TOWARDS AN EPISTEMOLOGY OF SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS

The theory of social representations is primarily a theory of lay know ledge. It is argued that it employs polar concepts of the post-Hegelia n social science in which the opposite components of such concepts are mutually interdependent. The focus of this paper is on polarities suc h as individual/social, implicit/explicit and unconscious/conscious. T he theory of social representations is conceptually compatible with th e socio-cultural theories of knowledge. The socio-cultural theories of knowledge imply that in order to become an independent thinker, the c hild or the scientist must conceptually free themselves, at least part ly, from the constraints of their symbolic social environment. The the ory of social representations, in contrast, studies how the social sym bolic social environment arrests the individual in the existing forms of thinking, prohibits him or her fi-om independent thought and enforc es a particular manner of conceiving the world, events and objects. Fi nally, attention is drawn to the multilayered nature of thought and to its methodological implications.