ABSTRACT
A sociology of art, as a branch of the sociology of knowledge, shares all the theoretical problems of the latter. This chapter indicates what author consider the major difficulties to be; that considers a little more closely what precisely a sociological theory of the arts attempts to discover, how this differs from other theories of art, whether and how such analysis is possible, and how this relates to earlier discussion, concerning both the phenomenological method in sociology in general, and the sociology of knowledge. It reconsiders the sociology of art and literature, in the light of this and other analytical excursions and theoretical investigations pursued in these pages where one or two positive suggestions may be made as to the direction sociology of art might profitably take. Traditional non-sociological history of art and the intrinsic study of change, development and innovation within a genre are not here being attacked; neither is pure aesthetic theory, or the philosophy of art.
