ABSTRACT

The idea that all of our knowledge is a social construct is of recent origin. As a matter of fact, sociology itself could only arise after the dogma of the congruence between natural and social inequality had fallen into disrepute. It was one of the great accomplishments of the pioneers of social thought that shapes our societies until today, namely that social differences were also of social origin rather than Godgiven. From there on the social sciences went on to explore how social, economic and political factors shape the genesis, structure and contents of human consciousness. However, these early reflections on the effect of social conditions on consciousness did not result in a more systematic examination of the questions that later became a focus of the sociology of knowledge in particular. Nevertheless, some of these early writings, which either denied or represented first tentative steps in the direction of a sociological examination of knowledge, must be acknowledged as intellectual precursors of such an analysis. At this point, we will make but

brief references to the classical social scientific conception of knowledge; however, we will refer to the more specific positions taken by its core representatives, especially Max Weber, Karl Marx, Max Scheler, Karl Mannheim or Georg Simmel, throughout our discussion.