The Emergence of 'Knowledge' as a Unit of Analysis in the Social Sciences

Richard Hull, Lecturer in Sociology, Brunel University
(From 1 September 2002 Senior Lecturer in Management, Newcastle University Business School)

Discuss this video on the ISIG discussion blog

Abstract

I will argue the following:

1. The emergence of 'knowledge' as a unit of analysis was tightly bound to the emergence of neo-liberal theories in the 1930s, which developed 'post positivist' arguments against Marxism and Keynsianism
   
   
2. A central aspect of those arguments was that analysis of the role of 'information' and 'knowledge' in economic life proved the necessity for market-based economies
   
   
3. Neo-liberalism entails a paradoxical coupling of a 'sovereign' or positive ethics of individual freedom, with a post-positivist perspective on 'knowledge'
   
   
4. Social and political theories that treat 'information' and 'knowledge' as entities or processes that can simply be 'analysed' perpetuate this paradoxical coupling

^