ABSTRACT
Almost from the first page of the present book use has been yLVmade of a concept which is obviously basic to the sociology of knowledge as a whole—the concept of social determination. We have been satisfied so far with leaving it rather vague, defining it simply—if this can be called a definition at all—as a meaningful connection and coherence between substructure and superstructure, but not speci-fying what the characteristics of this relationship are: whether it is close or loose, univocal or compatible with wide variations, one-sided or reciprocal, and so on, and so forth. In a way, this is one of the most decisive, perhaps indeed the most decisive problem of the sociology of knowledge. For anyone who asserts that one phenomenon depends upon another, for instance that ideas depend upon social interaction, is in duty bound to analyse the mode of dependence that he is asserting. If he does not do so, he leaves his system wide open to destructive criticism. For this reason we must now squarely face the problem of the nature of social determination. But we have no need to shirk it: difficult though it is, it is none the less capable of a convincing and unambiguous solution.
