Abstract
The need to reflect on the dyad knowledge/reality, as well as on the sociology of knowledge, highlights how knowledge is nothing but the construction of reality. A multidimensional and multifaceted reality. The first configuration of knowledge that individuals resort to in their everyday actions consists of the idea of constructing the lifeworld/s (social representations). Referring to Sorokin’s Integrality is important because many of the concepts he uses are still current or actualizable. The aim is to understand the ways and forms through which knowledge can influence the construction of reality. This influence also affects the development of societies, the relationship between individuals, and that between individuals, knowledge, and society. It is therefore desirable that an integral theory of knowledge develops and becomes reflexive knowledge capable of promoting the construction of relationships between living environments and individuals, as well as between the very individuals. This should be done acknowledging the autonomy of the individual disciplines of social sciences (sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc.) and, at the same time, abandoning the excess of self-referentiality that encloses them within their own frameworks and paradigms.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The main representative approaches in the history of sociology are the following: Durkheim’s proto-functionalism and its more advanced form as structural-functionalism in Merton’s version; Marx’s theory of conflict and the Fankfurt School’s critic of society; Mannheim’s and Sorokin’s Wissenssoziologie; and, finally, the phenomenological approach (Scheler, Schütz, Berger, and Luckmann).
- 2.
The Ideational refers to theological science: its object is mainly the supersensory, and superrational “subjects” and “realities”: the sensory and empirical phenomena are studied only incidentally and even then not for their own sake but merely as “visible signs of the invisible world” as symbols of the supersensory reality, and its validity criterion refers to the Sacred Scriptures, where logical reasoning is utterly superfluous and it is recognized only when sensory perception does not contradict the Scriptures. In the Sensate system, sensory reality is prevalent and the relationship between human being and society is instrumental: the world of the sensory perception, like the phenomena studied in the natural sciences, and its validity criterion is the reference to the testimony of the organs of senses, supplemented by the logical reasoning, especially in the form of the mathematical reasoning. The last system, the Idealistic system is mixed, it subsumes elements of the Ideational and Sensate system and its object is partly supersensory, partly sensory-empirical. Each for its own sake, but the value of the knowledge about the sensory phenomena is subordinated to that of the supersensory “realities”. The total system of knowledge here incorporates, usually in the form of idealistically rationalistic Philosophy, but the ultimate reality is thought of as knowable. The exposition of the truth is dialectic and deductive. In this system logical reasoning prevails, without disregarding references to sensory experience, in fact, it integrates the three forms of truth (sense, reason, and faith).
- 3.
We point out, once again, that Integralism is not a philosophy, because it seeks to maintain focus on the social problems observed through a systematic theoretical approach within a framework that integrates and triangles empirical, sensory, and intuitive understanding.
References
Barthes, R. (1964). Le degré zéro de l'écriture, suivi de Eléments de sémiologie. Paris: Ed. Gonthier.
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. New York: Penguin Books.
de Saussure, F. (1971). Cours de linguistique générale. Paris: Payot.
Ford, J. B. (1963). Sorokin as philosopher. In P. J. Allen (Ed.), Pitirim A. Sorokin in review (pp. 39–66). Durham: Duke University Press.
Homans, G. C. (1967). The nature of social science. New York: Hartcourt.
Johnston, B. V. (1999). Pitirim A. Sorokin on order, change and the reconstruction of society: An integral perspective. Comparative Civilizations Review, 41(3), 25–41.
Lévy, P. (1994). L’intelligence collective. Pour une anthropologie du cyberspace. Paris: Éditions La Découverte.
Luhmann, N. (1983). Struttura della società e semantica. Rome-Bari: Laterza.
Mangone, E. (2012). Persona, conoscenza, società. Milan: FrancoAngeli.
Mangone, E. (2015). Knowledge for the future of Europe. Cava de’ Tirreni: Areablu edizioni.
Moscovici, S. (1984). The phenomenon of social representations. In R. M. Farr & S. Moscovici (Eds.), Social representations (pp. 3–69). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schütz, A. (1946). The well-informed citizen. An essay on the social distribution of knowledge. Social Research, 14(4), 463–478.
Sorokin, P. A. (1928). Contemporary sociological theory. New York: Harper and Brothers.
Sorokin, P. A. (1956). Fads and foibles in modern sociology and related sciences. Chicago: Henry Regnery.
Sorokin, P. A. (1957). Social & cultural dynamics: A study of change in major systems of art, truth, ethics, law and social relationships. Boston: Porter Sargent.
Sorokin, P. A. (1958). Integralism is my philosophy. In W. Burnett (Ed.), This is my philosophy. Twenty of the world’s outstanding thinkers reveal the deepest meaning they have found in life (pp. 180–189). London: George Allen & Unwin.
Sorokin, P. A. (1962). Society, culture, and personality. The structure and dynamics. A system of general sociology. New York: Cooper Square.
Sorokin, P. A. (1963a). Sociology of my mental life. In P. J. Allen (Ed.), Pitirim A. Sorokin in review (pp. 3–36). Durham: Duke University Press.
Sorokin, P. A. (1963b). Reply to criticisms of my integral system of knowledge by professor Joseph B. Ford and Dr. Daya Krishna. In P. J. Allen (Ed.), Pitirim A. Sorokin in review (pp. 383–400). Durham: Duke University Press.
Wright Mills, C. (1959). The sociological imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mangone, E. (2018). Integral Theory of Knowledge. In: Social and Cultural Dynamics . SpringerBriefs in Psychology(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68309-6_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68309-6_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-68308-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-68309-6
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)