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Jonathan Harwood notes that Fleck, however, working mostly isolated, was far more radical in his approach. While Durkheim and other early sociologists of knowledge (especially Lévy-Bruhl) restricted themselves to the "beliefs of traditional societies," Fleck criticized this and extended his investigation to the influence of a thought-collective on the cognitive processes of individuals in all circumstances, including in the generation of scientific knowledge.[[CiteRef::Ludwik Fleck and the sociology of knowledge]] In other words, Fleck extends the argument by asserting that any way by which members of a thought-collective see and think about the world is a sociological construction.[[CiteRef::Sady (2016)]] As such Fleck is the first sociologist and philosopher to investigate the construction of ''scientific'' knowledge.

As explained above Fleck draws on Kant's conception of synthetic a priori forms to maintain that an empty mind would be incapable of thought or perception, and that knowledge must exist before a mind can experience. However Kant asserts that these a priori forms such as perception of space, time, and causation would be universal amongst all thinkers. Kant justifies this by noting that absolute knowledge of the world is possible to attain, such as Newtonian physics (which was accepted as certain in Kant's time). For certain knowledge to be attainable, Kant warrants, one's a priori forms must reflect a sensible world, and thus the forms Kant provides would universally reflect a consistent and sensible world-in-itself.[[CiteRef::Rohlf, Michael]]

If all that scientists and theologians were to do was to speak “within the limits of their collectives,” then the thought-collectives would be incommensurable. This is not the end of the story, however. A scientist can create a platform of partial understanding, by appealing to the world or to simple examples, and attempt to teach a theologian the basis of the scientific thought-collective.[[CiteRef::Sady (2016)]] Fleck dubs this process propaganda,[[CiteRef::The problem of epistemology]] and it too, like popularization of an idea from an esoteric to an exoteric circle, results in misunderstandings. Lastly, in a similar way that any member can move into the esoteric circle from the exoteric. Fleck refers to the process of initiation into the elite esoteric circle, via, for instance, the reading of prescribed textbooks and years of schooling,[[CiteRef::Sady (2016)]] as necessary to produce the specialized thought-style to understand the esoteric circle.

Fleck asserts that scientific change arises more frequently as a series of misunderstandings, as opposed to a logical progression towards "truth," and would reject that a "formal relation of logic exists between conceptions and evidence."[[CiteRef::Fleck (1979)]] Fleck avoids describing any universal requirements for the discovery of new facts, nor references the concept of a “method” in the way that Popper or Feyerabend might imagine such an idea. Fleck primarily speaks of the “discovery” of facts, rather than the justification of hypotheses as traditionally investigated. Despite his Kantian influence, Fleck neglects a divide between philosophical justification of hypotheses and psychological learning of facts. Yet given Fleck’s special focus on cognition and observation, and his basis in immunology, it is not surprising that he speaks in terms of “discoveries.”

Fleck notes that contemporary members of a thought-collective will marvel at this “wisdom” and presume that their predecessors had a particularly strong sense of intuition. Fleck asserts that the reality is that these vague proto-ideas still hold a grip on the present-day community and shape the permitted pursuit of ideas, and the observational connections made (rather, the knowledge available to be discovered), such that it naturally seems obvious to have arrived at these observations.[[CiteRef::Fleck (1979)]] Modern atomic theorists arrived at the idea of indivisible, indestructible, fundamental and universal particles, just as the early Atomists did, not because of clever intuition but because that these presumptions were pre-set.

In this sense Fleck is scientifically anti-realist. Scientific knowledge is constructed towards the aim of elaborating on what seems like intuitive wisdom, rather than towards absolute truth (even if members of a thought-collective might espouse this). Fleck supposes, hypothetically, that with a different proto-idea, such as one that constructs an analogy between “life” and “the ability to form shapes,” then crystals could be investigated as biological organisms. This would seem ridiculous to us because our thought-style and its underlying proto-ideas do not draw this relation, nor permit the pursuit of this, based on the groundwork of analogy in the style.[[CiteRef::The problem of epistemology]]