Knowledge and Utility: Implications for the Sociology of Knowledge

Abstract

In this paper an attempt is made to widen the scope of the current debate about the possibility of subjecting scientific knowledge to sociological analysis. It is suggested that in identifying scientific knowledge as epistemologically special, and as exempt from sociological analysis, sociologists have tended to make two basic assumptions; namely that scientific theories can be clearly validated by successful practical application and that the general theoretical formulations of science do regularly generate such practical applications. These assumptions, as customarily interpreted, pose a major challenge for any sociological analysis which views scientific knowledge as the contingent outcome of interpretative and context-dependent social acts. It is argued, however, in some detail, that the validity of these assumptions is doubtful and that the usefulness of science is no barrier to the full sociological analysis of scientific knowledge.