Společnost a vědění - Od Gutenberga k Diderotovi – Burke Peter (2008)

This book by Cambridge historian Peter Burke, a leading representative of the “new history” movement, examines changing views of the status of knowledge and learning in the early modern period. Drawing on developments in the sociology and history of scientific knowledge, as well as on the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Thomas Kuhn, Michel Foucault, Peter Berger, Thomas Luckmann, Émile Durkheim and Karl Mannheim, it explores the concrete, discursive, institutional and socially constructed nature of knowledge. It also engages with newer theories, including Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital and the history of truth as a social construct associated with Steven Shapin. Burke examines changing traditional categories of knowledge, particularly “art” (ars) and science (scientia), showing that modern knowledge did not develop through simple cumulative growth but through a combination of progress and regression in different fields. He considers the relationship between alternative and official knowledge, the connections between new scientific learning and demonology or witchcraft, and the interaction between scholars’ theoretical knowledge and craftspeople’s practical skills. The book presents a plurality of knowledge encompassing orally transmitted information, areas not treated theoretically such as cooking and hunting, museum collections and encyclopedic projects. Its chapters address the sociology, geography and anthropology of knowledge, along with its political and economic aspects, the role of the reader and the credibility of scientific knowledge.