Concepts formed without social context restrict and confine knowledge

Evidence

The former would synthetize the data of experience in concepts which reflect, as fully and adequately as possible, the given society in the given facts. This “sociological” definition is suggested, not because of any prejudice in favor of sociology, but because of the factual ingression of society into the data of experience. Consequently, the repression of society in the formation of concepts is tantamount to an academic confinement of experience, a restriction of meaning. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 738

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies what ‘true consciousness’ means for Marcuse: concepts that fully reflect the given society in the given facts.
• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s purpose bridging critical theory to attention/consumption debates — a society-draining concept formation parallels attention-economy discourse flattening lived experience. — connects to: Concepts are tools for dominating nature, not for understanding it — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 52; Concepts are reflections that explain things through context beyond immediate experience — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 423; Pure knowledge without a viewpoint is self-contradictory — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 836 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Knowledge production operates through socially grounded language #corroborates (0.88)
• The truth of ideas is independent of their social origins #contradicts (0.85) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 210
• Pure knowledge without a viewpoint is self-contradictory #corroborates (0.82) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 836
• Social knowledge alters its subject, unlike natural-science observation #corroborates (0.82) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 116
• Social relations reduce to structures of knowledge in Schutz’s extreme sociology #qualifies (0.78)
• Representation meaning arises independently of authorial intention and depends on preexisting social knowledge #corroborates (0.75) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 743