Sociology of Knowledge
Code
711081071
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Sociologia
Credits
6
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
1. Ability to identify and analyse the processes of social construction of knowledge;
2. Understanding the differences between common sense and sociological thought;
3. Knowledge and understanding of the theoretical contributions of several authors from classical proposals to the new sociologies of knowledge to the sociological analysis of knowledge.
4. Ability to investigate the construction processes of vulgar and specialized knowledge, differentiating the methods and general principles that guide the scientific interpretation of the constructed facts and the common interpretation of the same facts as socially experienced.
Prerequisites
Subject matter
1-Ideology, Utopia and Science Knowledge as a Socially Situated Production, Karl Mannheim, Robert K. Merton, Georg Lukacs
2-Critical Theory, Knowledge and Aesthetic Uniformization, Max Horkheimer e Theodor W. Adorno
3-Normal Science and Khuns Paradigm Shift, Thomas S. Khun
4-Social Constructivism, Peter Berger e Thomas Luckmann
5-Structural Constructivism, Piere Bourdieu
6-Elias and the Reconceptualization of Sociological Knowledge, Norbert Elias e Howard S. Becker
7-The Strong Programme of Edinburgh, David Bloor
8-Power, Classification and Knowledge, Michel Foucault, C. Wright Mills, Norbert Elias
9-The New Sociology of Knowledge, Ann Swidler, Jorge Arditi, E. Doyle McCarthy
10-Knowledge at the Margins: Subalternity, Orientalism and Feminist Theory, Gayatri C. Spivak, Edward Said, Caroline Ramazanoglu, Sandra Harding
11- Sociology in the Lab, Bruno Latour, João Arriscado Nunes
Bibliography
Mannheim, K. (1986). Ideologia e utopia. Rio de Janeiro: Guanabara.
Adorno, Theodor. W. (1981) The sociology of knowledge and its consciousness, in Prisms. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, pp. 35-49.
Khun, T.S. (1962). Las revoluciones como cambios del concepto del mundo in La estructura de las revoluciones científicas. Ciudad de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, pp. 176-211
Hekman, S. (1986). Hermeneutics and the sociology of knowledge. London: Polity Press.
Berger, P. & Luckmann, T. (1966). A construção social da realidade. Rio de Janeiro: Vozes.
Merton, R.K. (1972). Insiders and outsiders\". Am. Jou. Soc. 78 (1), pp. 9-47.
Bloor, D. (1976). Knowledge and social imagery. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
McCarthy, E.D. (1996). Knowledge as culture: The new sociology of knowledge. London: Routledge.
Santos, B.S. (1978). Da sociologia da ciência à política científica, Rev. Crít. Ciên. Soc (1), pp. 11-56.
Bourdieu, P. (ed.) (1990). In other words. Stanford University Press
Teaching method
Theoretical lectures based on supporting material; research work; analysis and discussion of theoretical texts.
Evaluation method
Grading will be based on: a writen test in class (50%); and the elaboration of a final essay (min. 15 pp.) that could be a theoretical reflection of one or more topics of the syllabus or, in alternative, an empirical research.