On the Conventional Character of Knowledge and Cognition

The sociology of knowledge has had a chequered history. At one point, soon after the war, it appeared about to expire completely, and sociologists and epistemologists, concurring in the Pelagian misconceptions of the time, were tempted into premature obsequies. How premature is now all too clearly apparent. Over the last decade the subject has enjoyed a widespread and vigorous revival, so that its continuing existence and significance is no longer in doubt. Its problems are favoured foci for empirical investigation and theoretical analysis. Its practice is at last satisfactorily woven into the overall texture of sociological research. In its current form, the sociology of knowledge is less restrictively conceived than heretofore. It no longer attempts to study the content of cognition without any reference to cognitive processes and the contexts of activity wherein they are situated. Nor does it heed any evaluative distinction betwe.en knowledge and accepted belief. Traditional scruples about addressing what is true, or valid, or rationally justified, have been overcome. Knowledge in general is held to be constitutively social in character, and hence an appropriate subject for sociological enquiry. Indeed, our own natural science is a prominent focus for researchempirical research upon the generation, evaluation and employment of scientific culture, which recognizes no a priori constraints upon the form of its results. Whereas earlier work in the sociology of knowledge was (paradoxically) inspired by the need to account for erroneous or distorted cognition, today the basis of our own routine, ‘rational’ cognitive processes is the predominant concern: we have grown more authentically curious about ourselves.’