Mannheim as a Sociologist of Knowlege
In: International journal of politics, culture and society, Band 2, Heft 1, S. 81-94
ISSN: 0891-4486
A review of Karl Mannheim's career in & contribution to the sociology of knowledge between 1925 & 1933. His work began with commonplace observations from differing perspectives of thought, related to particular social classes at particular stages of historical development; he viewed social classes as carriers of distinctive ways of thought, & their needs & interests were occasionally expressed by him in psychoanalytic terminology. However, Mannheim was more interested in the logic of understanding & thought, the concept of ideology, & the construction of theories, than in concrete results of social research or detailed investigation of social facts. He viewed thinking men & women to be socially free-floating, & hence able to overcome the existential determination of thought & to synthesize truth from perspectivist partial truths. Since modern intellectuals are not free-floating but bound by livelihood, patronage, prestige, or power relationships, this notion is false. M. Malas