sociology of knowledge

is the study of how people form shared mental conceptions about the world. It is the study of how groups (be it sailors, first-year medical students, or commodities traders on wall street) construct the unique rules, jokes, habits, and practices that govern their relations.

Berger and Luckmann begin by explaining how people form shared mental conceptions about the world: when any group of people -whether they are sailors marooned on a desert island, first-year medical students, or commodities traders on Wall Street find themselves together, they construct norms to govern their relations. As jokes, habits, and practices are passed on to subsequent generations, they become freighted with meaning and assume the status of immanent rules. If these individuals have children or initiate others into their community, the newcomers will over time experience these historicized habits as natural rules. Berger and Luckmann call this process institutionalization, in which 'reciprocal typification of habitualized action by types of actors' leads to the eventual objectification of that habitualized action as an institution.

is whatever passes for knowledge in a society, regardless of the ultimate validity or invalidity (by whatever criteria) of such 'knowledge'.

whatever passes for knowledge in a society, regardless of the ultimate validity or invalidity (by whatever criteria) of such 'knowledge.'

sociology of knowledge, n.Definitions

sociology of knowledge