ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a brief analysis of the reception and impact of Peter L. Berger's work, in particular his sociology of knowledge. In contrast to the central focus of the new sociology of knowledge, namely, reality and knowledge, Berger and Zijderveld take up a basic theme of the classical sociology of knowledge—truth and relativism—and thereby enter epistemological territory. With an attitude of fundamental skepticism vis-a-vis all -isms, regardless of their provenance, Berger and Zijderveld prevent the pendulum from swinging from one extreme to the other. The reception of The Social Construction of Reality focused more on its theory-of-society orientation—it was perceived as a blueprint for social constructivism—than on its social theory orientation, that is, the authors' reformulation of the sociology of knowledge. The Homeless Mind met with a fate similar to that of The Social Construction of Reality as far as the failure to recognize its sociology-of-knowledge perspective was concerned.
