Against Discovering

• In Event: 1238 - Regular Session for History of Sociology

Abstract

This paper, written deliberately as a heartfelt and self-conscious letter, elaborates the ethical and epistemological imperative to rethink and restructure standard modes of sociological knowledge production. Through a cognitive sociological close reading of Peter Berger’s (1963) canonical Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective, I detail the ontological contours of the proposed field of study, noting, in particular, the salience of colonialist metaphor, relations, and processes. Following decolonial, Black radical, feminist, and indigenous scholars, I argue that underpinning Berger’s exemplary vision of sociology is what I term the precept-praxis of discovering: a hegemonic paradigm that, insofar as it privileges autonomy, productivity, and novelty over accountability, creativity, and equity, fuels epistemic parochialism, reinscribes colonialist systems like sexism, racism, and capitalism, and substantiates concomitant violence like sexual assault and epistemicide.

Author

• Man Kaplan, Rutgers University