SOC444 Sociological
Theory:
Karl Mannheim
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
1
Karl Mannheim
 1893-1947
 Born in Budapest, Hungary
 Only child
Father--Hungarian
Mother--German
 Education
Hungary
Germany
France
 Fled Germany in 1933 because of the Nazis
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
2
Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
Sociology of Knowledge
This branch of sociology studies the relation
between thought and society and is
concerned with the social or existential
conditions of knowledge (Coser
1971:429).
Coser, Lewis A. 1971. Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in
Historical and Social Context. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
existential: 1 Of, relating to, or affirming
existence 2 a: grounded in existence or
the experience of existence: EMPIRICAL
b: having being in time and space
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
Thinking is an activity that must be related
to other social activity within a structural
frame. To Mannheim, the sociological
viewpoint seeks from the very beginning
to interpret individual activity in all
spheres within the context of group
experience (Mannheim 1936:27).
Mannheim, Karl. 1936. Ideology and Utopia. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich.
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
Thinking is never a privileged activity free
from the effects of group life; therefore, it
must be understood and interpreted
within its construct.
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
No given individual confronts the world and, in
striving for the truth, constructs a world view
out of the data of his experience. . . . It is much
more correct that knowledge is from the very
beginning a co-operative process of group life,
in which everyone unfolds his knowledge within
a framework of a common fate, a common
activity, and the overcoming of common
difficulties (Mannheim 1936:26).
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
Ideology and Utopia
Ideology
Those total systems of thought held by society's ruling groups
that obscure the real conditions and thereby preserve the status
quo.
Utopia
Total systems of thought are forged by oppressed groups
interested in the transformation of society. From the utopian
side, the purpose of social thought is not to diagnose the
present reality but to provide a rationally justifiable system of
ideas to legitimate and direct change.
Mannheim was a Conflict Theorist.
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
Relativism and Relationalism
Relativism
More on a psychological/individual
level…knowledge/truth is subjective per the
individual
Relationalism
Takes into account the influence of social
factors, status, class, sociohistorical position
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
Methods of Dealing with Cultural Objects
or Intellectual Phenomena
“From the inside”
So that their immanent meanings are disclosed to
the investigator
“From the outside”
As a reflection of the societal process in which the
thinker is inevitably enmeshed
• Knowledge is conceived as existentially determined
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
Mannheim undertook to generalize Marx’s
programmatic orientation to inquire into the
connection of . . . philosophy with . . . reality
(Marx and Engles 1939:6), and to analyze the
ways in which systems of ideas depend on the
social position--particularly the class positions-of their proponents.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engles. 1939. The German Ideology. New
York: International Publishers.
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
In the Marxian formulation, attention was called to the
functions of ideology for the defense of class privileges,
and to the distortion and falsification of ideas that
derived from the privileged positions of bourgeois
thinkers. In contrast to this interpretation of bourgeois
ideology, Marx’s own ideals were held by the Marxists to
be true and unbiased by virtue of their being an
expression of a class--the proletariat--that had no
privileged interests to defend.
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
Mannheim did not make this distinction between
various systems of ideas. He allowed for the
probability that all ideas, even “truths,” were
related to, and hence influenced by, the social
and historical situation from which they
emerged. The very fact that each thinker is
affiliated with particular groups in society--that
he occupies a certain status and enacts certain
social roles--colors his intellectual outlook.
VERY IMPORTANT STATEMENT…THINK ABOUT IT!
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
13
Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
Men do not confront the objects of the
world from the abstract levels of a
contemplating mind as such, nor do they
do so exclusively as solitary beings. On
the contrary, they act with and against
one another in diversely organized
groups, and while doing so they think
with and against each other (Mannheim
1936:3).
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
Mannheim defined the sociology of knowledge as a theory
of the social or existential conditioning of thought. To
him all knowledge and all ideas are “bound to a
location,” though to different degrees, within the social
structure and the historical process. At times a particular
group can have fuller access to the understanding of a
social phenomenon than other groups, but no group can
have total access to it. Ideas are rooted in the
differential location in historical time and social structure
of their proponents so that thought is inevitably
perspectivistic.
VERY IMPORTANT STATEMENT…THINK ABOUT IT!
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
. . . Perspective . . . is something more than a merely
formal determination of thinking. [It] signifies the
manner in which one views an object, what one
perceives in it, and how one construes it in his thinking.
[Perspective] also refers to qualitative elements in the
structure of thought, elements which must necessarily
be overlooked by a purely formal logic. It is precisely
these factors which are responsible for the fact that two
persons, even if they apply the same formal-logical
rules, may judge the same object very differently
(Mannheim 1936:244).
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
Like the proverbial seven blind men trying
to describe the properties of an elephant,
persons viewing a common object from
dissimilar angles of vision rooted in their
different social location are apt to arrive at
different cognitive conclusions and
different value judgements. Human
thought is “situationally relative.”
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
Problem of Generations Zeitlin (1997:381-383)
 New participants in the cultural process are emerging
 Former participants in that process are continually
disappearing
 Members of any one generation can participate only in a
temporally limited section of the historical process
 It is therefore necessary continually to transmit the
accumulated cultural heritage
 The transition from generation to generation is a
continuous process
Zeitlin, Irving M. 1997. Ideology and the Development of Sociological
Theory. 6th ed. Upper ©Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Tuesday, July 12,
1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
2016
Bolender
18
Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
Remember Comte’s Law of Human Progress
and the sociological assumption of
progressive change?----The sociology of
knowledge (especially the problem of
generations) follows the logic of this
assumption.
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
A good example of this idea is a review of the
concept (definition) of Nazarene membership
from the 1st generation to the 5th generation.
How has the definition and related cultural
expectations changed? (Think in terms of rules,
standards, and definition of the “holiness
lifestyle.”)
How has the “knowledge” of the culture changed?
Is different? What has been lost? What has
been added?
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
20
Karl Mannheim:
Sociology of Knowledge
How do the “Problem of Generations” and
“relationalism” impact the analysis of the
situation between the 1st and 5th
generation members?
Tuesday, July 12,
2016
© 1998, 2000 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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