ABSTRACT
Knowledge and reality are the key terms of the theory for the sociology of knowledge that Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann developed in The Social Construction of Reality. Berger and Luckmann develop their theory for the sociology of knowledge in explicit contradistinction to the relativity of thought in general and sociological thought. Peter L. Berger considers methodologically controlled objectivity to be a way in which sociology can deal with the problem of relativity. In his view, objectivity is part of the scientific relevance structure to which sociologists, who always have a number of relevance structures at their disposal, can switch. Berger's sociology of knowledge is shaped by Weber's notion of understanding. "If the sociology of knowledge is to be true to its name, it must deal with everything that passes for knowledge in society". The concept of knowledge on which the authors base their treatise is broad rather than sharply contoured.
