FROM THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION TO THE MISCONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
Perhaps the most insidious form of irrationalism is The Sociology of Knowledge Thesis. This intellectual development is concerned with determining whether man’s participation in social life has any influence on his knowledge, thought and culture, and if it does, what is the nature and significance of its influence?
Although the term “Sociology of Knowledge” was coined in the 20th century, its origins derive from Plato’s assertion that the lower classes are unfit to pursue the higher kinds of knowledge because their mechanical crafts not only deform their bodies but also confuse their souls. Plato’s classical stance stimulated some modern pioneer in the Sociology of Knowledge, notably Max Weber and Max Scheler. Both Plato and Scheler anticipated the modern/postmodern claim of the Sociology of Knowledge that social circumstance, by shaping the subject of knowing, also determined the objects which came to be known.
In the Middle Ages patterns of life were fixed and defined, and patterns of thought tended to be equally so; ideas appeared as absolute. Soon the social fabric began to unravel. Machiavelli’s remark in the Discourses that thought of the palace was one thing, the thought of the market place quite another, exposed this coming narrative displacement (Paradigm Shift). The developments between the 17th and 19th centuries that led to the development of modern/post modern Sociology of Knowledge was divided between Cartesian Rationalism and Kantian/Newtonian Empiricism.
The Rationalists regarded mathematical propositions as the archetype of truth. As mathematics propositions do not change in content from age to age and from culture to culture, the Rationalists could not concede that different societies might have different systems of knowledge, all equally valid. But if truth is one, error could not be multiformed and its roots could be sought in social life; for instance, in the machinations of privileged classes it was in their interest to keep the people in ignorance. Bacon’s doctrine of “Idols” or sources of delusion set forth in his Novum Organum, illustrates this tendency. The Rationalists thus became the first unmaskers of ideologies.
According to the Empiricists, the content of the mind depends on the basic life experiences and as these are manifestly dissimilar in circumstanced societies, they almost had to assume that reality would be different in each society. Thus, Vico asserted that every phase of history has its own style of thought which provides it with a specific and appropriate cultural mentality. This new mind set was used by two differing schools to engage the Biblical account of creation.
Voltaire called it a piece of stultifying priest craft which no rational person anywhere would accept: how could light exist before the sun? Herder answered that for a desert nation like the ancient Hebrews the dawn creaks before the solar disk appears above the horizon. For them, therefore, the light was before the sun. The problems of the Genesis of error and the genesis of truth were not handled until the end of the 18th century. And even though Kant's achievement synthesized Rationalism and Empiricism, the "Sociology of Knowledge" failed to gain from his advances. Kant's revolution of knowledge claims arose from the meeting of the Individual Mind with the Physical World. The social element was missing at both poles. The Sociology of Knowledge explains Kant's narrowness itself as society determined. Here we see steps towards our long day’s journey into night, the decay of feudal society and the emergence of independent producers had created a desire to "liberate" man from "artificial restriction" of social life. The pre-social or anti social type of man was thought possible and even superior to social man. The primacy of the individual was to transcend the social or collection of individuals linked by social contract.
The 19th century brought a strong reaction against this radical individualism. The ultimate consequences of this phenomena was exposed in Marx's mislabeled "materialistic interpretation of history." Marx wrote in his Introduction to The Critique of Political Economy, "It is not men's consciousness which determines their existence, but on the contrary, their social existence which determines their consciousness." With all of Marx's flaws, he provided the starting point of the development of the Modem Sociology of Knowledge (e.g. how precarious it is that a post modem advocate "uses" the Sociology of Knowledge Thesis to critique the post modern consciousness). From this maze we arbitrarily chose three attempts to characterize the basic attitudes of the Sociology of Knowledge:
(1) The Naturalist School: These prophets emphasize that human beings were creatures of nature before they were creatures of society and tend to see human beings as dominated by certain genetic drives with decisive consequences for emergent mentalities. Nietzsche ascribed to man a "will to power;" if this will is frustrated by a barrier, self consolatory ideas are apt to appear. Therefore for Nietzsche, Christianity is essentially a philosophy of "Sour Grapes," and "slave morality."
Villfredo Pareto's Trattato di sociologia generate is the most elaborate articulation of the Sociology of Knowledge thesis. According to Pareto, men act first and think of reasons for their action only afterward. This school continues the lines initiated by the rationalists. Theirs is a doctrine of ideologies which devalues thought while it accounts for its formation.
(2) The Idealist School: A second group of values asserts that every society has to come to some decision about the absolute and that this decision will act as a basic premise that determines the content of culture. Perhaps the most ambitious presentation of this theory is Pitirim Sorikin's Social and Cultural Dynamics. He distinguishes three basic metaphysics that, as prevailing in given societies, colors all their thinking. If a realm beyond space and time is posited as the absolute, as in ancient India (Hebrews) an "ideational" mentality will spring up, if the realm inside space and time is posited as the absolute, as in the modem West, a "Sensate" mentality will come into being; and if, finally, reality is ascribed both to the here and now and to beyond as in the high Middle Ages, an "idealistic" mentality will be the result. Sorikin's doctrine is itself idealistic in characteristic and finds its ultimate inspiration in a religious attitude.
(3) Sociology of Knowledge: The third group of prophets do not go beyond the human sphere but divide it into a primary and conditioning half and a secondary and conditioned one. As is to be expected, there is a vast difference between primary and secondary conditions. These values determine what lines of endeavor will be pursued both in practice and its theory. The third group has the most empirical justification. Societies do gain mental consistency to the degree that they achieve better human coordination and integration.
Derivative Problems: How to identify the substructure of knowledge and its relationship to the superstructure. There are three clear schools who respond to this problem: The positivist Hippolyte Taine expected the future of science of culture would be no less deterministic than the sociality of matter. This positivistic perspective concedes no independence to the mind and its contents. The Platonic tendency ascribes complete independence to the mind. To Scheler, et al., thinking means participating in eternal pre-existent ideas. Max Weber has called this doctrine the doctrine of "elective affinity." A third theory argues in terms of "interdependence and appears regularly in terms of connection with Functionalism (see my essay, "Functionalism and Post Modern Hermeneutic?"). If society is to function as a unity, its modes of acting and thinking must be in or on the way to agreement. Neither Substructure nor Superstructure is given ontological priority, but there is a tendency to see thought in action as prior to thought as theory (see especially Nicholas Lobkowicz, Theory in Practice: A History of a Concept From Aristotle to Marx (University of Notre Dame, 1967). The extent of influence range from manual to total causal connection. This issue stems from those who assert that the "categories of thought" themselves are "socially determined" to those who deny that they are (see my essays on Revisionist History and Anti-Science for post modem epistemological and cultural relativism).
The Sociology of Knowledge thesis claims to supplement, if not replace, all forms of classical epistemology (for this narrative displacement see my "Whatever Happened to True Truth?" and "The Truth Lost in An Army of Metaphors"). If society partially or totally determines knowing and thinking how does this affect their validity? All species of Sociology of knowledge theories stress that initially the human mind is never aware of more than a sector of reality and that the selection of a sector to be investigated is dependent on the axiological system which a given society has made its own. From this perspective they diverge once again into at least three schools: (I) Effect of Social Factors on Thought: Pareto, et al., claim that only the senses are reliable sources of knowledge. This entails a split between mental universe into Scientific and Non Scientific compartments. The non scientific mode at best entails a "conceptual status", but no true truth value. The denigration of the social elements in human beings and hence of human knowledge is responded to by both Emile Durkheim and Karl Mannheim with the exact opposite conclusion who see the individual as the most direct source of truth. They regard society as the truth of the validity of a belief, but if truth works differently in different societies, then truth is merely connection!! We have arrived at the irrational post modem temple!
A third group including Max Weber and Max Scheler considers that social influence on mental activity consists essentially in "giving direction." Max Scheler (1874-1928) was a German phenomenologist and social philosopher. He was influenced by Rudoph Euchean, Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl (See especially Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement (2 volumes. The Hague, 1960), vol. I, pg. 228-270). What knowledge will be sought in a society depends on the axiological system which reigns in that society (see my essay, "World Views in Conflict" and "Two Cultures in Post Modem Confrontation: Rationalism and Irrationalism"). Sociality is neither truth destroying nor a truth guaranteeing, but merely a truth limiting factor. The resulting imitation can be overcome by combining the valid "aspectal" insights of all societies into a comprehensive whole. Another crucial factor is the distinction between knowledge of nature and knowledge of culture. The facts of nature do not change from age to age and from country to country; the facts of culture do. Knowledge of the former, therefore, need not be marked by relativity. Pareto's theory makes physical knowledge the model of all knowledge. The Mannheim and Durkheim theory fall into the opposite mistake. The theories of Max Weber and Max Scheler attempt to escape the weaknesses in scientific research, only the origins of an insight will be determined by the social structure in cultural studies. The Sociology of Knowledge can throw light on the genesis and often on the content of concrete thought structures. The Sociology of Knowledge thesis is above all a hermeneutical method and must not become involved in the difficult ontological problems which the social "determination" of knowledge, thought and culture is otherwise bound to raise.
A central issue in any discussion of The Sociology of Knowledge thesis is: is there a necessary logical connection and not merely a contingent or causal one between the 'social perspective' of a student of human affairs and his standards of competent social inquiry; Also is there a consequence of the influence of the special values to which he is committed because his own social involvement is not eliminated. Does this suggestion escape Hegelian 'Dialectic' or Marxian "historical relativism"? There must be a distinction between the origin of men's views and their 'factual' validity. All species of the Sociology of Knowledge thesis challenge the universal adequacy of the thesis that "the genesis of a proposition is under all circumstances irrelevant to this truth.'" (see Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (New York, 1959, pp. 271, 288,-292; also Kurt H. Wolff, 1946, "Sociology of Knowledge and Sociological Theory," in Symposium on Sociological Theory (ed. Llewellyn Gross, Evanston, IL, !VP, p 577).
The Sociology of Knowledge does not establish the radical claim that there is no competent evidence to shows that the principles employed in social inquiry for assessing the intellectual products are necessarily determined by the social perspective of the inquirer. The fact usually cited in support of this contention establish at best only a contingent causal relation between a man's social commitments and his canons of cognitive validity. In many forms of post modern thought it is fashionable to say that the "mentality" or logical operation of primitive societies differ from those typical in Western civilization - a discrepancy that has attributed to differences in the institutions of the societies under comparison is now generally recognized to be erroneous because it previously misinterprets the intellectual process of primitive peoples. Are conclusions of mathematics and the natural sciences neutral to differences in social perspective of those asserting them? The genesis of these propositions is irrelevant to their validity. What is the cognitive status of the thesis that the social perspective enters "essentially" into the content as well as the validation of every assertion about human affairs? If all "ideas" are culturally contingent, then there could be no cross cultural communication regarding either their content or validation. Are any claims regarding human affairs "objectively" valid? Is there an intrinsic impossibility of securing objective, i.e., value free and unbiased conclusions? (See Ernst Nagel, The Structure of Science: Problems in The Logic of Scientific Explanation (NY: Harcourt, Brace, 1961) and my essay," Theories of Logic")