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YORK UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES


SOCI 6192/SPTH 6687
CRITICAL THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE
WINTER 2015
Course Director: Fuyuki Kurasawa
course time: Wednesday 14:30-17:30
course location: Ross N836A

office hours: Wednesday 17:30-18:30


office location: 2088 Vari Hall
tel.: 416-736-2100, ext. 77990
email: kurasawa@yorku.ca

Course Description
Ceci nest pas une pipe. Rephrasing Magritte, this is not a course on epistemology, at
least in the conventional sense of the term. The course, then, does not primarily concern itself
with what knowledge is in the abstract or the absolute, whether in order to resolve perennial
epistemological debates about the nature of knowledge or to rehash facile and trite arguments
about such debates (objectivity is the enemy, knowledge is power, the social sciences must
be modeled upon, or antithetical to, their natural counterparts, etc.). Rather, it aims to effect a
displacement of sorts, from the taking of ahistorical and acultural stances towards the values and
practices upon which expert and specialized knowledges dependdeemed in this logic to be
either categorically good or badtoward the study of the historical and cultural constitution
of these ways of thinking and acting. The course is interested in the making of conventional and
customary narratives, symbols, worldviews, and rituals in which social actors considered experts
and specialistsscientists, researchers, artists, and the institutions in which they operateare
invested, towards which they are disposed, and upon which they rely for professional and public
legitimacy.
Accordingly, the course lays the foundations for a not-yet-existing critically- and
hermeneutically-oriented historical and cultural sociology of knowledge, as well as of the
scientific methodif we understand the latter two terms in specific ways. Scientific is not
strictly used here to designate the scientistic search to discover universal and abstract laws of
motion of the natural or social worlds, but the attempt to systematically acquire and organize
knowledge in response to certain research questions (who?, what?, where?, when?, why?, and
how?), or to explain and make sense of defined analytical objects (phenomena, processes,
institutions, situations, or entire worlds); science is thus generated when persons and
organizations invent, adopt, adapt, reproduce, and/or transform what become conventions or
repertoires of thought and actionthat is, habitualized belief-systems and ritualsgrounded in
patterns of meaning and symbolic systems, and performed in particular sites and instances. As
for the term method, it is intended to refer less to a set of qualitative or quantitative techniques
to collect and analyze data than to organized sets of discourses, perspectives, and practices
designed to intervene in and engage with the natural and social worlds by interrogating them,

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producing facts and truths about them, interpreting them, putting their structures and effects into
question, and evaluating the knowledges resulting therefrom.
In other words, the course considers the scientific and methodological cultures of the
research process, which arise out of both socio-culturally and historically contingent
circumstances and structural necessities, the formation of epistemic rules of the game in given
domains of expertise or specialized activity, as well as how and why actors invest in, contribute
to, and negotiate these rules in specific circumstances. In order to do so, the course draws on a
variety of bodies of literature and disciplinary subfieldsprincipally the sociology of knowledge
and cultural sociology, the social history and anthropology of knowledge-making practices, the
history and philosophy of science, the sociology of art, and science and technology studies.
Moreover, it explores the constitutive tension at the heart of the social sciences themselves,
namely, their ambiguous and shifting location somewhere between the two poles of the
humanities and the natural sciences, or, to put it differently, between the seemingly radically
subjectivist (and thus soft) domain of aesthetic creation and inspiration, on the one hand, and
the apparently strongly objectivist (and thus hard) arena of scientific observation and
explanation, on the other; part of the attendant task is to complicate such dichotomies and the
supposedly irreconcilable oppositions to which they have given rise.
Instead of being chronologically organized, the course is thematically structured in a
manner that cuts across both classical and contemporary writings in the aforementioned bodies
of literature and disciplinary subfields. To pursue the sort of historical and cultural sociology
proposed here, we need to estrange and destabilize the taken-for-granted or naturalized character
of the customary modes of thought and action found in expert and specialized knowledges,
something that can be done by viewing them as unfamiliar, distant, and even exotic cultures.
Hence, Part 1, Creation Myths, covers the foundational stories that are told to explain
the development or transformation of knowledge over time, as well as the social conditions and
relations of power that are necessary for such change to occur.
Belief-Systems, the theme of Part 2, focuses on the general ethos, norms, and
commitment to principles constituted as integral to the scientific method and scholarly research,
towards which natural and social scientists orienteither affirmatively or criticallyin order to
make sense of their work.
Part 3, entitled Rituals, treats the different stages of the research or creative process as
habitual or conventional forms of practice that experts and specialists perform, inscribe, and
thereby reproduce in a variety of circumstances, ranging from the initial act of the making of
facticity and truthfulness to the justification and evaluation of scientific research and aesthetic
output.
Readings
Electronic versions of the readings, organized by week, are available on the courses Moodle
webpage.

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Evaluation
1. In-class presentation
2. Written commentary
3. Participation
4. Final paper

10%
20%
20%
50%

1. In-class presentation: a 10-15 minute presentation on a weeks readings, in relation to the


weekly theme and the course as a whole
Presentations should avoid a purely descriptive, point-by-point summary of the readings, but
rather provide a succinct analysis of the main topics, concepts, and lines of argument that cut
across the readings, similarities and differences between them, and questions for in-class
discussion. Presentations should cover all of the readings in some capacity, as well as address the
weekly theme and those of the course.
2. Written commentary: a 10-12 double-spaced-page analysis of the readings for the week during
which you gave your in-class presentation, a hard copy of which is due no later than two weeks
after that presentation
The commentary should be both analytical (that is, cover the main topics, concepts, and lines of
argument cutting across the readings, similarities and differences between them, as well as
address the weekly theme and those of the course) and evaluative (that is, express your
engagement with the readings, through questions, criticisms, new ideas or lines of thought
generated, connections to other thinkers or theories covered in the course, and so on). In
addition, it should reflect on issues raised during the in-class discussion that occurred the week
of your presentation.
3. Participation: weekly class attendance and active participation based on the assigned readings
You are expected to attend every class, to have completed all of the assigned weekly readings
(rather than a selection of them), and to be prepared to engage in discussion with relevant
comments and questions about these readings and the weeks theme. Both the quality of weekly
participation and its consistency throughout the term will be evaluated.
4. Final paper: a 20-25 double-spaced-page research paper centrally engaging with some aspects
of the course as well as a relevant subject-matter of your choice, due two weeks after the final
class (15 April)
The paper must address at least one of the courses weekly themes (except the one covered in
your in-class presentation and written commentary), and incorporate a minimum of three
assigned readings from Parts 1 and/or 2, as well as a minimum of three assigned readings from
Part 3, for a total of at least six assigned readings.
No individual extension or exception regarding deadlines will be granted, unless accompanied by
a valid medical certificate (or equivalent). A penalty of 10% of the grade per day will apply for
late submissions.

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Overview
Week 1 (7 January)

Introduction: Overview and Framing of the Course


Part 1: Creation Myths

Week 2 (14 January)


Week 3 (21 January)
Week 4 (28 January)

Setting the Scene: Socio-Historical Considerations


How Does Knowledge Develop? Part 1: The Philosophy of Science
How Does Knowledge Develop? Part 2: The Sociology of
Knowledge
Part 2: Belief-Systems

Week 5 (4 February)
Week 6 (11 February)
Week 7 (25 February)

The Scholarly Ethos


Scientism and its Corollaries
Objectivity
Part 3: Rituals

Week 8 (4 March)
Week 9 (11 March)
Week 10 (18 March)
Week 11 (25 March)
Week 12 (1 April)

The Making of Facticity and Truth


Classification
Interpretation
Critique
Evaluation

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Week 1 (7 January)
Introduction: Overview and Framing of the Course

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PART 1: CREATION MYTHS
Week 2 (14 January)
Setting the Scene: Socio-Historical Considerations
What are the socio-economic, political, and cultural circumstances that have enabled the invention
and rapid expansion of natural and social scientific scholarship during the modern age? What are the
relations of power through which this production of knowledges has been made possible, and what
are their effects upon the creation and dissemination of such knowledges?
Shapin, Steven, and Simon Schaffer. Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the
Experimental Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, pp. 3-15, 169-207.
Wallerstein, Immanuel, ed. Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the
Restructuring of the Social Sciences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996, pp. 3369.
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa, Joao Arriscado Nunes, and Maria Paula Meneses. Introduction:
Opening Up the Canon of Knowledge and Recognition of Difference. In Another Knowledge Is
Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies, edited by Boaventura de Sousa Santos. London and
New York: Verso, 2008, pp. xix lxii.
Harding, Sandra. The Social Structure of Science: Complaints and Disorders. In The Science
Question in Feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986, pp. 5881.
Week 3 (21 January)
How Does Knowledge Develop? Part 1: The Philosophy of Science
How does the philosophy of science explain the development of scientific knowledge? Far from
being consensual, the field has been shaped by the opposition between Karl Poppers critical
rationalism and Thomas Kuhns historical conventionalism, as articulated in their two works that
have become modern classics and continue to inform contemporary discussions of the topic.
Popper, Karl R. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London and New York: Routledge, 2002 (1959),
pp. 3-34.
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2012 (1962), pp. 1-34, 43-51, 77-110, 143-173.

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Week 4 (28 January)
How Does Knowledge Develop? Part 2: The Sociology of Knowledge
By contrast to the perspectives provided by the philosophy of science, how do different
sociologically-based analyses explain the development of knowledge? In what kinds of sociohistorical settings and what sorts of social relations amongst actors foster or hinder the creation of
ideas and the process of research?
Mannheim, Karl. Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1936. pp. 237-280.
Bourdieu, Pierre. The Specificity of the Scientific Field and the Social Conditions of the Progress of
Reason. Social Science Information 14, 6 (1975): 1947.
Latour, Bruno. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987, pp. 1-17.
Collins, Randall. The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change. Cambridge,
MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998, pp. 54-79 (950-954).
Harding, Sandra. Gender and Science: Two Problematic Concepts. In The Science Question in
Feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986, pp. 30-57.
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PART 2: BELIEF-SYSTEMS
Week 5 (4 February)
The Scholarly Ethos
What are the norms, values, interests, and general ethos that guide scholarly activity, whether in the
natural or the social sciences? How and why are scholars invested in such self-understandings, how
are they translated into and affect research practices, and what are the possible problems and limits of
scholars conventional worldviews?
Shapin, Steven. The Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996, pp. 65-117.
Weber, Max. Science as a Vocation. In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edited by H. H.
Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University Press, 1946, pp. 129-156.
Merton, Robert K. The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1973, pp. 254-278.

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Latour, Bruno, and Steve Woolgar. Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 187-233.
Flyvbjerg, Bent. Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed
Again. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 53-65, 166-168 (176-178, 200).
Week 6 (11 February)
Scientism and its Corollaries
What are the principal tenets of the scientistic outlook in the social sciences, and how have these
tenets come to shape the investigation of the social world? More specifically, why have rationalism,
positivism, and probabilistic calculation become so influential, and what consequences does such an
influence have upon our vision of the social and our engagement with actors within it?
Comte, Auguste. Introduction to Positive Philosophy. Edited by Frederick Ferr. Indianapolis, IN:
Hackett, 1988 (1830), pp. 1-33.
Hacking, Ian. The Taming of Chance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 1-15,
35-46, 170-179 (216-218, 220-222, 245-248).
Steinmetz, George. Scientific Authority and the Transition to Post-Fordism: The Plausibility of
Positivism in U.S. Sociology since 1945. In The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences:
Positivism and Its Epistemological Others, edited by George Steinmetz. Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 2005, pp. 275323.
Nandy, Ashis. Modern Medicine and Its Nonmodern Critics: A Study in Discourse. In The Savage
Freud and Other Essays on Possible and Retrievable Selves. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1995, pp. 145195.
Week 7 (25 February)
Objectivity
Of what does objectivity consist in its various forms, and how has it come into being over time as a
set of beliefs and ways of conducting research? How do natural and social scientists constitute that
which they believe to be objective knowledge, and what are the epistemological and socio-relational
assumptions underpinning such knowledge?
Nagel, Thomas. The View from Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 3-27.
Daston, Lorraine, and Peter Galison. Objectivity. New York: Zone Books, 2010, pp. 17-53 (419-425).
Durkheim, mile. The Rules of Sociological Method. Edited by Steven Lukes. New York: Free Press,
1982 (1895), pp. 60-84.

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Bourdieu, Pierre. Science of Science and Reflexivity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004
(2001), pp. 71-94.
Harding, Sandra. Is Science Multicultural?: Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998, pp. 124-145 (214-218).
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PART 3: RITUALS
Week 8 (4 March)
The Making of Facticity and Truth
In the initial phase of the research process, how are facts made and how is truth constitutedas
opposed to being found and discovered? What are the techniques through which facts are collected
and deemed meaningful, how are certain knowledges ascribed as being truthful, and how do notions
of facticity and truthfulness shift over time?
Burke, Peter. A Social History of Knowledge, Vol. II: From the Encyclopdie to Wikipedia.
Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2012, pp. 11-49 (277-279).
Shapin, Steven. A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995, pp. 3-41.
Foucault, Michel. The Order of Discourse. In Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader, edited
by Robert Young. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981, pp. 5178.
Latour, Bruno, and Steve Woolgar. Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 151-186.
Epstein, Steven. Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1996, pp. 79-104 (388-394).

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Week 9 (11 March)
Classification
Once facts are collected, what are the processes by which they are organized into coherent wholes
and the taxonomical systems through which we make sense of the world? How did such systems
emerge, what are their similarities and differences across historical and socio-cultural contexts, and
how do they impact our ways of acting and thinking?
Burke, Peter. A Social History of Knowledge, Vol. I: From Gutenberg to Diderot. Cambridge, UK:
Polity Press, 2000, pp. 81-115.
Hacking, Ian. Inaugural Lecture: Chair of Philosophy and History of Scientific Concepts at the
Collge de France, 16 January 2001. Economy and Society 31, no. 1 (January 2002): 114.
Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London: Routledge,
2002 (1966), pp. 136-179, 375-422.
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concept of Pollution and Taboo. London and New
York: Routledge, 2005 (1966), pp. 1-7, 36-50, 117-140.
Week 10 (18 March)
Interpretation
Whether in the natural or social worlds, how do we give meaning to that which we observe, classify,
and/or encounter as research objects? What are some of the major strands of interpretive analysis of a
phenomenon, social interaction, text, or image, and how do we deal with the ambiguity and plurality
of meanings of these objects?
Geertz, Clifford. Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. In The
Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973, pp. 330.
Ricoeur, Paul. What Is a Text? Explanation and Interpretation. In Hermeneutics and the Human
Sciences. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 145-164.
Taylor, Charles. Interpretation and the Sciences of Man. In Philosophy and the Human Sciences:
Philosophical Papers 2. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 1557.
Barthes, Roland. Rhetoric of the Image. In The Responsibility of Forms: Critical Essays on Music,
Art, and Representation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991, pp. 21-40.

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Week 11 (25 March)
Critique
How has the tradition of critique of the existing social order come to be at the heart of normativelyoriented research, and what are its principal foundations? What is the role of concepts of ideology
and domination in both immanent and transcendent modes of critiquethat is to say, forms of critical
thinking that underscore the endogenous contradictions of a specific type of social organization, or
that juxtapose the latter to exogenous norms or social orders?
Mannheim, Karl. Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1936, pp. 49-96.
Horkheimer, Max. Traditional and Critical Theory. In Critical Theory: Selected Essays. New York:
Continuum, 1982, pp. 188-252.
Habermas, Jrgen. Knowledge and Human Interests. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1987 (1971), pp.
301-317 (348-349).
Boltanski, Luc. On Critique: A Sociology of Emancipation. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2011 (2009), pp.
1-17, 83-115 (161-164, 177-181).
Week 12 (1 April)
Evaluation
How does the evaluation of findings and the exercise of judgment about research or creative
outputsthe final stage in the research processfunction? What are the criteria and practices
through which institutions and actors determine the worth of a particular figure or body of work, and
what modes of justification of their judgments do they employ?
Merton, Robert K. The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1973, pp. 419-438.
Lamont, Michle, and Katri Huutoniemi. Comparing Customary Rules of Fairness: Evaluative
Practices in Various Types of Peer Review Panels. In Social Knowledge in the Making, edited
by Charles Camic, Neil Gross, and Michle Lamont. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2011, pp. 20932.
Becker, Howard S. Art Worlds. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1982, pp. 131-164.
Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1993, pp. 112-141 (288-293).
Boltanski, Luc, and Laurent Thvenot. The Sociology of Critical Capacity. European Journal of
Social Theory 2, 3 (1999): 35977.

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