemporary thinkers: first, the problem of the
theoretical and empir- ical foundations upon which authority rests
in Western society; and, second, the problem of authority and
competence in science.
The former problem has been dealt with at length in an excellent
article by John Schaar (1970). Schaar argues that legitimate
authority is declining in the modem state, and that (Schaar,
1970:279) "the crisis of legitimacy is a function of some of the
basic, defining orientations of modernity itself; spe- cifically,
rationality, the cult of efficiency and power, ethical relativism,
and
equalitarianism". Sociologists, I believe, by generally
neglecting questions regarding their status as knowers and the
status of their knowledge, have
effectively cut themselves off from a concern with this issue of
legitimate authority. Questions about what it is to "know"
something and about who are to establish the criteria or standards
for showing that one does know or that one group knows better than
another, are simply ignored by most
sociologists. If one shares with Schaar, as I do, the belief
that the modern
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61
condition is characterized by the shattering of authority, then
one longs for (Schaar, 1970: 292): "an account of reality, an
explanation of why some acts are preferable to others, and a vision
of a worthwhile future toward which men can aspire". Sociologists
have had very little to say about such matters.
An awareness of the absence of moral absolutes and certainties
is, of course, widespread in contemporary society. In ethics, the
notions of "right" and "wrong" have come to be recognized as
culturally-dependent. But now there is a growing awareness that
science, - which has been viewed by many, including sociologists,
as the source of absolutes and certainty - is a fully human
enterprise, where truth is not something lying "out there" but,
rather, a construction of
scientific communities. Witness, for example, recent contro-
versies in the philosophy and history of science, involving, among
others, Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, and Toulmin. Despite the enormous
attention given these problems today, they are almost ignored in
the sociological literature. This is somewhat surprising in that
Kuhn, especially, has emphasized the sociological nature of his
work, and the term "sociological" is utilized by Popper, Lakatos,
and other critics of Kuhn, as a word of degradation.
It is not my intention to pursue this controversy here, but only
to provide a very brief overview of one aspect of their discussion.
Popper and Lakatos, who refer to themselves as
"demarcationists", believe that there exist uni- versal criteria
by which scientific theories can be compared and appraised, and by
which science can be distinguished from pseudo-science. Feyerabend,
on the other hand, holds that scientific theories occupy no
privileged epistemological status as compared with other families
of beliefs; no one belief-system is any more "correct" or "better"
than another. Kuhn and Toulmin, like Feyerabend, reject the idea of
universal criteria for comparing theories. But whereas the
demarcationists lay down statute laws of rational appraisal, Kuhn
and Toulmin (and Polanyi, as well) hold that science can only be
judged by case law. That is, only the members of a specific
scientific community are competent to judge about specific
questions of scientific practice within that community. Lakatos
refers to this as "sociologism".
Both of the above problems- authority and legitimacy more
generally, and within science specifically - are clearly major
problems of our time. On the one hand, by accepting that each
separate culture or group should decide by its own standards what
properly counts as "scientific understanding" (or "equality", or
"justice") we opt for relativism. On the other hand, by accept- ing
the existence of universal, abstract definitions of "scientific
under- standing", "equality", and the like from outside, we land
ourselves in absolu- tism. The question is whether we must choose
between these, or whether
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62
there exists a middle way which allows us to steer a course
between the relativist and absolutist extremes. The major issue is,
in short, what intel- lectual authority can be claimed - in
principle - for one set of standards rather than another?
In the following pages, I will consider the views of three
sociologists - Karl Mannheim, C. Wright Mills, and Robert K. Merton
- as they touch on these matters and, especially, as they bear on
some of the issues raised more recent- ly by Thomas Kuhn and
others. My intentions in considering these men are three. First, to
remind sociologists of the enormous sensitivity of these earlier
writers to the issues that were central to the so-called
"revolutionary" ideas set forth by Kuhn in his influential book,
The Structure of Scientific Revolu- tions. At the same time, I will
note some of the "advances" attributable to Kuhn, as well as the
similarities between Kuhn and the others. Second, to suggest some
possible reasons as to why sociologists failed to take seriously
the epistemological implications of these earlier views. Third, and
finally, to argue that many sociologists of science and knowledge
today are paradoxical- ly less sociological than are their
contemporaries in other fields - especially Kuhn, Feyerabend, and
Toulmin.
It is useful to begin by briefly reviewing some of Kuhn's more
central themes. Time is necessary in order to gain a full
appreciation of the extent to which these earlier thinkers, and
Wright Mills, especially, anticipated many of the ideas which have
today made Kuhn a center of scientific and philosophic debate. It
is, I think, rather ironic that many sociologists who today show an
enormous enthusiasm for Kuhn's work (or, at least, for his notion
of paradigm) should have forgotten or ignored much in the
pioneering contribu- tions of Mannheim, Mills, and Merton. In a
profession which evidences an almost pathological tendency to claim
various past luminaries as "sociolo- gists" (for example, Marx, de
Tocqueville), one would have expected a great outpouring of
analyses showing the seminal contributions of these earlier
sociologists to problems which are at issue in contemporary science
and philosophy. Perhaps there is a reason for this failure that is
worth noting.
Kuhn (1962:10) argues that "particular coherent traditions of
scientific re- search", which he terms "normal science", take their
shape from paradigms. While he uses the notion of paradigms in a
variety of ways, in the Preface he defines them (Kuhn, 1962:x) "as
universally recognized scientific achieve- ments that for a time
provide model problems and solutions to a community of
practitioners". Paradigms include (Kuhn, 1962:10) "law, theory,
applica- tions, and instrumentation together" and "they are the
source of the methods, problem-field, and standards of solution
accepted by any mature
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63
scientific community at any given time. As a result, the
reception of a new paradigm often necessitates a redefinition of
the corresponding science". Such paradigms (Kuhn, 1962:108)
"provide scientists not only with a map but also with some of the
directions for map-making. In learning a paradigm the scientist
acquires theory, methods, and standards together, usually in an
inextricable mixture". For Kuhn, then, a paradigm indicates the
existence of a coherent, unified viewpoint, a kind of
Weltanschauung, which determines the way a science's practitioners
view the world and practice their craft.
Kuhn's argument reminds us, of course, that science is a social
enterprise, with an organized consensus of men determining what is
and is not to be warranted as knowledge. Among other things, Kuhn's
views are at odds with those formulations of science which sharply
differentiate facts from inter- pretations. He questions the belief
that the world we know is a collection of individual observable
"facts" which various sciences try to order so as to predict
certain events on the basis of others. Kuhn argues that what is
seen as a "problem", a "fact", a "solution", and so on depends on
presuppositions which constitute part of a paradigm.
Kuhn's views seem to lead to a kind of relativism. By stressing
the determin- ative influence of paradigms, as they affect the ways
in which scientists view the world, including their very conception
of what is or is not a fact, Kuhn apparently denies the possibility
of comparing and making judgments about the choice of paradigms.
That is, since there are no such things as "indepen- dent" facts,
or any other independent features or standards, there can be no
"good reasons" for choosing one paradigm over another. For,
according to Kuhn, what constitutes a good reason is itself
established by the paradigm. For instance, Kuhn (1962:147) states
that "the competition between para- digms is not the sort of battle
that can be resolved by proofs" and adds (Kuhn, 1962:150) that "in
these matters neither proof nor error is at issue". Furthermore, he
asserts (Kuhn, 1962:119), "we may... have to relinquish the notion,
explicit or implicit, that changes of paradigms carry scientists
closer to the truth". Kuhn's arguments, then, lead to the brink of
abandoning the traditional idea of objectivity and progress in
science.
Let us now turn to the three sociologists of principle interest
in this essay, beginning with Karl Mannheim.
Karl Mannheim
In his Ideology and Utopia, first published in 1929 and
available in an English translation in 1946, Mannheim sets forth
two goals for the sociology of
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knowledge (1972:237): "as theory it seeks to analyse the
relationship be- tween knowledge and existence; as
historical-sociological research it seeks to trace the forms which
this relationship has taken in the intellectual develop- ment of
mankind". Mannheim's discussion firmly anticipates many of Kuhn's
central themes. Mannheim holds that not only does the individual
speak the language of his group, but he also thinks in the manner
in which his group thinks. He has at his disposal only certain
words and their standardized meanings. These, to a large extent,
govern his avenues of approach to the surrounding world.
Individuals come to perceive the world and its objects in the way
the group to which they belong does. Mannheim (1972:243) notes
that: "Every epoch has its fundamentally new approach and its
characteristic point of view, and consequently sees the "same"
object from a new perspec- tive". (We find echoes of this last
observation in Kuhn's (1962:121) state- ment that "When Aristotle
and Galileo looked at swinging stones, the first saw constrained
fall, the second a pendulum".)
Mannheim emphasizes that "knowing" is a fundamentally collective
enter- prise, and that it (Mannheim, 1972:28) "presupposes a
community of knowing which grows primarily out of a community of
experiencing prepared for in the subconscious". Rather than
formulating knowing as an individual matter, he lays heavy emphasis
on the social and communal character of knowing and of
knowledge.
Much of what Mannheim says is suggestive of Kuhn's notion of
paradigm as an organizing Weltanschauung. Mannheim notes that every
perception is ordered and organized into categories, and that the
extent (Mannheim, 1972:77) "to which we can organize and express
our experiences in such conceptual forms is, in turn, dependent
upon the frames of reference which happen to be available at a
given historical moment". And he adds (Mann- heim, 1972:250) that:
"the approach to a problem, the level on which the problem happens
to be formulated, the stage of abstraction and the stage of
concreteness that one hopes to attain, are all and in the same way
bound up with social existence".
What one finds in Mannheim, then, is an acute sensitivity to the
paramount influence of social factors on the various modes of
social thought and know- ledge. But one sees further his
recognition of the impossibility of considering any element of
social life - whether language and meaning, perception, knowledge,
truth - outside of a communal or social context. It is not sur-
prising, then, that Mannheim (1972:80) acknowledged that "every
point of view is particular to a certain definite situation ..."
Then how does one distinguish true and false knowledge? In other
words, how did Mannheim
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65
deal with the "relativity" problem that Kuhn and others have
wrestled with in recent years? As did Kuhn, more than thirty years
later, Mannheim ap- pears to reject the idea that there exist firm,
unchanging, ultimate "truths". The very notion of truth had a
social character: "We see, therefore", says Mannheim (1972:262),
"not merely that the notion of knowledge in general is dependent
upon the concretely prevailing form of knowledge and modes of
knowing expressed therein and accepted as ideal, but also that the
concept of truth itself is dependent upon the already existing
types of knowledge". And, he adds further, "... we must reject the
notion that there is a 'sphere of truth in itself' as a disruptive
and unjustifiable hypothesis".
Mannheim designates the standpoint of the sociology of knowledge
as "rela- tional", which he contrasts with relativism. With
relationalism, all intellectual phenomena are subjected to the
question (Mannheim, 1972:254): "In con- nection with what social
structures did they arise and are they valid?" The point in
relationalism is not that there are no criteria of rightness or
wrong- ness in a discussion, but rather that such criteria can only
be formulated in terms of the perspective of a given situation.
This, he argues, is different than "philosophical relativism",
which he (Mannheim, 1972:254) characterizes as denying the validity
of any standards as well as the existence of order in the world.
But Mannheim is unclear as to exactly what consequences
relationalism has for establishing the validity (truth) of one or
another assertion. Consider the ambiguity of the following
statement (Mannheim, 1972:256): "The func- tion of the findings of
the sociology of knowledge lies somewhere in a fashion hitherto not
clearly understood, between irrelevance to the establishment of
truth on the one hand, and entire adequacy for determining truth on
the other". Apparently, however, Mannheim believes that the
relevance of the sociology of knowledge is in some way dependent on
a comparison with the "facts". Thus, he states that (Mannheim,
1972:256) "the mere delineation of the perspectives is by no means
a substitute for the immediate and direct discussion between the
divergent points of view or the direct examination of the facts".
This statement of Mannheim's is quite unexpected, as one would
expect him to hold the view that whether something is, for example,
"con- sistent" with the facts is itself dependent on what are
regarded as facts, and as consistency, within different social
contexts. That is to say, such matters as consistency, similarity,
divergency, and the like, are, one would think, them- selves
matters of social conventions in different groups. This is, of
course, Kuhn's position. Here we see that Kuhn goes beyond Mannheim
by arguing that even matters of "similarity" and "difference" are
dependent on social conventions. Thus, Kuhn is more radically
relativistic.1 1 As I have noted elsewhere, (in Derek Phillips,
Abandoning Method, San Francisco and London: Jossey-Bass, 1973),
however, Kuhn is not at all consistent or clear on this matter.
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66
Mannheim has more to say about the sissue of "facts" in one of
the last sections of his book, where he directly confronts "the
epistemological conse- quences of the sociology of knowledge".
Perhaps more than any other portion of his book, this has most
relevance for the present essay. Mannheim (1972:257) notes that the
fact that the position of an observer influences the results of his
thought, and the fact that "the partial validity of a given
perspective is fairly exactly determinable, must sooner or later
lead us to raise the question as to the significance of this
problem for epistemology". He begins by questioning the belief that
the genesis of an assertion is irrelevant to its truth, arguing
against an epistemology that holds this as an a priori premise. He
goes on to argue that epistemology itself must be willing to alter
its foundations as it encounters new modes of thinking: "Through
the particularizing procedures of the sociology of knowledge, we
discover that the older epistemology is a correlate of a particular
mode of thought" (Mann- heim, 1972:260). We are, Mannheim says,
"thus implicitly called upon to find an epistemological foundation
appropriate to these more varied modes of thought". He calls for a
new kind of epistemology which will take into account the facts
brought to light by the sociology of knowledge.
Mannheim discusses two directions taken by epistemology: one
stressing comprehensiveness; the other, emphasizing the
neutralizing function. With regard to the first direction, Mannheim
(1972:271) states that "here pre- eminence is given to that
perspective which gives evidence of the greater comprehensiveness
and the greatest fruitfulness in dealing with empirical materials".
In this statement, Mannheim again reveals his lack of full commit-
ment to his own general thesis concerning the influence of social
position. As Kuhn has more recently pointed out, matters such as
"comprehensiveness" and "fruitfulness" are decided by invoking
various communal standards. And these human standards may be in
conflict in the same way as are the "points of view" discussed by
Mannheim. In fact, Mannheim's position is far from clear about such
matters, For instance, he rejects the idea that the sociology of
knowledge is relativistic, because assertions are relativistic, he
says, only when judged from the standpoint of (Mannheim, 1972:270)
"external, unper- spectivistic truths independent of the subjective
experience of the observer". And Mannheim does not accept this
older, static ideal of eternal truths. Thus, deciding which of two
or more points of view is the best cannot rely on a comparison of
some independent measure - for there is none. On the other hand,
Mannheim allows that decisions about the best point of view may be
made on the basis of the greater comprehensiveness of one viewpoint
over another. He treats comprehensiveness as if it were a fixed,
stable, standard, instead of recognizing that - like truth - it is
a matter of communal judgment as to which of several points of view
has the greatest comprehensive-
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67
ness. Thus, for Mannheim, there are "outside" independent
standards. He fails to see that just as points of view may appear
differently among people in different social positions, so may
comprehensiveness or fruitfulness also appear differently.
With the second direction that can be taken by epistemology,
Mannheim suggests that, rather than absolutizing the concept
of"situational determina- tion", it may be possible, by discovering
the element of situational deter- mination in various views, to
thereby "neutralize" it. This neutralization then creates a wider
and more comprehensive basis of vision. By being fully aware of
situational determination, it is possible to harness it and "use"
it in moving toward a more formal and abstract level of analysis.
But Mannheim (1972:274) notes that "we are not yet in a position
today to decide the question as to which of the two above-mentioned
alternatives the nature of the empirical data will force a
scientific theory of knowledge to follow". Again, it can be seen
that in some unspecified sense "empirical data" are considered as
if they were free from the influence of situational determina-
tion. Clearly, then, there is evidence of a kind of lingering
positivism in Mannheim's position.
In summary, Mannheim is enormously sensitive to the influence of
people's social positions on what they can perceive, what they
define and accept as knowledge and truth, as well as their views,
opinions, goals, and values. But he seems to think the "facts" are
something existing external to human actors which can be used as a
reference point for checking the influence of various social
determinants. Furthermore, and despite his criticisms of the
prevailing conceptions of science, he believed that the natural
sciences were immune from the influence of social factors. In his
words, natural science (Mannheim, 1972:261) "is largely detachable
from the historical-social perspective of the investigator.. ."
This view no doubt served to encourage the development of a
sociology modelling itself on the natural sciences. But Kuhn's
work, as we know, has shown the extent to which the natural and
biological sciences are fully social activities, and therefore,
always subject to the influence of social factors.
C. Wright Mills
It is disturbing, being neither just nor scholarly, that C.
Wright Mills, one of the best-known American sociologists of the
twentieth century, should be so thoroughly ignored when it comes to
issues concerning the sociology of knowledge.2 While his
involvement with this was never evidenced in a major 2 For example,
none of Mills' work is included in James Curtis and John Petras,
eds., The Sociology of Knowledge, New York: Praeger, 1970.
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book-length monograph, nonetheless, one would have expected his
seminal articles to have been a source of continuing interest for
sociologists. In the following, I will consider two of Mills'
articles that deal with issues crucial to knowledge and
methodology. These were published in 1939 and 1940, shortly after
the appearance of Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia in English. They
show the influence of Mannheim's thinking but, in my view, go con-
siderably beyond Mannheim's formulations.
Like Mannheim, Mills had as his major concern in these articles
the social determination of ideas and mentality. In his earlier
article, he points out the need for a concept of mind which would
allow for explicit linkages between mind and other social factors.
What is needed, he stresses, is fuller under- standing of the
social-psychological processes by which the connection between the
mind and social-historical influences can be established. Mills is
emphatic in inserting the social-psychological dimension into the
sociology of knowledge. Whereas George Herbert Mead had conceived
of the "generalized other" as incorporating the "whole society",
Mills lays stress on the "selected societal segments" to which
different individuals orient themselves at different times. In
either case, a pattern of internal conversation (thinking) between
the thinker and his selected audience constitutes the structure of
mentality. It is in such a manner that ideas are "logically
tested". As Mills (reprinted in 1963:427) puts it: "One operates
logically (applies standardized critiques) up'on propositions and
arguments (his own included) from the standpoint of the generalized
other. It is from this socially constituted view- point that one
approves or disapproves of given arguments as logical or illogical,
valid or invalid".
At this point, Mills makes an important observation about the
nature of logic. Rather than regarding the rules of logic as an
innate expression of the human mind, or as having a timeless and
unchanging character, he recognizes that they are human and
conventional. "No individual can be logical", Mills (1963:427)
points out, "unless there be agreement among the members of his
universe of discourse as to the validity of some general
conceptions of good reasoning". What we term "illogicality" is very
much like immorality; both are deviations from social norms.
Correspondingly, the criteria of logicality may be different at
other times and in other groups. He also emphasizes that not only
what are accepted as valid arguments in the discourse within a
particular social group but also what constitutes the elements of
reasoning and analysis within a given individual are the result of
social conventions. That is to say, in general, the acceptance and
diffusion of ideas is dependent on conformity to what counts as
following logical rules within a given group.3
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69
Mills also adds a new emphasis in the sociology of knowledge:
the funda- mental role of language in thought. As Mills (1963:433)
notes: "Our behavior and perception, our logic and thought, come
within the control of a system of language". Mills recognizes that
language precedes any given actor. A socially sustained system of
meanings has a priority over any given individual. In Mills'
(1963:434) words: "Meaning is antecedently given; it is a
collective 'creation' ". Thus Mills recognizes the extent to which
an individual thinker- including the individual scientist, although
Mills says nothing about this- is circumscribed by an audience. In
order to communicate, to be understood, by this or that audience
(his family, peer group, or scientific colleagues) he must use
language in such a manner that it evokes the same response in them
as it does in himself. This is much of what Kuhn is talking about
when he views a paradigm as establishing what constitutes
"similarity", "new facts", and the like. For the individual
thinker, as Mills (1963:435) observes: "The process of
'externalizing' his thought in language is thus, by virtue of the
commonness essential to meaning, under the control of the
audience".
In a second important article, published one year later, Mills
evidences a developing originality and insight concerning the
relationship between the sociology of knowledge, epistemology, and
methodology. While his focus is on the social sciences, many of his
ideas and conclusions have direct relevance for problems of all
scientific disciplines. He (Mills, 1963:453) begins by criticizing
the views of those - for example, Hans Speier, Talcott Parsons,
Robert MacIver, and Robert K. Merton - who hold "that the sociology
of knowledge has no relevance for epistemology; that sociological
investigations or inquiries have no consequences for norms of'truth
and validity' ".
It is true, Mills says, that one cannot deduce the truth or
falsity of an individual's statements by virtue of knowledge of his
social position. He argues, however that the matter is considerably
more complicated than that, and he sets out to provide answers to
two broad sets of questions (Mills, 1963:454): "(1) What is the
genetic character, derivation, and function of epistemological
forms, criteria of truth, or verificatory models? (2) Exactly
wherein, at what junctures, and in what types of inquiry may social
factors enter as determinants of knowledge? "
3 Mills' views on the fully social nature of logic and reasoning
clearly anticipate current controversies surrounding these issues.
See, for example, Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962 and 2nd
ed., Chicago, 1970, as well as his paper "Reflections on my
critics", in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, eds., Criticism and
the Growth of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press,
1970; Imre Lakatos, "Falsification and the methodology of
scientific research programmes", ibid.; and Bryan Wilson, ed.,
Rationality, New York: Harper and Row, 1970.
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70
Mills had earlier emphasized that "truth" and "objectivity" have
meaning only with reference to some accepted system of
verification. That is, truth and objectivity are a matter of
communal definition and, therefore, may differ within different
socal groups and under different soci conditions. Mills (1963:454)
rather cryptically suggests that: "He who asserts the irrelevance
of social conditions to the truthfulness of propositions ought to
state the conditions upon wich he conceives truthfulness actually
to depend; he ought to specify exactly what it is in thinking that
sociological factors cannot explan and upon which truth and
validity do rest",. Mis points out that what had once constituted
validation and truth in the official "paradigm" of medieval
scholasticism, for example, was certainly influenced by a number of
social factors. And, he argues, the fact that the truthfulness of
propositions is dependent on criteria of validity and truth with
are them- selves subject to social-historical relativization means
that the truth or falsity of various statements or propositions is
influenced by social factors. Mills (1963:455) asserts that
"Criteria, or observational and verificatory models, are not
transcendental". He observes that, for the most part, individual
thinkers and scientists do not consciously select a verificatory
model, clearly anticipating Kuhn, who later stresses that the very
criteria for verification at different tes and in diffrent
scientific communites are dependent on the world-views or paradigms
in which the criteria are located.
Thus, Mills refutes those writers who view the sociology of
knowledge as having no consequences for the validity of statements
or propositions, in a specific way by af fiming the historicity of
models of verification. Certain models of verification may be the
"accepted" models at different times or in different groups because
of the power and influence of certain social or scientific
elites.
Mills mentions two additional aspects of kowledge and truth that
may be open to social-historical influences. First, the
"categories" used by different groups of individuals are dependent
on social conditions and influences. Mills (1963:459) notes that
"What is taken as problematic and what concepts are available and
used may be interlinked in certain inquiries". Secondly, there is
the influence of social factors on perception. It is worth quoting
Mills (1963:459-460) at lengh her because I want to contrast his
observations with more recent remarks by Kuhn:
In acquiring a technical vocabulary with its terms and
classifications, the thinker is acquiring, as it were, a set of
colored spectacles. He sees a world of objects that ar techncal y
tinted and patternized. A specialized language constitutes a
veritable a priori form of perception and cognition,
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which are certainly relevant to the results of inquiry . . .
Different tech- nical elites possess different perceptual
capacities.
Compare this with Kuhn's remarks about paradigms and
paradigm-changes. He argues (Kuhn, 1962:111) that: "Paradigm
changes .. . cause scientists to see the world of their
research-engagement differently. In so far as their only recourse
to that world is through what they see and do, we may want to say
that after a [scientific] revolution scientists are responding to a
different world", Galileo's work provides Kuhn with an example for
his thesis (Kuhn, 1962:117-118):
Since remote antiquity most people have seen one or another
heavy' body swinging back and forth on a string or chain until it
finally comes to rest. To the Aristotelians, who believed that a
heavy body is moved by its own nature from a higher position to a
state of natural rest at a lower one, the swinging body was simply
falling with difficulty. Constrained by the chain, it could achieve
rest at its low point only after a tortuous motion and a
considerable time. Galileo, on the other hand, looking at the
swinging body, saw a pendulum, a body that almost succeeded in
repeating the same motion over and over again ad infinitum.
Making use of the relatively new theory of motion - the "impetus
theory" - allowed Galileo to "see" what the Aristotelians could
not. Until the impetus theory (Kuhn, 1962:120) "was invented, there
were not pendulums, but only swinging stones, for the scientist to
see". What Kuhn, the historian of science, has done, then, is to
document Mills' theses regarding men's conceptual language and
their perceptions as affected by social-historical conditions.
A few words about Mills' brief consideration of "relativism",
which, like Mannheim's, I find unconvincing. Mills attempts to deny
the charge of rela- tivism by calling on Mannheim's distinction
between (Mannheim, 1972:254) "philosophical relativism which denies
the validity of any standards and of the existence of order in the
world" and "relationalism", where all intellec- tual phenomena are
subjected to the question (Mannheim, 1972:254): "In connection with
what social structures did they arise and are they valid"? But both
Mannheim and Mills ignore the question as to how we establish
knowledge of "social structures"; after all, this is done from some
socially- sedimented cognitive standpoint.
It is not enough to answer, as Mills does (1963:461), that: "The
imputations of the sociologist of knowledge may be tested with
reference to the verifica- tory model generated, e.g., by Pierce
and Dewey. Their truthfulness is then in
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terms of this model". Why would this not be considered as
relativism? After all, the choice of one over another verificatory
model is made from some standpoint within a particular epoch and
culture. Thus, the manner in which the sociologist of knowledge
approached such problems as the choice of a verificatory model is -
consistent with the central canons of the sociology of knowledge -
conditioned by his particular standpoint. If this is not relati-
vism, what is?
Mills (1963:461) argues that: "The assertions of the sociologist
of knowledge escape the 'absolutist's dilemma' because they can
refer to a degree of truth and because they may include the
conditions under which they are true. Only conditional assertions
are translated from one perspective to another". But this begs the
question of the "relativist's dilemma"; that either the
relativist's own assertions are themselves relative, and,
therefore, lacking truth value; or his argument is unconditionally
true, and, consequently, relativism is self- contradictory.
"Relationalism" supposedly avoids having to choose between these
two (logical) possibilities. Instead, however, it ignores the
problem by failing to recognize the full epistemological
implications of the sociology of knowledge. For relationalism is
"relativistic" in that it cannot provide an answer to such
questions as: from what standpoint do Mills and Mannheim decide
what should count, as, for example, the "conditions" under which
this or that is true? If it is from within a designated culture and
epoch (and it could not be otherwise), then it is certainly
"relativistic". If, on the other hand, it is argued that such
judgments are made from some "absolutist" standpoint, then why call
it "relationalistic"? The fact that Mills and Mannheim were unable
to provide a satisfactory solution to this problem - that is, a
"solution" that allows them to conduct investigations in the
sociology of knowledge while, at the same time, dealing with the
question of how their own position is to be formulated vis-a-vis
the implications of the theoretical position which they espouse -
is not surprising. For even now, thirty-five years later, this
problem is a source of debate among an increasing number of
thinkers (for example, Kuhn, 1970a, 1970b; Lakatos, 1970; Bennett,
1964; Feyerabend, 1970; Popper, 1963, 1970; Winch, 1958; Lukes,
1967; Jarvie, 1972). What could have been very important for the
development of sociology as an intellectual discipline is Mills'
and Mannheim's recognition of the need to try to consider knowledge
from a uniquely sociological standpoint. With regard specifically
to Mills, he exhibited a theoretical awareness - as he did in so
many other areas of sociological and intellectual inquiry - that
placed him years in advance of the dominant tendencies and
directions of the sociology of his day.
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Robert K. Merton
Robert K. Merton's contributions to the sociology of knowledge
and science, like Mannheim's, have been widely recognized. They
began as early as his 1938 doctoral dissertation, re-published in
1970, in which Merton showed a concern with problems central to
these fields. Like Mannheim, and especially, Mills, Merton also
recognized that science is a social activity; (Merton, 1970b: 225)
"the verification of scientific conceptions is itself a
fundamental- ly social process". He held that matters of scientific
knowledge and truth are dependent on the scientific community to
which the individual scientist directs his truth-claims (Merton,
1970b:219):
Science is public and not private knowledge; and although the
idea of "other persons" is not employed explicitly in science, it
is always tacitly involved. In order to prove a generalization,
which for the individual scientist, on the basis of his own private
experience, may have attained the status of a valid law which
requires no further confirmation, the investi- gator is compelled
to set up critical experiments which will satisfy the other
scientists engaged in the same cooperative activity. This pressure
for so working out a problem that the solution will satisfy not
only the scientist's own criteria of validity and adequacy, but
also the criteria of the group with whom he is actually or
symbolically in contact, constitutes a powerful social impetus for
cogent, rigorous investigation.
While not going quite so far as to argue that scientific truth
and knowledge exist solely by virtue of being warranted by the
relevant scientific com- munities, Merton states that the
"discoveries" of one or another scientist are only (Merton,
1970b:220) "imbued with significance through contact with other
scientists". Speaking of scientific theories, he points out that
(Merton, 1970b:220) "...long after the theory has been found
acceptable by the individual scientist on the basis of his private
experience he must continue to devise a proof or demonstration in
terms of the approved canons of scientific verification present in
his culture". Merton also clearly recognises that the scientific
standards which the investigator must meet may differ in different
cultures.
Merton's early use of a distinction between the contexts of
discovery and justification has not, however, always been evidenced
in his more recent work (or in the work of his students) in the
sociology of science. In a paper first published in 1945, he again
emphasized the critical distinction between dis-
covery and justification. Criticizing Sorokin's emphasis on
intuition in scientific work, Merton (1970a:357) observes:
"[Sorokin] indicates that 'intui-
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tion' plays an important role as a source of scientific
discovery. But does this meet the issue? The question is not one of
the psychological sources of valid conclusions, but of the criteria
and methods of validation". Still, in one of his most recent
publications, Merton (1972) appears to drop the distinction between
the sources of knowledge and the scientific community's
verification of knowledge claims. And when he does touch on the
distinction, he totally ignores his own earlier observations
concerning the criteria of verification in different cultures. Let
us, then, consider Merton's views as expressed in this article.
Merton (1972:11) is concerned with recently emerging claims to
group based truth: "Insider truths that counter Outsider untruths
and Outsider truths that counter Insider untruths". Speaking of the
insider doctrine that you can only understand blacks, then only
white scholars can understand whites". But specific claim, it would
appear to follow that if only black scholars can understand blacks,
then only white scholars can understand whites". But Merton fails
to see here that claims to understanding, like claims to know-
ledge, are a matter of meeting public (communal) criteria. Further,
he fails to consider the consequences of this for the problem he is
considering.
What the individual black scholar, for example, may say is of no
special consequence as regards "understanding" blacks, unless the
relevant scientific community warrants the correctness of his
claims. If the black sociologist. formulates a sociological
explanation concerning blacks, it becomes a "sociological truth"
about blacks only by being warranted as such by a sociological
community largely composed of whites.
In one sense, Merton does acknowledge the relevance of public
criteria for settling claims to scientific understanding. To see
this, it is necessary to quote Merton (1972:42) at length here:
It is the character of an intellectual discipline that its
evolving rules of evidence are adopted before they are used in
assessing a particular inquiry. These criteria of good and bad
intellectual work may turn up to differing extent among Insiders
and Outsiders as an artifact of immediate circum- stances, and that
is in itself a difficult problem for investigation. But the margin
of autonomy in the culture and institution of science means that
the intellectual criteria, as distinct from the social ones, for
judging the validity and worth of that work transcend extraneous
group allegiances. The acceptance of criteria of craftsmanship and
integrity in science and learning cuts across differences in the
social affiliations and loyalties of scientists and scholars.
Commitment to the intellectual values dampens
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group-induced pressures to advance the interests of groups at
the expense of these values and of the intellectual product.
In this affirmation of the transcendental standards of
scientific institutions, Merton seems to forget that all the
standards of science are humanly estab- lished. He forgets his own
earlier observation that scientific standards ("criteria of good
and bad intellectual work", "criteria of craftsmanship and
integrity", and the like) may differ in different epochs and
cultures. He fails to see that the standards of a particular
scientific discipline may have arisen from, and may be supported by
certain powerful elites; and that, therefore, the standards of the
group dominant in one or another scientific community may be in
conflict with the standards held by other (minority) groups within
the discipline. The conflicts and controversies surrounding the
view of a Galileo, a Darwin, or a Lysenko, make this clear. Of
course, sometimes there is the involvement of what are easily
identified as non-scientists or political authorities, as in the
case of Russia in the 1950s where the authorities supported
Lysenko's position against the neo-Darwinists. But, for the most
part, it is not at all easy to locate or establish permanent and
universal criteria that allow for a clear demarcation between
"scientific" and "non-scientific" considerations (or between what
Merton terms "intellectual" and "social" criteria).
The Neglect of Epistemology
I come now to the second point of interest in this essay: the
question as to why the epistemological implications of the theses
advanced by these early writers in the sociology of knowledge have
been ignored, or at least not taken as a topic for sociological
inquiry. I do not deny that the epistemological issue, in the guise
of relativism, was recognized by sociologists. The real question-
is: why did they fear relativism? Although I have been unable to
find any explicit reactions to Mills' two articles, sociologists
were quick to see the implications of Mannheim's views. Stung by
critics' assertions that his standpoint led to total relativism and
nihilism, he came to argue in terms of a pragmatic theory of
adjustment to the specific requirements of particular historical
situations and, later, to stress the position of the "socially un-
attached intelligentsia". By emphasizing pragmatism and the
unattached intelligentsia, he sought to escape the charges of
relativism. After the Nazis seized power in Germany, he emigrated
to England, where his intellectual interests underwent an enormous
change. As Coser (1971:447) notes: "one might say that while
Mannheim's German work stood under the shadow of Hegel and Marx,
his British work stood under the shadow of Durkheim". Not only did
Mannheim himself resist the epistemological consequences of his
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earlier work but, by abandoning a concern with the sociology of
knowledge, he helped assure that espistemological matters did not
become a central concern to sociologists.
Despite Mannheim's efforts to save his assertions from the
charge of relati- vism, Ideology and Utopia was severely
criticized. In reviews appearing shortly after the book's
publication in English, von Schelting (1936) and Becker (1939)
raised questions about the epistemological status of the sociology
of knowledge. The tenor of their criticisms was echoed in Merton's
(1957:503) observations, originally published in 1941, that
Mannheim's view "leads at once, it would seem, to radical
relativism with its familiar vicious circle in which the very
propositions asserting such relativism are ipso facto invalid".
Noting Mannheim's remarks about men speaking in categories which
are inappropriate, Merton (1957:503) points out: "Moreover,
determination of the 'appropriateness' or 'inappropriateness' of
categories presupposes the very criteria of validity which Mannheim
wishes to discard".
Especially at a time when the German universities were
undergoing a racialist purge, it was understandable that there
would be a great resistance to any work that even suggested that
science (natural and social) is necessarily affected by social
factors. Merton noted in 1938 (reprinted in Merton, 1973:260) that
we must resist the idea that "Scientific findings are held to be
merely the expression of race or class or nation". The extent of
this resistance is revealed by Merton in that same article where he
states (Merton, 1973:260): "It is of considerable interest that
totalitarian theorists have adopted the radical relativistic
doctrines of Wissenssoziologie as a political expedient for
discrediting 'liberal' or 'bourgeois' or 'non-Aryan' science . ..
Politically effective variations of the 'relationalism' of Karl
Mannheim (for example, Ideology and Utopia) have been used for
propagandistic purposes by such Nazi theorists as Walter Frank,
Krieck, Rust, and Rosenberg". Thus, one reason for the rejection of
the epistemological issues raised by Mannheim was undoubtedly the
political struggle against Naziism prior to and during World War
II.
But there were other reasons as well. Among these was a social
climate favoring pragmatism and empiricism as opposed to the
European emphasis on theorizing and speculation; thus there was an
increasing stress on the develop- ment of empirical sociology in
the United States. Certainly during the war years, the use of
sociology for war purposes (for example, The American Soldier) laid
heavy emphasis on empirical, as contrasted with theoretical,
inquiry. And at Columbia University the struggle for control
between the department's more speculative wing and its more
empirically oriented coun-
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terpart was resolved largely in favor of the latter (Jay,
1973:218). Perhaps partially as a result of this increased emphasis
on empirical work and partially as a result of the kinds of
problems facing American society (and sociology), Wright Mills was
to generally ignore the kinds of issues which preoccupied him in
his early work, discussed in the first part of this essay. In any
case, at a time when sociology was only beginning to become
respectable in American academic circles, and when its
practitioners themselves were striving to become a "real" science,
it is not surprising that there was no great enthu- siasm for
viewpoints that tended, if taken seriously, to throw into question
the very cognitive stabilities of sociology itself.
But this is not to say that sociologists were unaware of the
epistemological issues raised by Mannheim and Mills. Indeed, I
believe that it was precisely because they were aware of these
issues that sociologists concerned with the sociology of knowledge
chose to ignore or dismiss the epistemological prob- lems raised by
Mannheim and Mills. The fact that Mannheim and Mills them- selves
failed to follow through with further inquiries into these
problems, of course, made it even more unlikely that
epistemological issues would concern American sociologists. Given
the insecure status of sociology in the 1940s, it could, in a
sense, ill afford to entertain questions about the grounding of its
own knowledge. To have faced these epistemological questions
squarely would have forced sociologists to consider the existence,
or lack of same, of a dividing line between sociology and ideology,
the very difference that sociolo- gy had been intent on affirming
from its very beginnings. Whatever the social, cultural, and
professional conditions conducive to the dropping of episte-
mological questions in sociology, sociologists of knowledge, or
those utilizing certain aspects of that general perspective, came
to focus on issues of ideol- ogy, on issues concerning the
importance of understanding the social context in which ideas
develop, and related matters. Indeed, the sociology of know- ledge
was cryptic ideology, genteel ideology, prudent ideology: ideology-
critique academicized.
Furthermore, there developed a unique area of specialization
within sociology - the sociology of science - which was, in a way,
predicated on the rejection of epistemological questions. After
all, the natural sciences- which are the main focus of concern for
sociologists of science - are, at least by Mann- heim's
account, immune from the influence of social factors. And while
Merton (1957:635) noted some fifteen years ago that there were few
sociolo- gists who "could bring themselves, in their work, to treat
science as one of the great social institutions of the world", that
has surely changed. Today there exists a considerable literature in
the sociology of science, but, with the exception of a small number
of British sociologists,4 those working in the
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sociology of science have rejected epistemological concerns. As
Whitley (1972:61) points out: "Ignoring the cognitive aspects of
scientists' activities, they restrict sociology to discussion of
social relations and processes". Ignoring epistemological
questions, they exclude questions pertaining to the social nature
of science (including sociology) itself. Thus, the maturity of
sociology - its own self-awareness - is what is ultimately at issue
here.
When Kuhn's work began to appear, with its enormous impact on
philosophy, the history of science, and elsewhere, there were
heated reactions among philosophers and practicing scientists. But
these were nothing as compared to what would have been likely had
the same analysis been focused directly on the social sciences.
After all, physics, chemistry, and biology, are generally seen to
"work". So that however deep Kuhn's criticisms might go, they can
in no way undermine the practices of natural scientists. With
sociology, on the other hand - and this would have been even more
true at the time when Mannheim's and Mills' work first appeared -
the existence and continuance of a discipline of sociology would be
seriously threatened by taking full cognizance of the social
determination of all scientific views and standpoints. Mills'
suggestion that epistemology itself was relativistic would, if
faced head on, have been highly threatening to those busy building
a positivistic sociol- ogy. The same attitude seems prevalent today
among many of those working in the sociology of science; they still
refuse to see that the distinction between science and ideology is
problematic at best, and that, from one point of view, science as
ideology is an important topic for sociological inquiry. Thus, the
internal cognitive nature and form of science are considered off-
limits.
The Recognition of Epistemological Issues
This brings me to the third theme in this essay: that the
epistemological issues raised by Mannheim and Mills (and later
ignored by both) are being pursued today by non-sociologists, that
is, by non-card-carrying members of the profession. Despite the
fact that Thomas Kuhn is cited with some frequency by sociologists,
they often fail to understand the full implications of his views.
They often concern themselves with parochial questions as to
whether
4 See, for example, Michael Mulkay, "Some aspects of cultural
growth in the natural sciences", Social Research 36, 22-52, 1969;
S.B. Barnes and R.G. Dolby, 'The scientific ethos: a deviant
viewpoint", European Journal of Sociology 11, 3-25, 1970; M.D.
King, "Reason, tradition, and the progressiveness of science",
History and Theory 10, 3-32, 1971; and Richard Whitley, "Black
boxism and the sociology of science: a dis- cussion of the major
developments in the field", The Sociological Review Monograph 18,
61-91, 1972.
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or not sociology has a fully-developed paradigm, and, if not,
the importance of acquiring one. Consider, for instance, a recent
statement by Ben-David (1972:4): "The existence of subconscious
assumptions is not an important question at all... In science one
obtains interpersonally valid knowledge through the subjection of
personal ideas and explanations of reality to public test by logic,
experiment or empirical observation. Thus personal biases and
mistakes are corrected, and gradually eliminated". To Ben-David,
then, the content of science is apparently immune to social
influences. Perhaps this is not surprising given his view in
another recent work that (Ben-David, 1971:1): "Sociologists study
structures and processes of social behavior. Science, however, is
not behavior but knowledge that can be written down, forgotten, and
learned again, with its form or content remaining unchanged".
Consistent with this view of science, he asserts further
(Ben-David, 1971:13-14) that "the possibilities for either an
interactional or institutional sociology of the conceptual and
theoretical contents of science are extremely limited". But in
reaching this conclusion, Ben-David totally ignores the work of
Kuhn (1962, 1970a, 1970b) whom he cites in another context, as well
as Hanson (1958), Feyerabend (1962, 1970a, 1970b), and Toulmin
(1961)- all of whom are deeply concerned with understanding the
contents of science. These men have as a central concern the
ideological commitments which scientists must share in order for
the scientific enterprise to succeed. They emphasize that the
social nature of science is relevant to the validity of scientific
theories (the content of science). What could be more in keeping
with the aims of sociological inquiry than, for example, Kuhn's
(1970b: 240) statement that "the type of question I ask has .. .
been: how will a particu- lar constellation of beliefs, values, and
imperatives affect group behaviour? " In fact, Kuhn's
"sociological" analyses have been thoroughly derided by his critics
- especially Lakatos (1970), Shapere (1964), Scheffler (1967), and
Popper (1970) - partially on the grounds that they are
sociological. Sociologists of knowledge and science, especially in
the United States, might have made their own contributions to the
post-positivist critique of know- ledge and science had they more
closely followed the leads of Mannheim and Mills. Despite the
ambiguities of their views
- in that they often seem to be providing a critique of
positivistic science, while, at other times, holding that there
exists a reality which is fully independent of the human observer
("independent facts" and "regularities" in nature, for example) -
they recognized, as most sociologists do not, the social nature of
language, percep- tion,
concept-formation, verificatory models, truth, and knowledge. It
is ironic that sociologists, with all their pretensions to high
science and their frequent excuse that sociology is only a "young
science", should have failed to follow the leads provided by these
two men. Instead it has been scholars
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from outside the sociological community - men like Kuhn,
Feyerabend, Toulmin, and Winch - who have been the most highly
critical of the dominant positivist views of science.
Kuhn, for example, raises questions about the notion of
theory-independent observation by pointing out that a theory
(1962:102) is a "conceptual net- work through which scientists view
the world". He asserts that (Kuhn, 1970a:192) "People do not see
stimuli: our knowledge of them is highly theoretical and abstract".
And Feyerabend (1962:29) notes that: "Intro- ducing a new theory
involves changes of outlook both with respect to the observable and
with respect to the unobservable features of the world...
Scientific theories are ways of looking at the world; and their
adoption affects our general beliefs and expectations, and thereby
also our experiences and conceptions of reality". What these men
emphasize is that what counts as an observation of this or that, as
well as the meaning of this or that, is theory-dependent. There
are, then, no raw data, no brute facts, but only (Feyerabend,
1962:50-51) data "analysed, modelled and manufactured ac- cording
to some theory".
Genesis and Justification
Among sociologists, Mannheim, Mills, and Merton, to varying
extents, do recognize that truth and knowledge exist only by virtue
of the relevant scientific audience warranting the truth- and
knowledge-claims of individual thinkers. That is to say, they see
that in every science, investigators must use various procedural
rules for deciding whether propositions or statements are to be
judged "factual" and, therefore, to be admitted to the corpus of
scientific knowledge. They were able to recognize, to an extent
that most contemporary sociologists do not, the distinction between
the contexts of discovery and of justification - the first, having
to do with the genesis of the inquirer's ideas; the second, with
his way of presenting the results of his inquiries. They see that
it is in the context of justification that scientific truth and
knowledge are established.
Popper has been extremely critical of the directions taken by
early studies in the sociology of knowledge, but I think he misses
the full implications of these inquiries. For example, he
(1963:216-217) asserts that the sociology of knowledge "shows an
astonishing failure to understand precisely its main subject, the
social aspects of knowledge, or rather of scientific method. It
looks upon science or knowledge as a process in the mind or
'consciousness' of the individual scientist or perhaps as the
product of such a process". What Popper is calling attention to is
the context of justification, with its necessary
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reliance on procedural rules or, what he refers to as,
"scientific method". Popper shows his position most clearly in
contrasting his view with, what he regards as, the sociological
view (Popper, 1963:216-217):
If scientific objectivity were founded, as the sociologistic
theory of know- ledge naively assumes, upon the individual
scientist's impartiality or ob- jectivity, then we should have to
say good-bye to it. . .No, what we usually mean by the term rests
on different grounds. It is a matter of scientific method. .
.Scientific objectivity can be described as the inter-subjectivity
of scientific method. But this social aspect of science is almost
entirely neglected by those who call themselves sociologists of
knowledge.
While many sociologists of knowledge do neglect the social
aspects of science, this accusation is not correct for the writers
being considered here. Merton (1970b:220) points out that a variety
of scientific observations in seven- teenth century England "were
imbued with significance through contact with other scientists".
That is, (Merton, 1970b:219), "the investigator is com- pelled to
set up critical experiments which will satisfy the other scientists
engaged in the same cooperative activity". And Mannheim and Mills
stress this throughout the work being examined here, as was seen in
earlier pages of this essay. Furthermore, all three went beyond
Popper, to emphasize, in a way that he does not, the full extent to
which the "social aspects of know- ledge" are relevant to
knowledge-claims and, at the same time, subject to the influence of
social-historical conditions. Only a hint of this is found in
Merton's early dissertation, where his focus was on other matters.
But he does firmly indicate (Merton, 1970b:220) that the individual
scientist must "devise a proof or demonstration in terms of the
approved canons of scientific verification present in his culture".
This statement certainly suggests an awareness that these canons of
verification may be different in other cultures and at other times.
Speaking of the verification of knowledge, Mannheim (1972:259)
points out that the "very principles, in the light of which
knowledge is to be criticized, are themselves found to be socially
and historically conditioned".
It was C. Wright Mills, however, who was the most explicit as to
the social influences on the criteria and standards involved in
justifying various claims to knowledge and truth. For example, he
considers the "official and mono- polistic paradigm of validation
and truth accepted by medieval scholas- ticism", and goes on to
observe that (Mills, 1963:455) "There have been and are diverse
canons and criteria of validity and truth, and these criteria, upon
which determinations of the truthfulness of propositions at any
time depend, are themselves, in their persistence and change,
legitimately open to social-
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historical relativization". Speaking of the current "scientific"
thought-model, he notes that this model distinguishes between the
genesis of an inquiry and the truth of its results (Mills,
1963:458):
For this paradigm demands that assertions be verified by certain
opera- tions which do not depend upon the motives or social
position of the assertor. Social position does not directly affect
the truthfulness of pro- positions tested by this verificatory
model. But social positions may well affect whether or not it or
some other model is used by types of thinkers today and in other
periods. By no means have all thinkers in all times employed this
particular verificatory model.
Mannheim, Mills, and Merton, then, all give considerable
attention to the context of justification and to the social
conditions influencing what criteria and standards are viewed as
relevant to the processes of validation of know- ledge-claims. They
also, however, consider the relevance of the genesis of ideas and
statements for their truth-value or validity. Mannheim argues that
the genesis of an idea may be relevant to its validity, while Mills
and Merton (at least in his earlier writings) maintain that the
validity of an idea is not dependent upon its genesis. They both
argue that the motives or social posi- tion of an inquirer are
irrelevant to the truth of his assertions, because the
warrantability of his assertions is done by the scientific or other
community to which he directs his assertions. Mills, though, points
out that social posi- tions are important in the sense that they
may affect which verificatory models are used by different
communities or audiences at different times. All three of these men
are in general agreement, however, that truth-claims are settled in
the scientific or intellectual community. It is by meeting various
public criteria which satisfy other scientists or thinkers that
truth is estab- lished.
Still, Mannheim and Merton, especially in his more recent
writings, often talk as if there were some one "correct" position
from which phenomena are to be viewed. This is clear in Merton's
(1972) article on "Insiders and Outsiders" and in Mannheim's
(1972:80) assertion that: "What is needed ... is a con- tinual
readiness to recognize that every point of view is particular to a
certain definite situation and to find out through analysis of what
this particularity consists". Mannheim, as we know, believed there
was one social group which was able to free itself from the
influence of such particularisms: the un- attached intelligentsia.
I have criticized this view at length elsewhere (Phillips, 1973),
and will not repeat my criticisms here. Rather, what I want to
argue now is that there is a sense in which the genesis of ideas is
relevant to their truth, and that, further, such a viewpoint does
not assume the epistemologi-
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cally-privileged position of Mannheim's unattached
intelligentsia. Instead, it follows directly from the basic canons
of the sociology of knowledge as formulated by Mannheim and
Mills.
Simply stated, my thesis is as follows. Since it is the
scientific community (and here I speak of it as a monolithic whole,
although obviously it is not) which produces scientific truths and
knowledge, and since further, the scien- tific community does
consider the genesis of ideas as relevant to their truth, then
indeed genesis does affect the truth of a scientist's assertions.
That is to say, those who accredit the truth- and knowledge-claims
of the individual scientist may give close attention to his social
position as serving to establish what Gouldner terms the
scientist's credibility.
In a sense, then, Mannheim and others who emphasize the
importance of the social position of the thinker as relevant to the
truth of his assertions are right. But this is not, as Mannheim
seemed to believe, because some persons are in a better position
than others to see or discover the truth. That is, we need not
accept Mannheim's argument as regards, for example, the un-
attached intelligentsia occupying an epistemologically privileged
position by which they acquire a kind of "purified" mind allowing
them access to un- distorted reality, which they can then compare
with the distorted images held by others. No, the social position
of the thinker is important to the truth of various assertions
because it is one of the factors considered as relevant by the
scientific communities which produce truth and knowledge.
What I have been trying to emphasize here is that the communal
nature of the context of justification does not preclude
considerations of the genesis of the thinker's ideas. And just as
attributions of credibility may be dependent on the social position
of the thinkers, so may they be dependent on such factors as his
"motives". If a scientific audience responds to a man's publication
by arguing, that "Of course, he'd say that; he's just trying to get
even with Y" or something similar, this means that the (attributed)
motives of the thinker do play a part in the process by which his
assertions are or are not accepted as "true" by the scientific
community. If he is seen as having low credibility, there is less
likelihood of there being communal attributions of truth to his
work than if his credibility is seen as high.
One of the difficulties with Mannheim's and Mills' treatment of
genesis is that they formulate the relationship between the genesis
of an idea and its validity or scientific truth as if it were a
private matter. They view the solitary individual thinker as
setting forth ideas which may or may not be affected by his
motives, social position, and the social conditions of his inquiry.
Then, the
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84
thinker's ideas or assertions are verified by (Mills, 1963:458)
"certain opera- tions which do not depend upon the motives or
social position of the assertor". True, Mills does point out that
there may be other verificatory models than the one which is
dominant today. But he fails to see the inherent contradiction of
regarding the assertor's motives and social position as if they
were fully independent of the process of verification. This may,
indeed, be the model which scientists say they follow - where the
contexts of discovery and justification are separate and
independent - but in the actual practice of science it is
otherwise.
The problem for the assertor is to convince the scientific
community in which he shares membership to warrant the truth or
validity of his assertions. In the actual process of verification,
they may or may not attribute certain motives to him, they may or
may not view his social position as having affected his scientific
assertions. Of course, they, like some sociologists of knowledge,
will regard these not as attributions but as "discoveries". But it
is they who- in the final analysis - provide whatever linkages are
said to exist between the assertor's motives, for instance, and his
assertions. Putting it another way, if the scientific community
decides that an individual thinker's motives are relevant to the
truth of his assertions, then they are relevant. It simply makes no
sense to argue, for example, that his motives are "really"
irrelevant but that this is unknown to the scientific community.
For only they can decide matters of what is and is not relevant for
scientific truth. After all, they decide what is to count as a
"motive" or as "relevant" in such matters. There is no higher court
of appeal, no superior vantage point from which such matters can be
surveyed or settled.
Relativism and Rationality
Finally, with regard to the sociological studies of Kuhn, I wish
to offer a few remarks as to the issues of relativism and
rationality raised by Mannheim and Mills more than thirty years
ago. The same difficulties ensuing from the standpoints of these
two earlier thinkers are recognized as major problems in science
and intellectual life today. But whereas they were a reason for
rejecting many aspects of a sociology of knowledge orientation at
that time, today they are taken as topics for serious contemplation
and discussion.
One of the consequences of Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions, then, is to raise anew important questions about the
relativism of scientific standards and intellectual viewpoints.
Since Kuhn regards paradigms as sovereign, as providing alternative
world-views, this means that those scientists working within one
paradigm share no theoretical concepts with
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85
scientists working under its rivals or predecessors. Lacking a
common vocabulary, they may be unable to communicate with one
another, and are, consequently, unable to even formulate topics for
discussion or disagreement. From Kuhn's standpoint, there is simply
no vocabularly for comparing and contrasting the respective
theoretical positions of men operating under dif- ferent scientific
paradigms. Although Kuhn has revised his views several times since
the initial publication of his book in 1962, the problem raised by
Kuhn remains. Of course, Kuhn did not really "raise" this problem,
as it is one that has long plagued serious thinkers (see, for
example, Collingwood, 1940). Whatever its origins, however, the
problem remains.
If, as Kuhn, and in an inconsistent manner, Mannheim and Mills,
argue, the concepts and standards accepted as authoritative in
different milieux lead scientists to define the world in different
ways, how can one find an impartial standpoint of rationality and
thus escape the throes of relativism? How can one, for instance,
compare scientific theories and decide which is the best? From what
viewpoint can this be done? Kuhn (1970:264) responds to accusations
of relativism by asserting that "one scientific theory is not as
good as another for doing what scientists normally do". But this
statement is highly ambiguous. Does it mean what scientists usually
(ordinarily) do, or what they ideally (properly, normatively) do?
If he means what they "usually" do, then there is no basis for
criticizing the actual practices of a scientific com- munity. If he
means what they "ideally" do, then apparently he is an abso-
lutist, holding that there are abstract, timeless, criteria of
rationality. Should the latter be Kuhn's meaning, then he is
abandoning his original thesis.
Whatever the ambiguities in Kuhn's position, he has been
responsible for forcefully reminding us of the problem.
Furthermore, he has stressed the need for a more historical and
sociological approach to science. And I think that certain aspects
of Mannheim's and Mills' writings give rise to the same concerns.
All three writers argue that men think in terms of the intellectual
and social "frames of reference", "universes of discourse",
"technical languages", "social categories", and "presuppositions"
available to them in their own culture or group. These determine
what they can see, what they regard as evidence, as compelling, as
consistent, and so on. Since men's standards and preferences vary
between different cultures and historical milieux, what
intellectual or social authority can be claimed for one set of
standards or preferences rather than another? The thorough-going
relativist concedes final authority to the standards current in a
particular milieu, at the same time denying that those standards
have any relevance or authority out- side that milieu. This is
almost precisely the position taken by Mannheim and Mills with what
they call "relationalism", where they argue that intellectual
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86
criteria can only be formulated in terms of the perspective of a
given situa- tion. As I noted earlier, this strikes me as fully
relativistic.
Central to Kuhn's work and underlying the position of Mannheim
and Mills then, is the necessity for philosophers of science and
sociologists of know- ledge to recognize the choice between the
relativist approach, where the particular conceptual and
theoretical systems current in one's own scientific milieu are
treated as locally sovereign; and the absolutist approach, where
certain abstract, ideal, universal standards are imposed on all
milieux alike. If one accepts the basic canons of Mannheim and
Mills and the conclusions of Kuhn's work, then one must choose the
relativist position. Choosing the absolutist position, on the other
hand, involves rejection of the basic tenets of the sociology of
knowledge and of recent studies, like Kuhn's, in the history of
science. The decisive question, of course, is: Can one maintain the
relativist viewpoint, and, at the same time, defend one's own
standpoint as rational? Toulmin (1972) has dealt at length with
this question as to whether there is a middle ground between the
absolutist and relativist extremes. While his arguments concerning
this problem are intriguing, I do not feel that he has provided a
satisfactory alternative to the absolutist/relativist dilemma.
But there remains a problem. If, indeed, people like Kuhn and
Toulmin believe that some theories are better than others - so that
they prefer their theories to those of Popper and Lakatos - how do
they decide? Since they reject the existence of universal
demarcation criteria which distinguish good from bad theories, what
criteria do they and their audiences share that allow them to
claim, and understand one another when they do, that "this" way of
looking at science is preferable to "that" way? Of course, Kuhn
claims that consensus concerning scientific knowledge is rather
quickly arrived at in scientific communities. But this is certainly
not the case in the philosophy or history of science, and most
assuredly not in contemporary sociology. Given conflicting
theories, how are some able to survive while others are not?
Whereas Toulmin (1972) suggests a kind of survival of the fittest,
this is not a terribly comfortable position to accept. Nor, on the
other hand, can one be comfortable with the view that those
theories survive whose advocates are the strongest. That is to say,
while there are powerful elites in science as else- where, it is
not, I believe, the case that "might makes right". In short, if we
reject the taken-for-granted belief in the rationality of science
held by most sociologists - as I think we must - what are the full
implications of this for the practice of science and for the way we
individual scientists must live our lives? All of this is, of
course, to raise questions for which neither I nor others concerned
with these problems have ready answers. And, consistent with the
line of inquiry followed here, we must face the question as to what
is necessary for an "answer" to count as an answer.
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87
And with all of these questions, the sociologist must ask "How
do you know"? and "Why should we believe you"? As a beginning, I
suggest that sociologists - especially those concerned with the
sociology of knowledge and science - try to provide answers to a
provocative pair of questions posed by Kuhn (1963:395). He begins
by observing that: "It is not, after all, the individual who
decides whether his discoveries or theoretical inventions shall
become part of the body of established science. Rather it is his
professional community, a community which has and sometimes
exercises the privilege of declaring him a deviant". Kuhn then goes
on to raise two questions that go to the heart of scientific and
intellectual life: "Who are they to bear such responsibility? And
on what ground should we trust their judgment? " The viability and
health of the intellectual life of our time may be dependent on our
ability to confront and answer these questions.
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Article Contentsp. 59p. 60p. 61p. 62p. 63p. 64p. 65p. 66p. 67p.
68p. 69p. 70p. 71p. 72p. 73p. 74p. 75p. 76p. 77p. 78p. 79p. 80p.
81p. 82p. 83p. 84p. 85p. 86p. 87p. 88
Issue Table of ContentsTheory and Society, Vol. 1, No. 1
(Spring, 1974), pp. i-vi+1-116Front MatterToward the New
Objectivity: An Introduction to Theory and Society [pp. i -
v]Speaking Seriously: The Language of Grading [pp. 1 - 15]Marxism
and Social Theory [pp. 17 - 35]Habermas Talking: An Interview [pp.
37 - 58]Epistemology and the Sociology of Knowledge: The
Contributions of Mannheim, Mills, and Merton [pp. 59 - 88]Watergate
and SociologyWatergate: Harbinger of the American Prince [pp. 89 -
97]Watergate: Conflict and Antagonisms within the Power Elite [pp.
99 - 102]Watergate and Sociological Theory [pp. 103 -
109]Watergate: Government by Negation [pp. 111 - 115]
Back Matter