What Collins's The Sociology of Philosophies says about sociological theory

In Collins's latest book, we see an attempt to apply his sociological theor ies to the history of philosophy. While Collins's marcrosociology of knowle dge provides important insights into the role of conflict in an intellectua l field, his microsociology is more problematic. In particular. Collins's m icro theory ignores the fundamental importance of social interpretations. T his leads him to use a vague and unproductive notion of emotions. Neverthel ess, we can usefully apply Collins's findings to sociological theory itself As in philosophy we see the same competitive appropriation and elaboration of accumulated intellectual capital and the same struggle over the limited resources necessary to intellectual production, especially over what Colli ns calls the intellectual attention space.