300096 Soziologie des Wissens (S) (SoSe 2005)

This seminar (which will be either in English or in German) will first focus on key issues in the classic sociology of knowledge: ideology and knowledge, manifest and latent structures, overt and tacit knowledge. Next, we will deal with recent reformulations of classical issues: information and meaning, cognitive and normative expectations, first- and second-order observations. Afterwards, the focus will be on the evolution of knowledge in society: on social structure and semantics, orality and literacy, reflection theories and science. As an example of the ?strong program? in the sociology of knowledge, we will finally deal with the rise of statistical thinking in modern society. Overall, this seminar explicitly intends to reflect on the status of sociology ? as knowledge about society which exists in, and is made possible by, society.

Bibliography

Burke, K. (1945). A Grammar of Motives. New York: Prentice Hall.
Headrick, D.R. (2000). When Information Came of Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Luhmann, N. (1980-1995). Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik. Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft. 4 Bände. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Mannheim, K. (1985). Ideologie und Utopie. Frankfurt: Klostermann.
Ong, W.J. (1988). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Routledge.