Abstract
Analysis of the link between public interest and the production of scientific knowledge has received increasing attention over the past decades. There are a wide range of studies which document how different social groups have influenced the development of science and, vice versa, how society at large has been affected by the development of science. Concern with this relationship has come both from science policy, analysts and from researchers in the sociology of science. That science and technology can possibly have negative effects on society is a relatively new idea which is perhaps best symbolized by the destructive potential of the atom bomb and of nuclear weapons in general. Such negative effects of scientific knowledge production have made more people aware of the necessity of aligning scientific and technical developments with general social needs. However, the idea of broadening discussions about the specific goals of knowledge production and attempting to influence the development of scientific knowledge through social and political means has not always been openly embraced by professional scientists. Scientists, often motivated by a fear of losing their professional autonomy, frequently try to shield their research from “outside” influence.
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Notes and References
E. P. Odum, Fundamentals of Ecology. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1971
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The concept of knowledge interests can be traced in various forms back to the origins of the sociology of knowledge. Two distinct lines of development regarding knowledge distortion and development were apparent right from the beginning in this subdiscipline of sociology. On the one side were those, most notably Karl Mannheim (Ideology and Utopia. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1936), who concerned themselves with describing historically related influences upon the production of knowledge and made no claim about the achievement of objective truth through the application of this method of reasoning. On the other side, most notably Marxists, were those who hoped that the uncovering of, for example, structurally induced distortions to knowledge would provide grounds for emancipated and enlightened political action rooted in a true understanding of social conditions. Where Mannheim and his followers traced the distorting influence upon knowledge to “ideologies” and “utopias”, i.e., those wider cosmologies which either support an established social order or seek to transcend it and in which various “interests” are latent, Marxist thought, including the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, traced distortions in knowledge to class interests.
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criticism of this notion can be found in T. McCarthy, The Critical Theory of J. Habermas, London: Hutchinson, 1978, pp. 75ff. Our approach to knowledge interests is connected both to Habermas and to the earlier sociology of knowledge. However, our concern is neither with the structurally induced distortions upon knowledge nor with supposed invariant aspects, but rather with the historical emergence of worldviews and their concomitant knowledge interests. We conceive of knowledge interests as connected to defining a way of life, which includes criticizing other forms. What interests people have in knowledge, in the sense of what they find interesting, is intimately connected (as Habermas claims) to their specific being in the world. However, as opposed to Habermas, we conceive of that specific being in the world as an emergent, rather than quasi transcendental phenomenon. Thus we conceive of knowledge interest in relation to the rise of a social movement and its attempts to “emancipate” itself and others from the dominant worldview which defines modern industrial society.
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Cramer, J., Eyerman, R., Jamison, A. (1987). The Knowledge Interests of the Environmental Movement and its Potential for Influencing the Development of Science. In: Blume, S., Bunders, J., Leydesdorff, L., Whitley, R. (eds) The Social Direction of the Public Sciences. Sociology of the Sciences, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3755-0_4
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