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is any such thing as our knowledge. There are their (or your) claims to knowledge, and our (or my) claims to knowledge. Such claims are always contingent (i.e. may be true, or may be false), irrespective of who makes them. To point out that someone’s claims to knowledge are false, and to attempt to convince them that this is so, is – far from being culturally insensitive – to perform a public service.

When you see statements about knowledge in the literature of your primary discipline, be careful to be clear as to whether the author is stating, or implying, that what has been referred to as knowledge really is knowledge (in which case the author is committed to its being true), or whether it is yet another example of the incorrect (and dangerously misleading) practice of calling something knowledge on no better or stronger ground than it is believed to be, or claimed to be (somewhere, some time, by someone) knowledge. It is a good discipline to make sure that you do not infect your own writing with this confusion. The result will be that your writing embodies a greater clarity, and that is of inestimable benefit to you and your reader alike.

The discipline which should be called the sociology of belief is a very useful and interesting empirical discipline, and it is one which is relevant to a number of fields pursued in this Faculty including, for example, education (e.g. by finding out more about the circumstances in which people are more likely to acquire or change their belief(s)), journalism (e.g. by finding out more about the circumstances influencing the speed at which a given belief or belief set is acquired or changed) and international relations (e.g. by finding out more about the factors which influence the intensity of a given belief or belief set). These examples could readily be multiplied.

TASK 1: Are there areas within your primary discipline in which questions in the sociology of belief are relevant? Can you formulate any specific questions relevant to areas in which you are currently working?

We should contrast what has been erroneously labelled the sociology of knowledge, i.e. the descriptive investigation of the sociology of belief, with philosophical or – an even better term – normative epistemology. An analogy with ethics may be helpful. Descriptive ethics is a sociological enquiry into what values a person, a group of people, or a society in general have, or did have, at a given time and place. What do (or did) you, or me, or us, or them, regard as good, or bad, or right, or wrong. Thus we can say that in certain communities, sexual promiscuity is regarded as, or claimed to be, right, or a good practice; in others, it is regarded as wrong (or bad); in others still it may be regarded with indifference. This is descriptive ethics. It is neutral on the question of whether e.g. sexual promiscuity really is right, wrong, or a matter of moral indifference (like putting tomato sauce on fried chicken). Descriptive ethics is, or should be, a value neutral activity – exactly as descriptive epistemology (or the sociology of belief) is, or should be. (You will no doubt encounter the mantra that “value neutral inquiry is impossible”. I would contend that this is a demonstrably absurd claim, which is often, unfortunately, asserted dogmatically by an author or speaker to give a fraudulent legitimacy to their pushing their values (otherwise inappropriately) into their text or speech.)

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