Scienza e società della conoscenza

The book advances a systematic analysis of the main sociological aspects of the coming knowledge society. If science is not unconceivable in isolation from society, it is argued, it is also true the vice versa, as society is no more conceivable isolated from science. If we theoretically clarify the relationship among individuals, society and knowledge, we can draw a circulation of knowledge across these three analytical levels. Such circulation sees 4 (logical) phases: the generation of new ideas by scientists and knowledge-able citizens, their institutionalisation by scientific community inside society at large, their diffusion both materially (encapsulated through innovation) and immaterially (through communication) and socialisation (science education, regulated science) of individuals to legitimated knowledge. In particular, scientific discovery is treated in its sociological dimension and the scientific community as a social field. In such a theoretical model, however, science is not affected by any ¿relativism¿, rather it is intrinsecally relativistic, as it varies along regular (¿objective¿ i.e. predictable) patterns, that social science can reconstruct. And this is a relevant result in current sociology of scientific knowledge. About knowledge-society, moreover, we can recognize it is pretty different from other qualification of present society. More precisely, it is the result of two long-lasting processes: the growth of a knowledge economy and the ¿ parallel - growth of a society of individuals. Joining these two processes rises pretty new problems about the status of knowledge as a global public good.