As investigações aqui reunidas se encaixam nos âmbitos da sociologia cognitiva e, em menor medida, da sociologia da cultura. Seu objetivo principal é organizar e esclarecer alguns dos pro-blemas básicos colocados para o estudo sociológico da ignorância humana. Para alcançar esse objetivo, começo com uma discussão de ordem conceitual sobre a ignorância, encarando a ques-tão ontológica a respeito do que ela é, assim como a questão metodológica a respeito de como melhor apreendê-la de uma perspectiva sociológica. Esse passo ocupa a primeira parte da tese, e tais questões são enfrentadas mediante um diálogo crítico com a literatura disponível sobre a ignorância nas áreas da sociologia e da epistemologia. Na segunda parte da tese, busco pôr em movimento tais discussões teóricas, por meio de duas investigações empíricas ou estudos de caso independentes uma da outra. Tais investigações se baseiam em um amplo levantamento documental, centrado em duas diferentes correntes culturais, como prefiro chamá-las: a home-opatia e o masculinismo. O que justifica tomá-las como tópicos de um estudo sobre a ignorância humana é a circunstância de que, para que a homeopatia e o masculinismo sigam existindo como doutrinas \"vivas\" em torno das quais indivíduos diferentes se associam e que de fato orientam as tomadas de decisão de inúmeras pessoas que nelas tomam parte , é preciso que se perpetue a ignorância de certos fatos passíveis de serem conhecidos com alguma facilidade, no contexto atual. Espero que, ao escrutinar, em contexto, esses dois sistemas de crença am-bos insustentáveis, à luz do estoque de conhecimento hoje à nossa disposição , avancemos na compreensão da lógica interna da ignorância e de seu condicionamento social, em particular quando o que está em jogo é a persistência das más ideias; além disso, também espero que as investigações aqui apresentadas lancem alguma luz sobre os limites da abordagem sociológica da ignorância e de outros fenômenos cognitivos aparentados a ela. / The inquiries assembled here belong primarily to the field of cognitive sociology and, to a lesser extent, to the sociology of culture. Their main goal is to sort out and clarify some of the major problems pertaining a sociological approach to the topic of human ignorance. To reach said goal, I start with a conceptual discussion of ignorance, addressing the ontological question as to what ignorance is, as well as the methodological one as to how we should appropriately grasp it from a sociological point of view. This step comprises the first part of the thesis, and said questions are tackled by means of a critical exchange with the available literature on ignorance in the fields of sociology and epistemology. In the second part of the thesis, I endeavor to bring such theoretical discussion into play by presenting two independent empirical inquiries or case studies. These are grounded on a broad documentary research I conducted on two distinct cultural currents, as I call them: namely homeopathy and masculinism. The rationale behind the choice of the aforementioned subjects is that the perpetuation of ignorance of facts one could easily know given the cognitive resources presently available is key to the endurance of both homeopathy and masculinism as \"living\" doctrines as unique belief systems around which individuals coming from different backgrounds associate with each other, and which help to shape the decision making process of a number of those individuals. I hope that, through a detailed and context-sensitive scrutiny of each of these sets of ideas both of which, as I uphold, are greatly at odds with the stock of knowledge currently available to us some insight into the inner workings of ignorance and its social conditioning may be obtained, particularly when it comes to the persistence of unsound ideas; furthermore, I hope that the theoretical and empirical inquiries presented here may shed some light upon the limits of a sociological take on ignorance and other related cognitive phenomena.

Thesis advisor: Paul Gray / Thesis advisor: Paul Schervish / The current economic crisis resembles a type of "critical situation" wherein everyday assumptions and routines sustaining hegemonic ideologies and their corresponding forms of social power are prone to be disrupted (Giddens 1987). Such situations provide opportunities for the relative strength of such hegemonies, and how they are effectively restored and/or challenged, to be uncovered. In undertaking this study I sought to discover the social and economic implications and lessons MBA students associate with the current economic crisis and how they frame and rationalize such perceptions. In so doing, I further aimed to uncover specific ideological processes they perform in preserving and/or challenging conventional tenets of liberal capitalism. I reexamine the sociological concept of ideology in reference to the empirical data, and test the capacity of Giddens' (1979, 1984) and Mannheim's (1949) combined methodologies in uncovering interconnections of consciousness, ideology and agency. I conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 MBA students from five universities in Boston, and used a combination of grounded theory and theory testing to analyze the data. Findings reveal not only the specific content comprising hegemonic notions of what constitutes economic and social reality among respondents, but also reflect how ideology functions as a holistic process of social and self understanding and how it reproduces, and is reproduced by, the performance of agencies within particular corporate and educational structures. I argue that the tenets espoused and enacted by many respondents reveal a stark challenge to future social change. Even amid the current crisis -the largest since the Great Depression -most respondents acknowledge that this event had little impact on how they view their professional vocations or the macro economic system. This finding not only speak strongly to the rigidity of conventional tenets underscoring our liberal capitalist culture, but also implies the urgent need to reconsider how our educational institutions should play a greater role in challenging conventional notions of reality espoused so fervently by burgeoning business professionals. I further argue that critical, systematic evaluations of consciousness and ideology should take a more substantial role in the social sciences in determining the restraints and possibilities for social change. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

A presente pesquisa pretende sustentar que a reflexão precoce sobre a sociologia durkheimeana cumpre um papel fundamental no desenvolvimento do pensamento de Georges Canguilhem sobre as ciências da vida e, por conseguinte, na elaboração da sua filosofia biológica. Como se buscará mostrar, essa importância se deve ao fato de que a teoria social de Durkheim procurou satisfazer às exigências científicas de objetividade e de quantificação dos fenômenos incorporando da biologia de Comte e da fisiologia de Claude Bernard a teoria da identidade essencial entre os estados normais e patológicos. Será a partir da crítica a essa teoria que o conceito de normatividade vital, núcleo da filosofia da vida canguilhemeana, se elaborará na tese de doutoramento de Canguilhem, em 1943, Essai sur quelques problèmes concernant le normal et le pathologique. Finalmente, concluiremos sugerindo que essa nova concepção de vida permitirá ao filósofo retornar ao campo da teoria social, nas Nouvelles réflexions, para recusar a identificação entre organismo e sociedade que ele denunciara em Durkheim. / The present research intends to sustain that the early reflection on Durkheims sociology plays an important role in the evolution of George Canguilhems thought about the life sciences, and, consequently, in the development of his biological philosophy. As this research purports to show, this importance arises from the fact that Durkheims social theory attempted to satisfy the scientific demands for the objectivity and quantification of the phenomena by incorporating, from Comtes biology and Claude Bernards physiology, a theory about the essential identity between normal and pathological states. It is by taking the critique of this theory as a starting point, that the core of Canguilhems life philosophy, namely, his concept of vital normativity, will be developed in his 1943 doctorate thesis, Essai sur quelques problèmes concernant le normal et le pathologique. Finally, by way of conclusion, we suggest that this new conception of life will allow the French philosopher to return, in his Nouvelles réflexions, to the social theory field, in order to deny the same identification between organisms and society that he denounced in Durkheim.

O presente trabalho busca realizar uma reconstrução teórica e sistemática da teoria da memória coletiva do sociólogo francês Maurice Halbwachs, dispersamente contida em seus três livros sobre o tema: Les Cadres Sociaux de la Mémoire (1925), La Topographie Léngendaire des Évangiles en Terre Sainte (1941) e póstumo La Mémoire Collective (1950). Para isso, rastreamos e reconstruímos o cenário intelectual da época que versava sobre o tema da memória nas Ciências Humanas, Psicologia e Filosofia, e também as principais influências intelectuais de Halbwachs, a saber, Durkheim e Bergson, a fim de demonstrar quais problemas a teoria da memória coletiva de Halbwachs procurou responder. O núcleo da dissertação está contido na reconstrução da teoria da memória coletiva a partir do rastreamento e reconstrução dos conceitos de memória coletiva e memória individual e também a noção de grupo das obras supracitadas. Após a reconstrução nuclear da teoria, colocam-na à prova em uma demonstração histórica a partir do caso da formação da memória coletiva cristã (a qual também é trabalhada por Halbwachs em seus escritos. Uma vez reconstruída e demostrada teoria, nos dedicamos a definir a memória coletiva contrapondo-a com outros termos: memória social, memória cultural, tradição, mito, história e conhecimento. Por fim, nas considerações finais, buscamos aproximar a concepção halbwachsiana de memória às teorias da mente contemporaneamente existentes. / This study aims to perform a systematic and theoretical reconstruction of the theory of collective memory of the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, which is sparsely contained in his three books on the subject: Les Cadres de la Mémoire Sociaux (1925), La Topographie des Léngendaire Evangiles en Terre Sainte (1941) and the posthumous La Mémoire Collective (1950). In order to accomplish this aim, we tracked and reconstructed the intellectual scene of that time that dealt with the subject of memory within the Humanities, Psychology, and Philosophy. Moreover, we analyzed Halbwachs main intellectual influences, namely, Durkheim and Bergson, in order to demonstrate the problems that he sought to answer. The dissertations core is the reconstruction of the theory of collective memory, tracking and reconstructing it´s main concepts: collective memory, individual memory and the groups. We demonstrated the articulation of these concepts in a historical case: the formation of the Christian collective memory (which is also examined by Halbwachs in his writings). Once the theory was rebuilt and demonstrated, we defined the concept of ´collective memory´ contrasting it with other terms such as, ´social memory´, ´cultural memory´, ´tradition´, ´myth´, ´history´, and ´knowledge´. Lastly we tried to match the halbwachsian conception of memory to actual theories of mind.

Over the last ten to fifteen years, prostitution policies in England have grown increasingly welfarist in tone, stressing the relative victimhood and vulnerability of women who sell sex. This thesis explores important facets of these emergent narratives. Using a qualitative multi-method approach, it investigates the manner in which 21 policy-actors and seven policy documents - principally originating from the English prostitution ‘policy subsystem’ - interpret and represent prostitution. From a methodological perspective, generated findings are explored through the dual interpretative frameworks of critical discourse analysis and sociological frame theory. These frameworks require that localised narratives be contextualised within, and explained by reference to, broader discursive and cultural conditions. In deference to this, findings are situated within rich bodies of academic literature which commentate on, promote and critique various political philosophies, ideological discourses, and critical social theories, such as (neo)-liberalism, a number of feminisms, and Bourdieusian sociology. More specifically, this thesis explores the way 21 policy actors, and four of the selected policy documents, represent the subjecthood of women who sell sex. It approaches this endeavour via discussions of vulnerability, subjectivity/choice, and gender. Here, it concludes that actors and documents draw on, and contribute to, a plurality of complimentary and contradictory ideological discourses, to interpret and represent certain facets of a woman in prostitution’s ‘self’. Substantively, it suggests that - whilst there is a broad consensus regarding the importance of the internal individualism of women who sell sex, and the instrumentality of externalities with regard to shaping her social spaces and ability to choose - questions of gender remain highly contested. Thereafter, this thesis explores the way the same policy-actors, and three distinct policy documents, discursively include/exclude prostitution from violence against women and girls (VAWG) narratives. It begins by exploring how documents and actors define violence in generic terms, and to what degree they adhere to a feminist sociological model when explaining the aetiology and causality of VAWG. It then discusses how prostitution’s relationship to VAWG is framed, and inclusion/exclusion is justified. Here, it concludes that whilst there is a general commitment to the feminist sociological model of VAWG, the question of whether or not prostitution should be included beneath its auspices is highly contentious – pitting classically oppositional coalitions of actors against one another and creating intramural disputes within coalitions themselves. Drawing these strands together, concluding chapters explore framing dynamics. In total, this thesis offers a number of contributions to the fields of prostitution and VAWG policy studies. It demonstrates that while debates in the English prostitution policy subsystem frequently appear to be comprised of two bitterly oppositional ‘advocacy coalitions’, the two groups share multiple areas of ideological consensus, at least with regard to how they understand prostitution. Indeed, more often than not, coalitions differ principally with regard to their prognostic frames and their judgments of material prevalence. In turn, this disrupts extant literature on advocacy coalitions, which suggests that policy-actors organise themselves into groups by reference to their core belief systems, whilst showing a willingness to compromise on secondary considerations. These areas of consensus by no means suggests that matters are straightforward, however. Indeed, this thesis provides evidence that many facets of the prostitution debate are nuanced, complex and ambivalent – that actors entertain and promote contradictory narratives, that coalitions suffer intra-mural fractures over discursive fault-lines, and that framing preferences are strategically engaged. With regard to the last point, this thesis makes a significant methodological contribution to the field of discourse analysis, insofar as it explores the manner in which respondents can be represented as both formed through, and active users of, discourse. It does so by bringing two distinct discourse theories/methods into dialogue with one another. Over and above this, this thesis seizes upon the theoretical opportunities presented when original findings and extant academic scholarship are used to elucidate and develop one another. Most notably it deploys the work of critical social theorists, Martha Fineman and Pierre Bourdieu, to explore new ways in which the harms of prostitution can be conceived.

O presente trabalho busca realizar uma reconstrução teórica e sistemática da teoria da memória coletiva do sociólogo francês Maurice Halbwachs, dispersamente contida em seus três livros sobre o tema: Les Cadres Sociaux de la Mémoire (1925), La Topographie Léngendaire des Évangiles en Terre Sainte (1941) e póstumo La Mémoire Collective (1950). Para isso, rastreamos e reconstruímos o cenário intelectual da época que versava sobre o tema da memória nas Ciências Humanas, Psicologia e Filosofia, e também as principais influências intelectuais de Halbwachs, a saber, Durkheim e Bergson, a fim de demonstrar quais problemas a teoria da memória coletiva de Halbwachs procurou responder. O núcleo da dissertação está contido na reconstrução da teoria da memória coletiva a partir do rastreamento e reconstrução dos conceitos de memória coletiva e memória individual e também a noção de grupo das obras supracitadas. Após a reconstrução nuclear da teoria, colocam-na à prova em uma demonstração histórica a partir do caso da formação da memória coletiva cristã (a qual também é trabalhada por Halbwachs em seus escritos. Uma vez reconstruída e demostrada teoria, nos dedicamos a definir a memória coletiva contrapondo-a com outros termos: memória social, memória cultural, tradição, mito, história e conhecimento. Por fim, nas considerações finais, buscamos aproximar a concepção halbwachsiana de memória às teorias da mente contemporaneamente existentes. / This study aims to perform a systematic and theoretical reconstruction of the theory of collective memory of the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, which is sparsely contained in his three books on the subject: Les Cadres de la Mémoire Sociaux (1925), La Topographie des Léngendaire Evangiles en Terre Sainte (1941) and the posthumous La Mémoire Collective (1950). In order to accomplish this aim, we tracked and reconstructed the intellectual scene of that time that dealt with the subject of memory within the Humanities, Psychology, and Philosophy. Moreover, we analyzed Halbwachs main intellectual influences, namely, Durkheim and Bergson, in order to demonstrate the problems that he sought to answer. The dissertations core is the reconstruction of the theory of collective memory, tracking and reconstructing it´s main concepts: collective memory, individual memory and the groups. We demonstrated the articulation of these concepts in a historical case: the formation of the Christian collective memory (which is also examined by Halbwachs in his writings). Once the theory was rebuilt and demonstrated, we defined the concept of ´collective memory´ contrasting it with other terms such as, ´social memory´, ´cultural memory´, ´tradition´, ´myth´, ´history´, and ´knowledge´. Lastly we tried to match the halbwachsian conception of memory to actual theories of mind.

No presente trabalho tentamos reconstruir os principais lineamentos da teoria estética e da teoria da sociedade de Theodor Adorno. Com tal propósito, partimos de uma revisão critica da interpretação canônica efetuada tanto por Jürgen Habermas como por Axel Honneth do potencial explicativo contido em obras clássicas da primeira geração da Escola de Frankfurt. O objetivo central deste confronto procura demonstrar que o conceito de cultura de Adorno y Horkheimer tem um potencial explicativo e critico que nem Habermas, nem Honneth souberam destacar. Para reexaminar esse potencial teórico subterrâneo resulta imprescindível referir-se as duas grandes obras da maturidade de Adorno, a Teoria estética e a Dialética negativa. Realizamos-nos esse trabalho procurando explicitar um conceito de cultura alternativo ao de Habermas e Honneth, para tentar logo extrair conclusões referidas à lógica interna das ciências sociais. / The object of this thesis is to reconstruct the basic lines of Adorno\'s aesthetic and social theory. We discuss Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneths canonic interpretation about the theoretic potential of the classic works of the first generation of the Frankfurt School. The central aim of this confrontation is to demonstrate that the concept of culture developed by Adorno and Horkheimer has a theoretic potential that had not been perceived by Habermas and Honneth. In order to reevaluate this potential it is necessary to discuss the last Adornos works, which means, to discuss once again the Aesthetic Theory and the Negative Dialectics. We pretend to find, finally, a different concept of culture in order to use it in the critical reexamination of the internal logic of social sciences.

Esta pesquisa foi realizada com o objetivo de investigar como crianças com idade entre três e quatro anos reagem a situações cotidianas, durante o brincar, apresentando manifestações potencialmente preconceituosas. Para tanto se propôs adaptar a escala do fascismo (escala F) para situações que representam o cotidiano de forma lúdica, o que permitiu identificar elementos que denotam o preconceito já em crianças. A pesquisa foi realizada em uma escola da rede privada de ensino do município de São Paulo, com crianças de idades entre três e quatro anos, com as quais o pesquisador realizou um momento de observação lúdica no qual as crianças interagiram livremente com bonecos que representavam diferenças entre cor de pele e de presença ou ausência de deficiência, e um momento de aplicação de situações problema representadas de forma lúdica e que tiveram a intenção de avaliar os aspectos investigados na escala F. Os sujeitos da pesquisa também estiveram divididos em agrupamentos de crianças que estudavam com crianças com deficiência em sala de aula e agrupamentos que não estudavam, com o objetivo de identificar possíveis diferenças no padrão de respostas dada a relação com a inclusão da criança com deficiência no ambiente escolar. Os resultados avaliados a partir do referencial da Teoria Crítica da Sociedade apontaram para a uma baixa pontuação numa escala de manifestação de atitudes que denotam o preconceito em crianças com idade entre três e quatro anos e pode-se concluir que essa idade é um momento propicio para se aplicar intervenções com vistas a minimizar os efeitos do preconceito, embora indique a continuidade de pesquisas sobre a formação do preconceito que incluam o elemento lúdico em crianças desta faixa etária / This research aims at investigating how three- and four-year-old children react to everyday situations, during play time, showing potentially prejudiced behavior. We propose adapting the fascist scale (F-scale) to everyday situations represented in a ludic way, which allowed us to identify prejudiced elements in children. This research was developed in a private school in São Paulo, with three- and four-year-old children. During the study, the researcher observed the children as they played with dolls (which could have different skin tones, presence or absence of malformation) and as they were presented with problematic situations in order to be analyzed based on the F-scale. The subjects of the research were also divided into two groups those who had classmates with special needs and those who did not. Our objective was to identify possible differences in the response pattern regarding the inclusion of children with special needs in the classroom environment. The results were analyzed based on the Critical Social Theory, pointed to a low score on a manifestation scale of attitudes that denotes prejudice in three- to four-year-old children. We might conclude that, at this age, it is a favorable moment to intervene aiming at lessening prejudice effects. Moreover, it also indicates that research on prejudice formation along with ludic elements should continue to be done with children of that age

Operating at the boundaries of philosophy of mind, cognitive science, politics and social theory, this thesis aims to develop an interdisciplinary model of the relationship between agency and structure. This thesis explores the question of why the agency/structure argument in the social sciences has not yet been resolved and argues for an interdisciplinary model of agency to be utilised by social theory. In the wake of poststructuralism there has been a gravitation back towards characterising the terms of this debate in more strongly dichotomous terms, arguing for the autonomy of agency in particular as a natural kind. This trend can be seen most clearly in Archer's analytical dualism within the morphogenetic theory of social elaboration, where the desire for the clarity of dualist terms has become tangled with claims to ontology. I suggest that this tendency is not limited to social theory, but is characteristic of the neoliberal political environment from which such theory is being produced, understood and utilised. Understanding the way in which our political and social context influences the ways in which we may understand or conceptualise a problem such as this, establishing the logical intuition and methods which we use to do this kind of deductive reasoning, is key for both performing the philosophical task of engaging in the agency-structure debate, but is thoroughly interrelated with how we need to conceptualise that relationship itself. It is both the method and the content, the 'how' and the 'what', of investigating the relationship between external social structures and the feeling of autonomous authorship and choice. I argue that the political value system inherent to neoliberal and economic logics, which prioritise and naturalise individuality and autonomous, internal agentic capacity, works to make the experience of agency appear inevitable and universal. This thesis engages with the assumptions that underpin this illusion, looking to philosophy of mind in order to etch out a framework for understanding agency. This framework has two necessary components. Firstly, that it acknowledges the experience of agency as real, and that as a way-of-being-in-the- world it is necessary to continue to explore how individuals experience agency in their environments. Secondly, and most importantly, that this 'realism' about agency, does not inevitably indicate that agency has an ontological and epistemological reality that transcends the particular social and political contexts in which it makes sense. The thesis explores how the fundamental components of agency, intelligence and cognition are produced in the interrelationships between a subject and their physical, social and political environment. The argument presented is that deliberative consciousness and self-awareness emerge as a response to, and as an effect of, complex social interaction. In contrast to Archer's conception of the sui generis, causal efficacy of reflexive agency, this thesis argues that smooth, embodied, coping with the environment is the preferred mode of interacting with the world. By critically engaging with the idea that those studying social dynamics should conceptualize agency as internal and inherent the thesis explores and critiques the prevalent use of the term 'agency' within social theory, arguing that an explicit engagement with what agency is is an understudied but fundamental and necessary philosophical task within sociology. A strong position is proposed that social institutions not only precede the self-aware, experience of choice and autonomy, but actively produce it. This proposition stands in opposition to dualistic notions of agency and structure as they are conceived by critical realism. This has widespread political implications in a field that often assumes agency to be an intrinsic part of human nature that stands outside of socialisation. This goal of this thesis is to demonstrate that in order to understand the experience of agency within our particular contexts and how it manifests as a force for social change, social theory must engage critically with philosophy of consciousness.

As investigações aqui reunidas se encaixam nos âmbitos da sociologia cognitiva e, em menor medida, da sociologia da cultura. Seu objetivo principal é organizar e esclarecer alguns dos pro-blemas básicos colocados para o estudo sociológico da ignorância humana. Para alcançar esse objetivo, começo com uma discussão de ordem conceitual sobre a ignorância, encarando a ques-tão ontológica a respeito do que ela é, assim como a questão metodológica a respeito de como melhor apreendê-la de uma perspectiva sociológica. Esse passo ocupa a primeira parte da tese, e tais questões são enfrentadas mediante um diálogo crítico com a literatura disponível sobre a ignorância nas áreas da sociologia e da epistemologia. Na segunda parte da tese, busco pôr em movimento tais discussões teóricas, por meio de duas investigações empíricas ou estudos de caso independentes uma da outra. Tais investigações se baseiam em um amplo levantamento documental, centrado em duas diferentes correntes culturais, como prefiro chamá-las: a home-opatia e o masculinismo. O que justifica tomá-las como tópicos de um estudo sobre a ignorância humana é a circunstância de que, para que a homeopatia e o masculinismo sigam existindo como doutrinas \"vivas\" em torno das quais indivíduos diferentes se associam e que de fato orientam as tomadas de decisão de inúmeras pessoas que nelas tomam parte , é preciso que se perpetue a ignorância de certos fatos passíveis de serem conhecidos com alguma facilidade, no contexto atual. Espero que, ao escrutinar, em contexto, esses dois sistemas de crença am-bos insustentáveis, à luz do estoque de conhecimento hoje à nossa disposição , avancemos na compreensão da lógica interna da ignorância e de seu condicionamento social, em particular quando o que está em jogo é a persistência das más ideias; além disso, também espero que as investigações aqui apresentadas lancem alguma luz sobre os limites da abordagem sociológica da ignorância e de outros fenômenos cognitivos aparentados a ela. / The inquiries assembled here belong primarily to the field of cognitive sociology and, to a lesser extent, to the sociology of culture. Their main goal is to sort out and clarify some of the major problems pertaining a sociological approach to the topic of human ignorance. To reach said goal, I start with a conceptual discussion of ignorance, addressing the ontological question as to what ignorance is, as well as the methodological one as to how we should appropriately grasp it from a sociological point of view. This step comprises the first part of the thesis, and said questions are tackled by means of a critical exchange with the available literature on ignorance in the fields of sociology and epistemology. In the second part of the thesis, I endeavor to bring such theoretical discussion into play by presenting two independent empirical inquiries or case studies. These are grounded on a broad documentary research I conducted on two distinct cultural currents, as I call them: namely homeopathy and masculinism. The rationale behind the choice of the aforementioned subjects is that the perpetuation of ignorance of facts one could easily know given the cognitive resources presently available is key to the endurance of both homeopathy and masculinism as \"living\" doctrines as unique belief systems around which individuals coming from different backgrounds associate with each other, and which help to shape the decision making process of a number of those individuals. I hope that, through a detailed and context-sensitive scrutiny of each of these sets of ideas both of which, as I uphold, are greatly at odds with the stock of knowledge currently available to us some insight into the inner workings of ignorance and its social conditioning may be obtained, particularly when it comes to the persistence of unsound ideas; furthermore, I hope that the theoretical and empirical inquiries presented here may shed some light upon the limits of a sociological take on ignorance and other related cognitive phenomena.