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{{short description|Study of science as a social activity}}
The '''sociology of scientific knowledge''' (SSK), closely related to the ], considers social influences on ]. Practioners include ], ] , Michel Callon, ], Elihu M. Gerson, ], ], John Law, ], Susan Leigh Star, Anslem Strauss, Lucy Suchman, ''etc''. whose work inspired the development of the ] of Bill Kornfeld and ]. These thinkers (], ], ], ] and ]) have engaged in controversy concerning the role that social factors play in scientific development relative to ], ], ''etc.'' factors.
{{See also|Science and technology studies|Technology and society|Science studies|Social construction of technology}}
], ], ]. Use of balloons to explore fundamental ].]]
{{Sociology}}
{{Science|expanded=Society}}

The '''sociology of scientific knowledge''' ('''SSK''') is the study of ] as a social activity, especially dealing with "the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity."<ref name=socofsci-bendavid>{{cite journal
|title = Sociology of Science
|first = Joseph
|last = Ben-David
|author2=Teresa A. Sullivan
|journal = ]
|volume = 1
|issue = 1
|year = 1975
|pages = 203–222
|url = http://www.compilerpress.atfreeweb.com/Anno%20Ben%20David%20&%20Sullivan%20Sociology%20of%20Science%20ARS%201975.htm
|access-date = 2006-11-29
|doi = 10.1146/annurev.so.01.080175.001223
|author2-link = Teresa A. Sullivan
}}</ref> The ] (SSI) is complementary to the sociology of scientific knowledge.<ref name=socofig-stocking>{{cite journal
|title = On Drawing Attention to Ignorance
|first = Holly
|last = Stocking
|journal = ]
|volume = 20
|issue = 1
|year = 1998
|pages = 165–178
|doi = 10.1177/1075547098020001019
|s2cid = 145791904
}}</ref><ref name=socofig-wehling>{{cite journal
|title = Beyond knowledge? Scientific ignorance from a sociological point of view
|first = Peter
|last = Wehling
|journal = {{ill|Zeitschrift für Soziologie|de}}
|volume = 30
|issue = 6
|year = 2001
|pages = 465–484
|url = http://zfs-online.org/index.php/zfs/article/viewFile/1091/628
|access-date = 2013-01-19
}}</ref> For comparison, the ] studies the impact of human ] and the prevailing ideas on societies and relations between knowledge and the social context within which it arises.

]s of scientific knowledge study the development of a ] and attempt to identify points of contingency or interpretative flexibility where ambiguities are present.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Baber|first=Zaheer|date=1992|editor-last=Ashmore|editor-first=Malcolm|editor2-last=Bhaskar|editor2-first=Roy|editor3-last=Mukerji|editor3-first=Chandra|editor4-last=Woolgar|editor4-first=Steve|editor5-last=Yearley|editor5-first=Steven|title=Sociology of Scientific Knowledge: Lost in the Reflexive Funhouse?|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/657625|journal=Theory and Society|volume=21|issue=1|pages=105–119|doi=10.1007/BF00993464 |jstor=657625 |s2cid=145211615 |issn=0304-2421}}</ref> Such variations may be linked to a variety of ], ], ] or ] factors. Crucially, the field does not set out to promote ] or to attack the scientific project; the objective of the researcher is to explain why one interpretation rather than another succeeds due to external social and historical circumstances.

The field emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s and at first was an almost exclusively British practice. Other early centers for the development of the field were in France, Germany, and the United States (notably at ]).<ref>{{Cite web|title=Department of Sociology {{!}} Department of Sociology Cornell Arts & Sciences|url=https://sociology.cornell.edu/|access-date=2021-09-05|website=sociology.cornell.edu}}</ref> Major theorists include ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] and ].


==Programmes and schools== ==Programmes and schools==
The sociology of scientific knowledge in its Anglophone versions emerged in the 1970s in self-conscious opposition to the sociology of science associated with the American ], generally considered one of the seminal authors in the sociology of science. Merton's was a kind of "sociology of scientists," which left the cognitive content of science out of sociological account; SSK by contrast aimed at providing sociological explanations of scientific ideas themselves, taking its lead from aspects of the work of ],{{sfn|Fleck|1935}}{{sfn|Fleck|1979}} ],<ref>{{Citation|last=KUHN|first=THOMAS|title=The Structure of Scientific Revolutions|date=2021-06-08|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1jk0jrs.26|work=Philosophy after Darwin|pages=176–177|publisher=Princeton University Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctv1jk0jrs.26 |s2cid=236228428 |access-date=2021-09-05}}</ref> but especially from established traditions in cultural anthropology (Durkheim, Mauss) as well as the ]. ], one of SSK's early champions, has contrasted the so-called 'weak programme' (or 'program'—either spelling is used) which merely gives social explanations for erroneous beliefs, with what he called the ']me', which considers sociological factors as influencing all beliefs.


The ''weak'' programme is more of a description of an approach than an organised movement. The term is applied to historians, sociologists and philosophers of science who merely cite ] factors as being responsible for those beliefs that went wrong. ] and (in some moods) Thomas S. Kuhn might be said to adhere to it. The ''strong'' programme is particularly associated with the work of two groups: the ''''Edinburgh School'''' (], ], and their colleagues at the Science Studies Unit at the ]) in the 1970s and '80s, and the ''''Bath School'''' (] and others at the ]) in the same period. "Edinburgh sociologists" and "Bath sociologists" promoted, respectively, the Strong Programme and Empirical Programme of Relativism (EPOR). Also associated with SSK in the 1980s was discourse analysis as applied to science (associated with ] at the University of York), as well as a concern with issues of reflexivity arising from paradoxes relating to SSK's relativist stance towards science and the status of its own knowledge-claims (Steve Woolgar, Malcolm Ashmore).<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Mulkay|first1=Michael|last2=Gilbert|first2=G. Nigel|date=1982|title=What is the Ultimate Question? Some Remarks in Defence of the Analysis of Scientific Discourse|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/030631282012002006|journal=Social Studies of Science|volume=12|issue=2|pages=309–319|doi=10.1177/030631282012002006|s2cid=144024114 |issn=0306-3127}}</ref>
] has contrasted the so-called '''weak programme''' (or 'program' &mdash; either spelling is used) which merely gives social explanations for erroneous beliefs, with what he called the ''']''', which considers sociological factors as influencing all beliefs.


The sociology of scientific knowledge has major international networks through its principal associations, 4S and EASST, with recently established groups in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Latin America. It has made major contributions in recent years to a critical analysis of the biosciences and informatics.
The ''weak'' programme is more of a description of an approach than an organised movement. The term is applied to historians, sociologists and philosophers of science who merely cite ] factors as being responsible for those beliefs that went wrong. ], ], and (in some moods) ] might be said to adhere to it.


==The sociology of mathematical knowledge==
The ''strong'' programme is particularly associated with the work of two groups: the '''Edinburgh School''' (] and his colleagues of the Science Studies Unit at the ]), and the '''Bath School''' (] and others formerly from the Science Studies Unit at the ]). ] is also sometimes considered to be part of this movement. In addition discourse analysis (associated with Michael Mulkay at the University of York) and reflexivity (associated with Malcolm Ashmore at Loughborough University) are often taken to be major strands of the programme.
Studies of ] and ] are also rightly part of the sociology of knowledge since they focus on the community of those who practice ]. Since ] raised the issue in 1960 and ] made it more rigorous in 1975, the question of why fields such as ] and ] should agree so well has been debated. Proposed solutions point out that the fundamental constituents of mathematical thought, space, form-structure, and number-proportion are also the fundamental constituents of physics. It is also worthwhile to note that physics is more than merely modeling of reality and the objective basis is upon observational demonstration. Another approach is to suggest that there is no deep problem, that the division of human scientific thinking through using words such as 'mathematics' and 'physics' is only useful in their practical everyday function to categorize and distinguish.
The strong programme is sometimes labeled as ], especially due to the works of authors such as Latour, but Bloor in his article 'Anti-Latour' claims that even the strong programme is not necessarily committed to a form of ],
responding that in his view the non-social nature, too, plays a central role in belief formation.


Fundamental contributions to the sociology of mathematical knowledge have been made by ] and ]. Restivo draws upon the work of scholars such as ] ('']'', 1918), ]<ref>] (1981) ''Mathematics as a Cultural System''. {{ISBN|0-08-025796-8}}</ref> and ], as well as contemporary sociologists of knowledge and science studies scholars. David Bloor draws upon ] and other contemporary thinkers. They both claim that mathematical knowledge is socially constructed and has irreducible contingent and historical factors woven into it. More recently ] has proposed a social constructivist account of mathematical knowledge, drawing on the works of both of these sociologists.
==Sokal affair==


==Criticism==
Sociology of scientific knowledge became controversial in the ] after the publication of a hoax paper by ] in the journal ], under the title ''Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity''. The ensuing debate (the ]) led to SSK thinkers being accused of ].
SSK has received criticism from theorists of the ] (ANT) school of ]. These theorists criticise SSK for sociological ] and a ] universe. SSK, they say, relies too heavily on human actors and social rules and conventions settling scientific controversies. The debate is discussed in an article titled ''Epistemological Chicken''.<ref>Collins, H. M. and S. Yearley (1992). "Epistemological Chicken". In A. Pickering (Ed.) ''Science as Practice and Culture''. Chicago, Chicago University Press: 301-326. Referenced at University of Lancaster, with the summary "Argues against the generalised symmetry of actor-network, preferring in the interpretive sociology tradition to treat humans as ontologically distinct language carriers". Website accessed 8 February 2011.</ref>


==See also== ==See also==
{{Columns-list|* {{annotated link|Academic careerism}}
* {{annotated link|Cliodynamics}}
* {{annotated link|Economics of scientific knowledge}}
* {{annotated link|Historiography of science}}
* {{annotated link|Paradigm shift}}
* {{annotated link|Philosophy of social science}}
* {{annotated link|Public awareness of science}}
* {{annotated link|Science studies}}
* {{annotated link|Science and technology studies}}
* {{annotated link|Scientific community metaphor}}
* {{annotated link|Social constructionism}}
* {{annotated link|Sociology of knowledge}}
* {{annotated link|Sociology of quantification}}
* {{annotated link|Sociology of scientific ignorance}}
* {{annotated link|Sociology of the history of science}}
Disputes:
* {{annotated link|Bogdanov affair}}
* {{annotated link|Sokal affair}}
}}

==Notes==
{{reflist|2}}


==References==
*]
* {{cite web |url=https://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/students/research-guide |title=Sociology of scientific knowledge – research guide |last=Kusch |first=Martin |date=1998 |access-date=February 23, 2012}}
*]''
*]
*]
*]


==Further reading==
== Some classic sources for SSK: ==
*{{cite web |url=http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/bogdanov.html |title=The Bogdanoff Affair |last=Baez |first=John | author-link = John C. Baez|date=2010}}
*Bloor, David (1976) ''Knowledge and social imagery''. London: Routledge.
*Bloor, David (1999) . '']'' Volume 30, Issue 1, March 1999, Pages 81–112.
*Chu, Dominique (2013), ''The Science Myth---God, society, the self and what we will never know'', {{ISBN|1782790470}}
*Collins, H.M. (1975) '''', 9, 205-24.
*Collins, H.M. (1985). ''''. London: Sage.
*] and ]. (1992). "Epistemological Chicken" in ''Science as Practice and Culture'', A. Pickering (ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 301-326.
*Edwards, D., Ashmore, M. & Potter, J. (1995). . '']'', 8, 25-49.
*{{Cite book|title=Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache. Einführung in die Lehre vom Denkstil und Denkkollektiv|trans-title=Emergence and development of a scientific fact: Introduction to the study of thinking style and thinking collectives|last=Fleck|first=Ludwik|authorlink=Ludwik Fleck|publisher=Schwabe |year=1935|location=Verlagsbuchhandlung, Basel|language=de}}
*{{Cite book|title=Genesis and development of a scientific fact|last=Fleck|first=Ludwik|authorlink=Ludwik Fleck|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=1979|location=Chicago, Illinois}}
*Gilbert, G. N. & Mulkay, M. (1984). ''''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Latour, B. & Woolgar, S. (1986). '']''. 2nd Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (not an SSK-book, but has a similar approach to science studies)
*Latour, B. (1987). ''''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (not an SSK-book, but has a similar approach to science studies)
*Pickering, A. (1984). ''''. Chicago; University of Chicago Press.
*Schantz, Richard and Markus Seidel (2011). ''''. Frankfurt: ontos.
*Shapin, S. & Schaffer, S. (1985). '']''. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
*Williams, R. & Edge, D. (1996). ''The Social Shaping of Technology''. Research Policy, vol. 25, pp.&nbsp;856–899
*Willard, Charles Arthur. (1996). '''', University of Chicago Press.
*Zuckerman, Harriet. (1988). "The sociology of science." In NJ Smelser (Ed.), Handbook of '''sociology''' (p.&nbsp;511–574). London: Sage.
*], S. Markle, G. Pinch T. & Petersen, J. (Eds)(2002), ''Handbook of science, technology and society'', Rev Ed.. London: Sage.


;Other relevant materials
*Collins, H.M. (1975) The seven sexes: A study in the sociology of a phenomenon, or the replication of experiments in physics, Sociology, 9, 205-24.
*{{cite book|last=Becker|first=Ernest|title=The structure of evil; an essay on the unification of the science of man|url=https://archive.org/details/structureofevile00beckrich|url-access=registration|location=New York|publisher=G. Braziller|year=1968|author-link=Ernest Becker}}
*Collins, H.M. (1985). Changing order: Replication and induction in scientific practice. London: Sage.
*{{cite journal | last=Shapin | first=Steven | title=Here and Everywhere: Sociology of Scientific Knowledge | journal=Annual Review of Sociology | publisher=Annual Reviews | volume=21 | year=1995 | pages=289–321 | doi=10.1146/annurev.so.21.080195.001445 | s2cid=3395517 | url=https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3219885/DARK_shapin-Here_and_Everywhere_1995.pdf?sequence=1 }}
*Edwards, D., Ashmore, M. & Potter, J. (1995). Death and furniture: The rhetoric, politics, and theology of bottom line arguments against relativism. History of the Human Sciences, 8, 25-49.
*
*Gilbert, G. N. & Mulkay, M. (1984). Opening Pandora’s box: A sociological analysis of scientists’ discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*
*Latour, B. & Woolgar, S. (1986). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. 2nd Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
* (includes questions posed to David Bloor and Bruno Latour related to their dispute, in Appendix)
*Latour, B. (1987). Science in action : how to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
*Pickering, A. (1984) Constructing Quarks: A sociological history of particle physics. Chicago; University of Chicago Press.
*Shapin, S. & Schaffer, S. (1985). Leviathan and the air-pump. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.


== External links ==
== For a recent sourcebook see: ==
*{{PhilPapers|category|sociology-of-science|Sociology of Science}}


{{Sociology2}}
*Jasanoff, S. Markle, G. Pinch T. & Petersen, J. (Eds)(2002), Handbook of science, technology and society, Rev Ed.. London: Sage.
{{philosophy of science}}
{{Science and technology studies}}
{{Population}}
{{Authority control}}


] ]
] ]
] ]
]

Latest revision as of 02:48, 17 December 2024

Study of science as a social activity See also: Science and technology studies, Technology and society, Science studies, and Social construction of technology
A hands-on activity at the 2014 Cambridge Science Festival, Cambridge, United Kingdom. Use of balloons to explore fundamental mathematics.
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The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing with "the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." The sociology of scientific ignorance (SSI) is complementary to the sociology of scientific knowledge. For comparison, the sociology of knowledge studies the impact of human knowledge and the prevailing ideas on societies and relations between knowledge and the social context within which it arises.

Sociologists of scientific knowledge study the development of a scientific field and attempt to identify points of contingency or interpretative flexibility where ambiguities are present. Such variations may be linked to a variety of political, historical, cultural or economic factors. Crucially, the field does not set out to promote relativism or to attack the scientific project; the objective of the researcher is to explain why one interpretation rather than another succeeds due to external social and historical circumstances.

The field emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s and at first was an almost exclusively British practice. Other early centers for the development of the field were in France, Germany, and the United States (notably at Cornell University). Major theorists include Barry Barnes, David Bloor, Sal Restivo, Randall Collins, Gaston Bachelard, Harry Collins, Karin Knorr Cetina, Paul Feyerabend, Steve Fuller, Martin Kusch, Bruno Latour, Mike Mulkay, Derek J. de Solla Price, Lucy Suchman and Anselm Strauss.

Programmes and schools

The sociology of scientific knowledge in its Anglophone versions emerged in the 1970s in self-conscious opposition to the sociology of science associated with the American Robert K. Merton, generally considered one of the seminal authors in the sociology of science. Merton's was a kind of "sociology of scientists," which left the cognitive content of science out of sociological account; SSK by contrast aimed at providing sociological explanations of scientific ideas themselves, taking its lead from aspects of the work of Ludwik Fleck, Thomas S. Kuhn, but especially from established traditions in cultural anthropology (Durkheim, Mauss) as well as the late Wittgenstein. David Bloor, one of SSK's early champions, has contrasted the so-called 'weak programme' (or 'program'—either spelling is used) which merely gives social explanations for erroneous beliefs, with what he called the 'strong programme', which considers sociological factors as influencing all beliefs.

The weak programme is more of a description of an approach than an organised movement. The term is applied to historians, sociologists and philosophers of science who merely cite sociological factors as being responsible for those beliefs that went wrong. Imre Lakatos and (in some moods) Thomas S. Kuhn might be said to adhere to it. The strong programme is particularly associated with the work of two groups: the 'Edinburgh School' (David Bloor, Barry Barnes, and their colleagues at the Science Studies Unit at the University of Edinburgh) in the 1970s and '80s, and the 'Bath School' (Harry Collins and others at the University of Bath) in the same period. "Edinburgh sociologists" and "Bath sociologists" promoted, respectively, the Strong Programme and Empirical Programme of Relativism (EPOR). Also associated with SSK in the 1980s was discourse analysis as applied to science (associated with Michael Mulkay at the University of York), as well as a concern with issues of reflexivity arising from paradoxes relating to SSK's relativist stance towards science and the status of its own knowledge-claims (Steve Woolgar, Malcolm Ashmore).

The sociology of scientific knowledge has major international networks through its principal associations, 4S and EASST, with recently established groups in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Latin America. It has made major contributions in recent years to a critical analysis of the biosciences and informatics.

The sociology of mathematical knowledge

Studies of mathematical practice and quasi-empiricism in mathematics are also rightly part of the sociology of knowledge since they focus on the community of those who practice mathematics. Since Eugene Wigner raised the issue in 1960 and Hilary Putnam made it more rigorous in 1975, the question of why fields such as physics and mathematics should agree so well has been debated. Proposed solutions point out that the fundamental constituents of mathematical thought, space, form-structure, and number-proportion are also the fundamental constituents of physics. It is also worthwhile to note that physics is more than merely modeling of reality and the objective basis is upon observational demonstration. Another approach is to suggest that there is no deep problem, that the division of human scientific thinking through using words such as 'mathematics' and 'physics' is only useful in their practical everyday function to categorize and distinguish.

Fundamental contributions to the sociology of mathematical knowledge have been made by Sal Restivo and David Bloor. Restivo draws upon the work of scholars such as Oswald Spengler (The Decline of the West, 1918), Raymond Louis Wilder and Leslie Alvin White, as well as contemporary sociologists of knowledge and science studies scholars. David Bloor draws upon Ludwig Wittgenstein and other contemporary thinkers. They both claim that mathematical knowledge is socially constructed and has irreducible contingent and historical factors woven into it. More recently Paul Ernest has proposed a social constructivist account of mathematical knowledge, drawing on the works of both of these sociologists.

Criticism

SSK has received criticism from theorists of the actor-network theory (ANT) school of science and technology studies. These theorists criticise SSK for sociological reductionism and a human centered universe. SSK, they say, relies too heavily on human actors and social rules and conventions settling scientific controversies. The debate is discussed in an article titled Epistemological Chicken.

See also

Disputes:

Notes

  1. Ben-David, Joseph; Teresa A. Sullivan (1975). "Sociology of Science". Annual Review of Sociology. 1 (1): 203–222. doi:10.1146/annurev.so.01.080175.001223. Retrieved 2006-11-29.
  2. Stocking, Holly (1998). "On Drawing Attention to Ignorance". Science Communication. 20 (1): 165–178. doi:10.1177/1075547098020001019. S2CID 145791904.
  3. Wehling, Peter (2001). "Beyond knowledge? Scientific ignorance from a sociological point of view". Zeitschrift für Soziologie [de]. 30 (6): 465–484. Retrieved 2013-01-19.
  4. Baber, Zaheer (1992). Ashmore, Malcolm; Bhaskar, Roy; Mukerji, Chandra; Woolgar, Steve; Yearley, Steven (eds.). "Sociology of Scientific Knowledge: Lost in the Reflexive Funhouse?". Theory and Society. 21 (1): 105–119. doi:10.1007/BF00993464. ISSN 0304-2421. JSTOR 657625. S2CID 145211615.
  5. "Department of Sociology | Department of Sociology Cornell Arts & Sciences". sociology.cornell.edu. Retrieved 2021-09-05.
  6. Fleck 1935.
  7. Fleck 1979.
  8. KUHN, THOMAS (2021-06-08), "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Philosophy after Darwin, Princeton University Press, pp. 176–177, doi:10.2307/j.ctv1jk0jrs.26, S2CID 236228428, retrieved 2021-09-05
  9. Mulkay, Michael; Gilbert, G. Nigel (1982). "What is the Ultimate Question? Some Remarks in Defence of the Analysis of Scientific Discourse". Social Studies of Science. 12 (2): 309–319. doi:10.1177/030631282012002006. ISSN 0306-3127. S2CID 144024114.
  10. Raymond Wilder (1981) Mathematics as a Cultural System. ISBN 0-08-025796-8
  11. Collins, H. M. and S. Yearley (1992). "Epistemological Chicken". In A. Pickering (Ed.) Science as Practice and Culture. Chicago, Chicago University Press: 301-326. Referenced at ANT resource list University of Lancaster, with the summary "Argues against the generalised symmetry of actor-network, preferring in the interpretive sociology tradition to treat humans as ontologically distinct language carriers". Website accessed 8 February 2011.

References

Further reading

Other relevant materials

External links

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