LUDWICK FLECK - AN OUTSIDER, A FORERUNNER, A CLASSIC? (Ludwik Fleck - outsider, prekursor, klasyk?)

The sociology of knowledge is a field of study with a rather blurry disciplinary standing. Its epistemological status (science or meta-science?), disciplinary affiliation (philosophy or sociology?), and even its history (who was the first, more important, etc: Mannheim, Znaniecki, Scheler?) remain vague. This article argues that both the structure and history of the sociology of knowledge produce presentism as an epistemological obstacle. A good example of this phenomenon is Ludwik Fleck's position as both a classic and a forerunner of the sociology of knowledge. As a subdiscipline of sociology, with disciplinary ambitions, the sociology of knowledge explores facts concerning social contexts of the production and proliferation of knowledge. Nevertheless, as a meta-science or philosophy, or even a counter-science, the sociology of knowledge asserts itself a privilege to judge every scientific enterprise in respect of its socio-epistemological dimension. This double determination entangles a self-reflection of the sociology of knowledge: it creates the conditions of possibility as a discipline, and simultaneously reduces its own critical power.