Dwa kroki ku poznawczej teorii społeczeństwa - czy socjologia wiedzy ma szansę na uniwersalizację swoich koncepcji?
Two Steps towards a Cognitive Theory of Society. Can Sociology of Knowledge Make its Concepts Universal?

Summary/Abstract: I start with the observation that the tradition of the sociology of knowledge is currently experiencing a crisis which threatens once more to diffuse and blur the research field. What is required is a synthesis, combining, on the one hand, the empirical achievements of sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) developed since the mid-1970»s, and, on the other, the ambitions and theoretical goals of classical Wissenssoziologie, now partly forgotten. The present paper is an outline of the premises and basic structure of such a synthesis, which may be achieved in two basic steps. The first should consist in creating a unified and coherent image of findings within SSK. This would result in a detailed sociological image - presented in theoretical categories of the process of producing scientific knowledge, including some aspects of its social and cultural impact. The next step should be a systematic revival of the theoretical ambitions of Wissenssoziologie, now frequently expressed only implicitly. Taken together, the findings of SSK and some intuitions of the classical sociology of knowledge should ultimately yield a coherent theoretical project, facilitating, within a single categorial idiom, the analysis of phenomena more universal and fundamental than the mere functioning of contemporary science.

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