ABSTRACT
This chapter presents that there are two fundamental interests, which are analytically distinct but at the same time interdependent. It examines the epistemological question of the nature of knowledge and its experiential, social, linguistic, material and ideological determinants and the methodological question of the nature and theory of sociological understanding. The relationship between epistemology and ontology also becomes clear, for a theory of inevitable perspectivism raises the question of a 'real' world and revives the philosophical debates of nominalism versus realism, and phenomenalism versus Platonic idealism. The chapter looks closely at some of the philosophical problems of the sociology of knowledge and of sociological theory. It argues that epistemology involves ontology and concentrates here on theories of knowledge. Max Weber, in his methodological writings, also concludes that the social position of the sociologist himself and the value-relevance of his researches, in no way damage the scientific nature of the enquiry and the objectivity of the results.
