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Trust, scepticism, and social order: A contribution from the sociology of scientific knowledge
Author(s) -
RamíreziOllé Meritxell
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
sociology compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 31
ISSN - 1751-9020
DOI - 10.1111/soc4.12653
Subject(s) - skepticism , ignorance , sociology , argument (complex analysis) , epistemology , order (exchange) , sociology of scientific knowledge , sociology of knowledge , interpersonal communication , social science , philosophy , chemistry , biochemistry , finance , economics
The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), which studies the organisation and content of science, has made two original contributions to the understanding of social order at large. First, SSK scholars regard social order as a problem of establishing “cognitive order” and knowledge. A wealth of case studies has demonstrated that interpersonal trust is necessary to achieve agreement and shared perception among particular collectives of specialists. Second, SSK scholars insist that all types of cognitive order and knowledge, whether “scientific” or “lay,” are the result of socially organised scepticism being parasitic upon existing trust and background expectations (an argument that I call “the Parasitic View of Scepticism”). Sociologists with an interest in today's so‐called “knowledge” and “information” societies, and more specifically, in the social distribution and political uses of doubt and unknowns (including “post‐truth”), would benefit from adopting the Parasitic View of Scepticism and investigating the corrosive and generative consequences of scepticism on the trust relations and the cognitive/social order upon which it is based, in line with insights from the emerging fields of agnotology and the sociology of ignorance.