Knowledge of social life does not produce greater control over fate

Evidence

Hence the thesis that more knowledge about social life (even if that knowledge is as well buttressed empirically as it could possibly be) equals greater control over our fate is false. It is (arguably) true about the physical world, but not about the universe of social events. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 111

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s thesis: Stevens’s institutional mastery gives him deep knowledge of his role but zero moral control — the Enlightenment assumption that knowledge yields control fails exactly where Stevens lives. — connects to: Sociology’s method-driven path has failed to deliver its Enlightenment promises; New social knowledge alters the social world rather than merely describing it — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 363; Knowledge of the social world makes that world inherently unstable — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 115 (+8 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: This overturns a founding Enlightenment assumption and is the chapter’s central claim; dense enough to sit with.

Related

• Knowledge of the social world makes that world inherently unstable (similarity 0.90)
• Sociology’s method-driven path has failed to deliver its Enlightenment promises (similarity 0.88)
• New social knowledge alters the social world rather than merely describing it (similarity 0.85)
• Social knowledge alters its subject, unlike natural-science observation (similarity 0.84)
• Social science knowledge changes the social world it studies. (similarity 0.83)
• Modernity institutionalises doubt, making all knowledge claims inherently circular (similarity 0.80)
• Social science is more deeply implicated in modernity than natural science. (similarity 0.80)
• Modern knowledge is more opaque to individuals than pre-modern local knowledge was (similarity 0.79)
• Modern dangers are produced by socially organized knowledge, not nature (similarity 0.79)
• Under modernity no knowledge is certain, in any science. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Social knowledge alters its subject, unlike natural-science observation #corroborates (0.60) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 116
• New social knowledge alters the social world rather than merely describing it #complicates (0.50) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 363
• Knowledge of the social world makes that world inherently unstable #complicates (0.40) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 115