Craft and Consciousness: Occupational Technique and the Development of Word Images

by Joseph Bensman

Long out of print and difficult to come by, Bensman and Lilienfeld's treatise has achieved the status of an underground masterwork of sociological thought.
An extended and carefully nuanced essay on the sociology of knowledge, its central argument was well defined by the authors in the first edition of 1973: "It is our contention that major 'habits of mind,' approaches to the world, or in phenomenological terms, attitudes towards everyday life, and specialized attitudes, are extensions of habits of thought that emerge and are developed in the practice of an occupation, profession, or craft. We emphasize craft since we focus upon the methods of work, techniques, methodologies, and the social arrangements which emerge in the practice of a profession as being decisive in the formation of world views!" That argument is advanced against the Marxist tradition that would relate the forms and content of knowledge to the position of the knower in the social, economic, and class structure of society. It avails itself of the theories and perceptions of Veblen, Mannheim, Weber, Husserl, and Alfred Schutz.

Genres: Sociology

Hardcover

First published December 31, 1991

Reviews

[Dan Slimmon · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book exemplifies social theorists' psychotic compulsion to round up a litter of healthy and playful concepts, cram them in a burlap sack, weigh the sack down with impenetrable sentence structures, and heft it into a wild river of prevarication.