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Book No. – 25 (Sociology)
Book Name – Masters of Sociological Thought
What’s Inside the Chapter? (After Subscription)
1. THE WORK
1.1. THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE
1.2. THE SOCIOLOGY OF PLANNED RECONSTRUCTION
2. THE MAN
2.1. THE INTELLECTUAL MILIEU OF BUDAPEST
2.2. THE ENGLISH YEARS
3. THE INTELLECTUAL CONTEXT
3.1. MARXISM AND HISTORICISM
3.2. GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY, NEO-KANTIANISM, AND PHENOMENOLOGY
3.3. THE DEBT TO HEGEL
3.4. THE TURN TOWARD PRAGMATISM
4. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT
4.1. THE HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND
4.2. GERMAN SOCIETY IN THE TWENTIES
4.3. ENGLISH SOCIETY IN THE THIRTIES
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LANGUAGE
Karl Mannheim
Chapter – 12
Table of Contents
THE WORK
THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE
- Karl Mannheim is most valued for his contributions to the sociology of knowledge, studying the relation between thought and society, and the social or existential conditions of knowledge.
- Mannheim focused on the interdependence between knowledge and society, considering ideas in relation to the structures in which they are embedded.
- Structure and interrelation are central to his thought, rejecting an isolating approach to ideas.
- Mannheim emphasized that thinking must be related to other social activity within a structural frame, interpreting individual activity in the context of group experience.
- He argued that knowledge is not an isolated process but a co-operative activity, shaped by common fate, activity, and overcoming common difficulties.
- Mannheim’s work is marked by inconsistencies, as he integrated various perspectives and often contradicted himself, a feature he acknowledged in his writings.
- He admitted that he did not conceal contradictions in his work but aimed to highlight them as “sore spots” in human thinking.
- Mannheim sought to radically break through old epistemology but struggled to fully accomplish this.
- Due to his tentative and groping approach, a succinct exposition of his ideas is difficult; many of his views contradict each other and evolve across different stages of his work.
- Mannheim was a pioneer in exploring frontiers of knowledge, offering significant points of departure but leaving the full realization of his ideas to successors.
- He distinguished between two ways of understanding cultural objects or intellectual phenomena: from the inside to disclose immanent meanings, and from the outside as a reflection of the societal process, which he referred to as existentially determined (seinsverbtinden).
- Mannheim extended Marx’s inquiry into the connection between philosophy and reality, analyzing how systems of ideas depend on the social position of their proponents, particularly class positions.
- He generalized Marx’s analysis of ideology and its role in defending class privileges, and applied it to the study of any system of thought, including Marxism.
- Mannheim did not distinguish between bourgeois ideology and Marxist ideology in terms of truth or bias, arguing that all ideas are shaped by their social and historical contexts.
- He believed that every thinker is affiliated with particular social groups and status, and that this affiliation influences their intellectual outlook.
- Mannheim emphasized that men do not confront the world purely in abstract terms but act with and against each other in diversely organized groups, influencing their thinking and ideas.
- Mannheim defined sociology of knowledge as the theory of the social or existential conditioning of thought.
- He argued that all knowledge and ideas are “bound to a location” within the social structure and historical process, with some groups having fuller access to understanding social phenomena, but no group having total access.
- Ideas are rooted in the differential location of their proponents in historical time and social structure, making thought inevitably perspectivistic.
- Perspective is more than a formal determination of thinking; it refers to how one views an object, what one perceives, and how one construes it, including qualitative elements in thought that formal logic overlooks.
- People, like the seven blind men and the elephant, view a common object from different social locations and arrive at different cognitive conclusions and value judgments.
- Human thought is situationally relative (situations-gebitnden), influenced by one’s social position and perspective.
- The existential determination of knowledge is central to Mannheim’s doctrine, asserting that the process of knowing doesn’t develop according to immanent laws or pure logical possibilities, but is shaped by extra-theoretical(existential) factors.
- Existential factors not only shape the genesis of ideas but also penetrate their forms and content, influencing the scopeand intensity of experience and observation (the perspective of the subject).
- Mannheim’s major contention is that not only orientations, evaluations, and the content of ideas differ, but also the manner of stating a problem, the approach, and even the categories in which experiences are ordered, depending on the social position of the observer.
- Mannheim went beyond the “particular conception of ideology” to a total conception where entire modes of thought, both form and content, are influenced by the social position of the proponent.
- An example: In the early 19th century, a German conservative and a liberal understood the concept of “freedom” differently, based on their social positions and interests, illustrating how thought is directed by the observer’s social group expectations.
- Mannheim was elusive in defining the relationship between social structure and knowledge. He argued that existential determination does not imply a direct cause-effect sequence, and empirical investigation is needed for concrete cases.
- At times, Mannheim implied that social forces directly cause intellectual products, while at other times, he attributed the emergence of thought to the interests of subjects or the focus of attention that guides ideas.
- Mannheim sometimes suggested a kind of “elective affinity” or “compatibility” between social and historical situations and types of intellectual products.
- In some cases, Mannheim only stated that certain social groups are prerequisites for the emergence of certain ideas, acting as carriers of these ideas.
- Mannheim’s approach varies in asserting the connection between substructure and superstructure (using Marxian terminology), sometimes stating that social forces are necessary and sufficient for the emergence of ideas, and at other times stressing only facilitating social factors that allow ideas to find expression.
- In Mannheim’s writings, the different social locations of the carriers of ideas are often based on class factors.
- Beati possedentes (the privileged) are contrasted with the dispossessed, middle-class ideas are contrasted with the ideology of feudal strata, and Utopian thought of the underprivileged is contrasted with the defense of the status quoby those benefiting from it.
- Mannheim did not limit his study to Marxian class analysis, but also included status groups and occupational categories as existential determinants of ideas.
- For example, in his depiction of German conservative thought in the early 19th century, Mannheim shows that in Prussia, where the transition from feudal to class society was in its early stages, responses to the French Revolutioncame from the nobility and bureaucracy.
- In Germany, social analysis of ideas focused on the status order of estate society, whereas in France, the focus would be on the developed class structure.
- Mannheim also paid attention to the factor of generational differences in relation to ideas, which was previously neglected but has been rediscovered in recent times as an example of existential determination of knowledge.
- Mannheim argued that belonging to the same class or generation provides a common location in the social and historical process, limiting individuals to a specific range of potential experiences, predisposed to a characteristic mode of thought, experience, and action.
- He differentiated between groups within the same generation that respond to historical problems in different ways, forming separate generation units.
- For example, romantic-conservative and liberal-rationalistic youth in post-revolutionary France, though experiencing the same historical stimulus, formed different generational units with differing ideologies.
- Similarly, modern examples like hippies and New Left activists belong to the same generation but form different generational units, each responding differently to common historical stimuli.
- Mannheim divided his theoretical contributions into two parts:
- Empirical investigation through description and structural analysis of how social relationships influence thought.
- Epistemological inquiry into how this relationship affects the problem of validity of knowledge.
- He was more successful in the empirical side of sociology of knowledge than in epistemological questions about truthor validity of propositions, where he often became muddled.
- Mannheim vacillated on whether sociology of knowledge could contribute to establishing the truth value of a proposition.
- In his middle period, he wanted to develop a sociological theory of knowledge (sociological epistemology), arguing that the truth of a statement can only be ascertained through an investigation of the social location of its author.
- Some of his statements seemed close to universal epistemological relativism, which was criticized as self-contradictory because it presupposed its own absoluteness.
- In earlier writings from 1921, Mannheim argued that truth or falsity could not be determined by sociological or any genetic explanation; the origin of something is irrelevant to its immanent validity.
- In his last systematic statement (1936), Mannheim returned to his earlier formulation, emphasizing that the ultimate criterion of truth or falsity in the social sciences is the investigation of the object, and the sociology of knowledge is not a substitute for this investigation.
- During the middle period of his work, Mannheim asserted that all thought necessarily has an ideological character.
- Critics pointed out that this stance led to self-contradiction and would result in total relativism and nihilism.
- In response, Mannheim proposed a pragmatic theory of adjustment to the requirements of specific historical situations.
- According to this perspective, ideas are valid if they contribute to societal adjustment at a particular historical stage, and ideas that do not contribute are invalid.
- However, this approach has weaknesses, as judgments on what contributes to adjustment are largely normative and can only be made ex post facto, making contemporary evaluation difficult.
- When the pragmatic criteria proved unsatisfactory, Mannheim shifted to a solution involving the concept of the socially unattached intelligentsia.
- He argued that intellectuals, detached from their original social roots and engaging in mutual dialogue and criticism, are capable of un-distorted and valid thought.
- This view seemed like a wishful thinking idea, comparable to the Marxian myth of the pure proletariat or the Hegelian absolute spirit.
- Mannheim’s belief in the intellectuals’ ability to achieve detached, valid knowledge contrasts with historical examples where intellectuals were not immune from passions, temptations, and corruptions of their time.
- While individual intellectuals may sometimes rise above social influences, intellectuals as a category are not immune from these biases.
- Mannheim’s attempts to avoid relativistic nihilism through pragmatic adjustment and the free-floating intelligentsiawere largely unsuccessful, as the criticisms against him were not fully resolved.
- In later writings, Mannheim muted his epistemological claims and instead argued that perspectivistic thought is not necessarily incorrect, but rather one-sided due to the social location of its proponent.
- The weakened version of his theory, relationism, suggested that perspectivistic thought “might merely represent a partial view,” rather than asserting that all thought is necessarily ideological.
- Mannheim’s doctrine of relationism aligns with the neo-Kantian and Max Weber theories of value relevance.
- Mannheim’s epistemological revolution ended with a whimper, not a dramatic conclusion.
- Mannheim was more successful when applying the sociology of knowledge as a concrete research tool in substantive areas, rather than engaging in epistemological debates.
- His essays on conservative thought, generational problems, competition as a cultural phenomenon, democratization of culture, and the intelligentsia remain relevant and widely read.
- Despite his vagueness and tendency to group diverse elements under the term “knowledge”, Mannheim opened a new field of sociological inquiry by showing how thinkers are deeply influenced by their historical and structural context.
- Mannheim demonstrated that men of knowledge are bound by many chains to the world of their peers, highlighting the importance of recognizing these constraints.
- He reinforced Rousseau’s dictum that it is better to know these chains for what they are than to idealize them.
- Skepticism, when pushed to extremes, becomes self-refuting, but moderate skepticism can be a liberating endeavor, contributing to the pursuit of self-knowledge.