ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines Schutz’s embryonic and partly implicit sociology of knowledge. It shows that in addition to a research program, Schutz’s sociology of knowledge also amounts to a distinct social theory of modernity. The discussion highlights how, for Schutz, the social distribution of knowledge is both a structural cause and effect for the institutionalization and deinstitutionalization of power relations in modern society. It also extends Schutz’s treatment of the underlying tensions of the institutionalization of expert knowledge in democratic society, where claims over knowledge are central to its power struggles. In addition to discussing these areas, the chapter highlights the ways in which Schutz’s social theory, particularly as it engages with the role of specialized (expert) knowledge, extends into a framework for a political economy of knowledge and a sociology of cultural products. A Schutzian-inspired political economy of knowledge accounts for the ways in which the control and distribution of knowledge plays a structuring role in the content of social relations and operates as a power factor within them. The final section builds on the critical work of Kenneth Burke to extend Schutz’s framework of relevances, symbols, and knowledge to a sociology of cultural products.
