Carl-Göran Heidegren
Professor emeritus
Towards a Sociology of Philosophy
Author
Summary, in English
The article presents and discusses the sociology of philosophy as a theory-based empirically practised sociological subdivision that came to the fore in the 1980s. In the first part, the type of empirical material and the forms of data presentation that are available to the sociology of philosophy are discussed. In the second part, the focus is on two important attempts, those of Randall Collins and Pierre Bourdieu, to develop general sociological theories about the relationship between social being and thought. The main lesson to be drawn from them is that in normal circumstances philosophical thought cannot be reduced to socio-political conditions outside the attention space (Collins) or the philosophical field (Bourdieu). In the concluding part, we tentatively sketch a programme for a future sociology of philosophy. All in all, the sociology of philosophy is seen as an emerging new subdivision within sociology, the potential of which is far from exhausted with respect to theoretical development as well as empirical approaches.
Department/s
- Sociology
Publishing year
2010
Language
English
Pages
3-18
Publication/Series
Acta Sociologica
Volume
53
Issue
1
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Topic
- Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
Keywords
- sociology of philosophy
- sociology of knowledge
- Randall Collins
- Pierre Bourdieu
- attention space
- philosophical field
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0001-6993