Reality of Knowledge - Towards a Critical Realist Sociology of Knowledge

This book proposes a new approach to the sociology of knowledge, providing a cross-section of some of the major theories that have influenced and continue to influence the field.
Through a series of engagements with the history of the discipline, it brings a critical realist perspective to bear on key themes within the sociology of knowledge. Moving away from the notion of critical realism as an under-labourer for the social and human sciences, it seeks to affirm a more fully sociological account of knowledge and as such, emphasises its social meaning. In addition, the book presents an account of the under-appreciated convergence between critical realism and Norbert Elias's approach to the sociology of knowledge.
This book will appeal to scholars and students of sociology and social theory with interests in the sociology of knowledge and critical realist thought.

List of contents

Introduction 1. Knowledge and the Sociology of Knowledge 2. A Critical Realist Approach to Knowledge 3. Social cognition and the origin of concepts in Emile Durkheim's Sociology of Knowledge 4. Max Weber and the Sociology of Knowledge: Institutions, Values and Knowledgeability 5. Phenomenology and Everyday Knowledge 6. The Social Ontology of Everyday Knowledge 7. Norbert Elias and the Sociology of Knowledge 8. Processes and Persons in Norbert Elias's Sociology of Knowledge Conclusion

About the author

Philip D. Walsh is Associate Professor of Sociology and of Social and Political Thought at York University, Toronto. He is the author of Arendt Contra Sociology: Theory, Society and its Science and Skepticism, Modernity and Critical Theory.

Product details

• Authors: Philip D. Walsh
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 19.02.2026
• EAN: 9781032151052
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3215105-2
• No. of pages: 198
• Series: Routledge Studies in Critical Realism
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Natural sciences (general); Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Social Theory, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Research, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Methodology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Social Theory, Research methods: general, Research methods / methodology