Abstract

The major emphasis of the "sociology of scientific knowledge" has been on the natural sciences. Recently, however, the field has taken a reflexive turn. I examine the relation between this kind of reflexivity and that in the history of the sociology of knowledge generally with an eye to assessing its place in social theory. Although reflexive adequacy, like other criteria for choice of theory, is not an absolute and overriding cognitive good, reflexive considerations often are critical in assessing the prospective claims of a research program and in evaluating the intellectual honesty and seriousness of these claims