Bourdieu's Sociology Of Knowledge And Tradition Of French Sociology Of Knowledge Inheritance And Development

As a world-famous French sociologist with great influence in the 20th century, Pierre Bourdieu's(1930-2002) works have obtained persistent attention from disciplines such as sociology, philosophy, humanities and other social sciences. By adopting the unique perspective of sociology of knowledge, this dissertation intends to explore the mutual relationship between sociology of knowledge and Bourdieu's sociological theory. The dissertation implies that, One the one hand, we can take Bourdieu's sociology of knowledge as a major framework to understand the inner logic of his sociological theory; by refining this framework from his complicated works, we can acquire a more clear comprehension of his thoughts. On the other, from the perspective of sociology of knowledge, the mindset frame of Bourdieu's is tightly connected with the "paradigm" abstracted from the French tradition of sociology of knowledge, the two key characteristics of this French tradition - first, it emphasizes the hidden unconsciousness under human thinking; second, it emphasizes the social foundations and collectivism basis of rational and scientific knowledge - is inherited by Bourdieu, and the methodological outcome of phenomenology also borrowed to re-interpret these two characteristics. First, Bourdieu takes the concept "field" as a substitute for "society", and he uses "generating scheme" , "sense of practice", "doxa" and "disposition" to describe the inner structure of thinking which makes society the determinant. By introducing these new terms, the subtle relationship between "thinking" and "society" becomes more "visible" in argumentation. Second, by introducing the concept of "practice" into sociology of knowledge's French tradition, and specifying the contrast logics of "practical knowledge" against "scientific (sociological) knowledge", Bourdieu also discusses the specific social context which is indispensable for the generation of the validity of "objective" knowledge. In a word, by renovating the very demonstrational mode from those two perspectives, the emerging French tradition of sociology of knowledge has got more explanatory power, which can counterbalance with hermeneutic tradition of sociology and other schools within the discipline of sociology of knowledge.As to the arrangement of this dissertation, in the chapter of introduction, we begin with a concise review of the present situation of sociology of knowledge research. We intend to discover the French tradition of sociology of knowledge, which exists in the academic field for a long time as a "concealed tradition". The second and third chapter bases on the two key characteristics of sociology of knowledge's French tradition mentioned above to expound Bourdieu's sociology of knowledge. The second chapter mainly takes the first characteristic as the framework and discusses Bourdieu's general theory of sociology of knowledge, by using the unique way of describing "society" and "knowledge", we can catch the idea how Bourdieu analysis the relationship between them. The third chapter mainly bases on the issue of "the possibility of the validity of objective knowledge", and we can see how Bourdieu's sociology of knowledge focuses on the specific knowledge types, such as practical knowledge, art knowledge, scientific knowledge and sociological knowledge. As the conclusion of the whole dissertation, the last chapter summarizes characteristics of Bourdieu's sociology of knowledge, at the same time, it also explores the specific contribution of Bourdieu's sociology of knowledge to sociology of knowledge's French tradition.