The Problem of the Sociology of Knowledge

The Problem of the Sociology of Knowledge 
The basic contentions of the argument of this book are implicit in its title and sub-title, namely, that reality is socially constructed and that the sociology of knowledge must analyse the process in which this occurs. The key terms in these contentions are 'reality' and 'knowledge', terms that are not only current in everyday speech, but that have behind them a long history of philosophical inquiry. We need not enter here into a discussion of the semantic intricacies of either the everyday or the philosophical usage of these terms. It will be enough, for our purposes, to define 'reality' as a quality appertaining to phenomena that we recognize as having a being independent of our own volition (we cannot 'wish them away'), and to define 'knowledge' as the certainty that phenomena are real and that they possess specific characteristics. It is in this (admittedly simplistic) sense that the terms have relevance both to the man in the street and to the philosopher. The man in the street inhabits a world that is 'real' to him, albeit in different degrees, and he 'knows', with difefrent degrees of confidence, that this world possesses such and such characteristics. The philosopher, of course, will raise questions about the ultimate status of both this 'reality' and this 'knowledge'. What is real? How is one to know? These are among the most ancient questions not only of philosophical inquiry proper, but of human thought as such. Precisely for this reason the intrusion of the sociologist into this time-honoured intellectual territory is likely to raise the eyebrows of the man in the street and even more likely to enrage the philosopher. It is, therefore, important that we clarify at the begingnin the sense in which we use these terms in the context of sociology, and that we immediately disclaim any pretension to the effect that sociology has an answer to these ancient philosophical preoccupations. 
13 
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OP REALITY 
If we were going to be meticulous in the ensuing argument, we would put quotation marks around the two aforementioned terms every time we used them, but this would be stylistically awkward. To speak of quotation marks, however, may give a clue to the peculiar manner in which these terms appear in a sociological context. One could say that the sociological understanding of 'reality' and 'knowledge' falls somewhere in the middle between that of the man in the street and that of the philosopher. The man .in the street does not ordinarily trouble himself about what is 'real' to him and about what he 'knows' unless he is stopped short by some sort of problem. He takes his 'reality' and his. 'knowledge' for granted. The sociologist cannot do this, if only because of his systematic awareness of the fact that men in the street take quite different 'realities' for granted as between one society and another. The sociologist is forced by the very logic of his discipline to ask, if nothing else, whether the difference between the two 'realities' may not be understood in relation to various differences between the two societies. The philosopher, on the other hand, is professionally obligated to take nothing for granted, and to obtain maximal clarity as to the ultimate status of what the man in the street believes to be 'reality' and 'knowledge'. Put differently, the philosopher is driven to decide where the quotation marks are in order and where they may safely be omitted, that is, to diffe:entiate between valid and invalid assertions about the world. This the sociologist cannot possibly do. Logically, if not stylistically, he is stuck with the quotation marks. For example, the man in the street may believe that he possesses 'freedom of the will' and that he is therefore 'responsible' for his actions, at the same time denying this 'freedom' and this 'responsibility' to infants and lunatics. The philosopher, by whatever methods, will inquire into the ontological and epistemological status of these conceptions. Is man free? What is responsibility? Where are the limits of responsibility? HOfJJ can one knor.o these things? And so on. Needless to say, the socio­ logist is in no position to supply answers to these questions. What he can and must do, however, is to ask how it is that the notion of 'freedom' has come to be taken for granted in one society and not in another, how its 'reality' is maintained in 
INTRODUCTION 
the one socie'r and how, ev� m�r� interestingly, this 'reality' may once agam be lost to an mdiVIdual or to an entire collectivity. . Socio�o�.cal �terc:st in questions of'reality' and 'knowledge' IS thus 1Illtially JUStified by the fact of their social relativity. What is 'real' to a Tibetan monk may not be 'real' to an A:me