KNOWLEDGE SOCIETIES: AN OVERVIEW OF ISSUES AND THEORIES

Syed Farid Alatas, Zaheer Baber, Hans-Dieter Evers, Thomas Menkhoff, Tan Ern Ser

Department of Sociology
National University of Singapore
11 Arts Link
Singapore 117 570
Tel: 65-874 4407
Fax: 65-7779579
e-mail: socsfa@nus.edu.sg
e-mail: socbz@nus.edu.sg
e-mail: soctm@nus.edu.sg
e-mail: soctanes@nus.edu.sg
Hans-Dieter Evers
Sociology of Development Research Centre
University of Bielefeld
33501 Bielefeld, Germany
Tel: +49-521-106-4650
Fax: +49-521-106-2980
e-mail: hdevers@t-online.de

KNOWLEDGE SOCIETIES: AN OVERVIEW OF ISSUES AND THEORIES1[1]

1.

Introduction

It is widely accepted that knowledge has replaced capital and labour as the main factor of production. In fact, the
manufacture and the application of knowledge is said to be the driving force behind the New Economy, that made its
appearance only some decades ago and is quickly gaining ground around the world. In the same way as the industrial
revolution has transformed societies, states and economies, the proliferation of knowledge is expected to usher in a new
age of prosperity, but also social change and conflict.
The science of sociology began to flourish as soon as it took on the challenge to explain the demise of feudal society and
the rise of capitalism. Subsequently sociologists concerned themselves mainly with highly developed industrial societies,
paying relatively little attention to secular tends and transformation. Now it is far from certain whether or not the
conceptual tools and the theories used by sociologists during the past century are still adequate to analyse knowledge
driven societies in a globalised world. We therefore have to operate in a situation of intellectual uncertainty, when we try
to understand the many facets of globalisation, world society (Weltgesellschaft) and knowledge. Starting off from some
ideas of neo-classical sociology of knowledge and science, we address the question what sort of knowledge is meant
when we talk of a knowledge-driven economy and society. We then try to clarify the characteristics of knowledge
societies, as far as they have become visible. From this very broad perspective we shall then narrow down our attention to
the agents of knowledge-driven globalisation, which we believe to be large organisations and knowledge workers.

2.
1.

Some Basic Issues in the Sociology of Knowledge

2.1

Wissen und Sein

In his influential work Die Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft (Types of Knowledge and Society) Max Scheler
(1924/1960) sees knowledge as an existential phenomenon, a Seinsverhaeltnis, which serves different purposes: the
development of personality, salvation in a religious sense, political domination and economic achievement. Positive
scientific knowledge is only one of several forms of knowledge, which is in itself dependent on the absolute reality of
metaphysics (Maas 1999:15). There are two Seinsbereiche, namely ideal factors (Geist or spirit), i.e. ideas and
values, and real factors (social or material conditions), that determine the selection of which knowledge is created,
formulated and believed to be relevant. Platonian idealism and cultural relativism are combined into the core field of a
sociology of knowledge.
Scheler as well as contemporary German sociologists working in the phenomenological tradition of Husserl such as R.
Grathoff use the concept of milieu as a methodological tool to analyse the formulation of knowledge situated within the
social environment and within networks of interaction. Milieus are able to attach meaning (Sinn) to a persons social,
cognitive and emotional experiences and over time form distinct styles of experiences and Weltanschauung.
Mannheim has already warned researchers to distance themselves from the styles and Weltanschauung, which they wish
to analyse and to which they are also subjugated (Mannheim 1931). Only then can the social scientist discover the basic
principles underlying the formation of knowledge in a specific period of history in a particular civilisation. It is the task of
a sociology of knowledge to analyse the styles of knowledge and their social class basis2[2]. The three methodological
steps he is advocating entail (1) keeping distance between researcher and prevalent Weltanschauung and cognitive
styles3[3] (2) contextualisation, i.e. relating knowledge to social condition and (3) particularisation, i.e. defining the realm
of knowledge under discussion.
In formulating the basic principles and assumptions of the sociology of knowledge, Mannheim drew upon and creatively
synthesized three dominant intellectual currents of his time: German classical philosophy, particularly Hegelian ideas;
Marxism and Geisteswissenschaften, represented by Dilthey among others. Hegel provided the view that facts and event
are to be conceptualized not as isolated phenomena but as related to other events and the dominant forces and trends.
From Marx, Mannheim borrowed the idea, formulated most forcefully in The German Ideology but elsewhere too, that
the ideologies of a society in a given period bore some determinate relationship to the existing classes and to the conflict
of interests among them. From Dilthey and the Geisteswissenschaften school, Mannheim accepted the assumption that
due to the fundamental difference between the physical and cultural sciences, the latter required a specific method. While

for the physical sciences explanation (Eklaerung) or the correlation of external facts was sufficient, this could not be the
main objective of the cultural sciences. The latter required both explanation and understanding (Verstehen) or the
involvement with the purposes, motives, and values of the actors concerned.
In addition to these three main intellectual currents, Durkheim in his Elementary Forms of the Religious Life had already
argued that ideas of time and space, force and contradiction etc. vary from one group to another, and within the same
group from one historical period to another. He argued that our basic categories, conceptions of the sacred etc. are
socially and culturally contingent. Building on these intellectual currents of his time, Mannheim argued the greater art of
the sociologist consists in his attempt always to relate changes in mental attitudes to changes in social situationsthe
human mind does not operate in vacuo; the most delicate change in the human spirit corresponds to similarly delicate
changes in the situation in which an individual or a group finds itself, and, conversely, the minutest change in situations
indicate that men, too, have undergone some change (Mannheim 1953: 219). This formulation remained central to
Mannheims conception of sociology of knowledge that was refined and developed further in Ideology and Utopia
(Mannheim 1960), Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge (Mannheim 1952) and Essays in the Sociology of Culture
(Mannheim 1956).
2.

2.2

Idealism and Relativism

As stressed by Max Scheler, sociology of knowledge seeks to grapple with the two tension points of Platonic idealism and
relativism. One of the problems that Mannheim had to grapple with was the problem of radical cultural relativism.
Mannheim rejected the notion of an abstract, totally impartial knowing subject, uninfluenced by any conceptual
framework but he was not comfortable with radical relativism. Rejecting both these extremes, Mannheim argued that
knowledge is not relative but perspectivistic and relational. By considering how different social locations and contexts
influence the production of knowledge, ones knowledge of reality becomes more adequate. This is because they provide
different perspectives of a given reality that do not contradict each other but encircle the samehistorical content from
different standpoints and at different depths of penetration (Mannheim 1952: 105). The method of relating the
production of knowledge to the position and location of individuals or groups that produce it did not lead to the total
relativism. On the contrary, Mannheim felt that his method led to a widening of our concept of truth which alone can
save us from being barred from the exploration of these fields in which both the nature of the object to be known and that
of the knowing subject make only perspectivistic knowledge possible (Mannheim 1952: 120)
These early formulations of a sociology of knowledge are developed further by Mannheim in his Ideology and Utopia
(1936; 1960). Taking seriously Marxs contention that the conditions of social existence influence humans social
consciousness, he argued that sociology of knowledge itself could not have arisen in medieval Europe where different
strata dwelt in their own isolated world-views or Weltanschauungen. Social mobility and communication made possible
by the development of capitalism led to forms of thought and experience developed in relative isolation to enter a
common consciousness, impelling the mind to discover the irreconcilability of the conflicting conceptions of the world
(Mannheim 1960: 7). Here, Mannheim was reflexively analyzing the specific social context that made the development of
sociology of knowledge possible. Connecting the development of ideas and knowledge to the specific location and worldview of the carriers of knowledge, Mannheim arrived at his distinctive concepts of ideology and utopia. In
formulating these concepts, Mannheim sought to elucidate the significance of the historical and social location of the
carriers of knowledge to the ideas and knowledge they produced. For example, the Christian formulation The last shall
be first can only be meaningfully understood by placing it in the sociohistorical context in which it was first uttered. The
early Christians and their Roman oppressors were located differently and their world-views expressed respectively as
utopia and ideology reflected this differential location. The phrase the last shall be first is utopian in the sense
that it expresses the countervalues to the dominant values or ideology of their Roman oppressors. The utopian
countervalues (utopia) expressed in the depreciation of power and the glorification of passivity expresses the exact
opposite of Roman ideology. Both ideological and utopian thought are situationally determined in the sense that they
reflect the different conditions of existence of rulers and ruled, oppressors and oppressed and each reflects the interests of
its carriers. Mannheims sociology of knowledge was intended to facilitate the evaluation of a diversity of contending
view-points, and thereby enhancing the ability of arriving at truth (Zeitlin 1994). Mannheims conception of the
relatively unattached intellectual (sozial freischwebende Intelligenz) was meant to resolve the thorny issue of relativism
that accompanies any attempt to contextualize the production of knowledge. Hence, his formulation that in the modern
era, intellectuals, being relatively independent of structural dependence on patronage, as was the case in the medieval era,
are potentially in a position to deploy a variety of perspectives toward any given social issue or phenomenon. Thus while
all social thought and knowledge is relative to particular social contexts, positions and perspectives, intellectuals have the
potential ability to adopt a variety of perspectives in order to enhance understanding and explanation of any phenomenon.
3.

2.3

The Sociology of Science

Although Max Scheler and Mannheim explicitly developed the framework for sociology of knowledge, they explicitly
exclude natural scientific knowledge from their scope. For Mannheim, the content of scientific knowledge could not be
subject to sociological analysis (Mulkay 1979). He refers to the concepts appropriate to the study of the natural world as
timeless and static. Valid knowledge about such objective phenomena can be obtained only by detached, impartial
observation, by reliance on sense data and by accurate measurement (Mannheim 1952: 4-16). He comes close to
generating a sociology of scientific knowledge when he writes that we must reject the notion that there is a sphere of
truth itself as a disruptive and unjustified hypothesis. It is instructive to note the natural sciences seem to be, in many
respects, in a closely analogous situation (Mulkay 1979:15). But overall, he stops short of including natural scientific
knowledge within the purview of sociological analysis. Despite some indications to the contrary, scientific knowledge for
Mannheim develops in a relatively straight line, as errors are eliminated and a growing number of truths accumulate.
Scientific knowledge progresses through a steady, linear accumulation of true facts, unaffected by the larger social and
organizational context of their production (Mulkay 1979:11).
The development of sociology of science, initiated largely by Robert Merton (1972) and his colleagues such as Bernard
Barber (1952) largely accepted this view of scientific knowledge. Their early work focused on analyzing the social and
institutional factors that influenced the growth of science, but scientific knowledge itself was judged to be unproblematic.
The content of scientific knowledge was assumed to be uninfluenced by the social context of its production. In the 1970s
sociologists began to subject the content of scientific knowledge to sociological analysis. Influenced heavily by the new
philosophy of science and particularly by Berger and Luckmans book The Social Construction of Reality, they argued
that social factors influenced the very content of scientific knowledge (Latour and Woogar 1986; Barnes 1977; Collins
1985; Mulkay 1979; Mulkay and Knorr-Cetina 1983; Knorr-Cetina, 1981). The key idea here was that scientific
knowledge, like any other knowledge, is partly a social construction. Scientific facts are produced or manufactured by a
network of scientists in specific social contexts and an element of social contingency is part and parcel of the
development of scientific knowledge.
The constructivist perspective has been enormously useful in problematizing the idea that scientific knowledge represents
an objective, neutral accumulation of facts about the natural world. The basic idea that scientific knowledge is
contingently influenced by the conditions of its production has been particularly fruitful for critically scrutinizing the
claims of experts and expert knowledge systems to offer ahistorical and universal models that can in principle be applied
in any context (Brown 1993). The constructivist perspective has also led to a reflexive awareness of the mechanisms
through which certain structural and power relations are implicated in expert knowledge systems and how these elements
marginalize specific views and perspectives while simultaneously claiming contextless, apolitical universality (Harding
1986; 1993; Martin 1987; Fuller 1993; Brown 1998; Rabinow 1996). While a radical version of social constructivism
raises all the problems associated with relativism (scientific facts are made, but they are not made up!) and has been
criticized (Hacking 1983, 1999; Murphy 1994; Baber 1992, 2000) moderate constructivism, that takes the element of
social contingency in the production of scientific knowledge seriously, provides a useful framework for making sense of
the social processes of social negotiation, power struggles etc. that are integral components of the production of scientific
knowledge.

3.
1.

Culture Specific Knowledge

3.1

The Problem of Imported Knowledge

The rather extreme position of Dilthey on the incompatibility of the natural sciences and the humanities appear to have
been abandoned. But if both natural scientific knowledge as well as social science knowledge are seen as constructed
knowledge, the question arises as to the social and cultural parameters under which knowledge is constructed4[4]. Since we
are speaking of knowledge-driven globalisation, it seems appropriate to begin with knowledge as it is put to use in the
applied social sciences in regions of the world other than the places where this knowledge originated.
Consider now a concrete example of the inapplicability of imported knowledge systems. The development staff of a rural
development programme in Nueva Ecija, the Philippines, failed to understand the complexity of peasant behaviour by
viewing peasants as self-maximising rational individuals that conform to the tenets of microeconomic theory. Peasant
defaults on bank loans were viewed by the development staff as irrational (Weeks 1986: 18-19). The peasants, however,
were quite happy to receive the first loan and utilise it for purposes other than for which it was intended, default on it, and
forfeit receiving subsequent low interest loans, as it enabled them to make payments for certain items that they would
otherwise not be able to purchase. Presumably, the development staff would have liked to have made the peasants more

rational, not realising that what is irrational from one point of view may constitute economic rationality from another
because of different economic and cultural contexts.
Another example illustrating the problem of imported models comes from Iran. Reporters who have travelled to that
country seem to be puzzled by what appears to be a paradox, that is, the coexistence of a lively civil society with secular
and consumerist yearnings on the one had, and a theocratic regime on the other. However, as Ehsani notes, this sounds
paradoxical only if one thinks within the confines of a Western model of progress, according to which religious social
movements are antithetical to modernity (Ehsani 1995: 48). Against the feminist claim that the hijab is a tool of state
oppression and without denying the repressive aspects of forced veiling, Ehsani notes that it enabled many lower middle
class urban women to enter the public sphere as social actors and constituted a "powerful and culturally legitimate
instrument to overcome the patriarchal control and restrictions of their male-dominated homes and families" (Ehsani
1995: 50).
2.

3.2

Relevance at the Level of Applied Social Science

The question of knowledge-driven globalisation, and the role of knowledge experts as agents of this globalisation can also
be seen as a question of the relevance of applied social science in socio-cultural areas other than those in which the
knowledge originated. This points to the need for relevance at the level of applied social science. Here, relevant social
science entails, first of all, the unmasking of irrelevant decision-making, planning and policies in all its aspects. Secondly,
it refers to working with voluntary organizations, non-governmental organizations, and government, in implementation
with a view to restoring relevance, that is, originality, accordance (between assumptions and reality), applicability,
affinity (between the social science enterprise and its surroundings, that is, non-alienated social science), succinctness
(non-redundance), demystification, and rigour.
Let us consider the case of relevant social science at the level of applied social science in terms of demystification of
political and public discourse (the enlightenment model of applied social science). One example concerns the question of
the so-called East Asian miracle. There are two points among many that are worth noting.
First, it has been argued that Asia itself is a myth, an Orientalist construct, appropriated by Asians for a variety of reasons,
including the idea that "'Asian' is a kind of sales gimmick, used for political and commercial public relations" (Buruma
1995: 67). Apart from the fact that many local cultural practices are disappearing in Asia, what is often presented as Asian
values either promotes an authoritarian style of government or is universal in practice so as to make them
indistinguishable from, say, American values. The task of demystification is not simply to expose the gimmick and place
oneself in the liberal camp necessarily, but to present a third position, that is, an indigenous discourse on democracy or
development that is authentic and liberating.
Another area that needs demystifying concerns the question of Southeast Asian development and pertains to the misuse of
the works of Max Weber. In reply to the post hoc claim that development has taken place due to Islam/Confucianism, a
case can be made to the effect that a) capitalist forms of development took place inspite of Islam/Confucianism, b)
Islamic and Confucianist movements may actually reject current styles of development and c) the state and media seem to
dominate a discussion which has the potential to make sound claims about the possibility of indigenous forms of genuine
democracy, not necessarily official communitarian democracy, but which, as yet, have no opportunity to do so.
Proponents of demystification do not claim monopoly over the truth. It is precisely for this reason that demystification is
necessary. For the human sciences to be relevant, no one voice should dominate public discourse. This, then, leads to the
question of the access that the social science community has to policy-makers and the influence they have in decisionmaking and policy implementation. While it is generally agreed that development is meaningful only when it involves the
full participation of citizens in public affairs, whether this refers to NGOs, professional associations, the mass media,
trade unions, and others, the extent to which social scientists impact upon interest and pressure groups as well as
government is limited. However, if NGOs are to be effective, they must combine sophisticated research, with insightful
policy analysis, and vocal advocacy of change. For this, there has to be a close working relationship among NGOs,
academics and professionals, and government agencies if applied social science is to be relevant.
This is more of a problem in some countries than others. For example, in Malaysia, since the formation of the National
Advisory Council for the Integration of Women in Development (NACIWD) in 1976 and the establishment of the
Women's Secretariat (HAWA) in 1983, several NGOs had been set up. These NGOs are all concerned with improving the
status of women in Malaysia but express this concern in different ways. Some are involved in the exchange and
dissemination of information and research materials on various problems such as health, reproductive rights, and domestic
violence. Others are more active in raising public awareness of issues concerning women. Yet others are more practice-

oriented and provide counselling, training and shelter for women. The problem is that the growing space for NGOs is not
complemented by increasing participation of academics in NGO-related research and activism