Classical Social Theory Term Paper

Spring 2017

Term Paper: Exercising a sociological imagination, seeking to locate the individual and understanding the individual in non-individual ways.

I. A biological analysis from the perspective of the Sociology of Knowledge.

II. Karl Mannheim (1893-1944) Ideology and Utopia (1936)

A. Central Assertion: All knowledge is existentially determined.

1. Humans as social creatures

– Humans live in specific historical/cultural contexts.

– Humans occupy specific statuses and play specific roles within specific groups.

– These facts determine our “Location”

2. Location determines what we see, how we see it and therefore what we “Know”

– Rather than objective and universal, knowledge is subjective and particular.

– “Knowledge” as bias

 

B. Location operationalized: Class, Status, Rank, Ethnicity and race, Gender, Religion, etc. (THESE ARE THE SOCIAL FORCES)

1. Existential determinations or “social forces of locations in life”

 

III. You are to use this orientation to examine critically a social scientific claim to “truth”

A. Not a statement of faith; not a statement of fact: Must be an explanatory statement (at least one variable related to at least one other variable)

B. Steo by step process (MUST be followed):

1. Identify explanatory statement and set aside

2. List social forces (grocery list formation)

3. Ponder the meaning of each; thatbis, how each social force has influenced perception and thus knowledge of the world. Think in broad terms. Exercise a sociological imagination. Place the “personal” within the “social.” Peer deeply into the soul of a theorist.

4. Relate “findings” from step 3 to the explanatory statement. Detect bias.

5. Write paper (10 PAGES)

C. Due to the epistemological paradox (If all knowledge is . . . then so is . . . ), we may conclude that “location,” rather than baising perception and knowledge, revealed to the world as it really is.

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