ABSTRACT
The sociology of knowledge, as every reader of the present book is well aware, is essentially a method for the extrinsic interpretation of ideas. Unlike the coenonic-monogenetic theories, the coenonic-holistic variety fixes its attention on social interaction as a total system. Many leading sociologists have adopted this point of view, among others Emile Durkheim and Max Scheler. An even better example of a ‘historicist’ sociology of knowledge is that of Thorstein Veblen. Unspoilt primitive communities, Veblen imagines, are dominated by the ‘instinct of workmanship’. The sympherontic theory is too deeply sunk in the psychology of interest to qualify as truly sociological, if the word is given a more stringent meaning. Thus though the sympherontic and hormic theories are commonly regarded as sociologies of knowledge, they have much less claim to this appellation than the coenonic ones.
