The Social Role of Knowledge

Abstract

The branch of learning that has concerned itself with the nature of knowledge in general has traditionally been philosophy. Questions it investigates are the relationship between knowledge and belief (or ideology), the validity and reliability of knowledge claims pertaining to the external world and based on sense perception, the presuppositions required for the production of knowledge and the use of language in the construction of knowledge claims. Knowing in the philosophical tradition has often been reduced to the relationship between the individual subject (the knower) and the object (the known). The idea that our knowledge is a social construct is of recent origin. Similarly, the growing study of the effects of knowledge on social relations has less of a tradition than the philosophical examination of the secure foundations of knowing. The emphasis in this essay will be on the social role of knowledge in modern society.