ABSTRACT
What makes goals scientific rather than speculative is the availability of a methodology for realizing them in future practice. It can be said that the initial aim of the sociology of knowledge is its separation from purely or even partially ideological concepts. Much past criticism of wissenssoziologie has centered about the impossibility of taking a nonideological position on ideological issues. This is not to deny that the sociology of knowledge might be a "dangerous science" to socially backward and oppressive elements. The critical function of the sociology of knowledge enables it to act as a catalytic agent in the integration of social science disciplines into a common interlocked network of analysis. In the sociology of knowledge it involves a shift from the recognition of ideology as a social force to the structural investigation of the true and false elements of these ideologies. The ultimate aim of the sociology of knowledge corresponds to the historic quest of philosophy.
