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iii
Table of Contents Abstract . Table of Contents. iii Acknowledgements Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter II. Kat1 Mannheimts Sociology of Knowledge
Chapter III. The Interwar Reception
(A) The Contours of Interwar American Sociolow 33
(B) Critics and Suooorters 1929-1940 (1) Scheltinq (2) Grünwald
(3) Speier
(4) Wirth
(5) Mills
(C) Comments on the Interwar Period 90
Chapter IV. The Postrar Period 1945-1960 (1) Kecskemeti (2) Merton
Chapter V. Comments and Camparisons in the Mannheim Debate
Bibliography 143 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, 1 would like to thank Dr. Gregory Blue for his generous assistance and guidance in the preparation of this thesis. Our many conversations and his helpful criticisms were invaluable in guiding me through a cornplex and diversified subject that often seemed dauntingly broad. Secondly, 1 would like to thank my other committee members Dr. Paul Wood and Dr. M. Campbell for their many helpful comments. I also wish to acknowledge the University of Victoria for its support in the preparation of this thesis. Chapter 1. Introduction
In this thesis I will be examining the response of sociologists in American to Karl Mannheim's program for a sociology of knowledge. The debate about Mannheim's program will be traced historically and examined through the works of several of the debatefs participants. As a necessary part of this examination 1 will. be investigating Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, first through a brief introductory summary of his views, then through a presentation and assessrnent of the views of American participants in the debate. It should be noted that this was an important debate in early American sociology, and limitations of space prevent a full examination of al1 the commentators who took part. Nor will it be possible to examine al1 aspects of the debate or its continuation after 1960.' Mannheim's theory, first propounded in the 19201s, postulated that knowledge was socially connected and socially constructed. He asserted that knowledge was a
l Volker Meja and Nico Stehr identify the Streit um die Wissenssoziolosie, (the sociology of knowledge dispute), as one of the major disputes of the interwar period in German sociology. They identify more than thirty major papers that were published in direct response to Mannheim's work in Volker Meja and Nico Stehr, Knowledse and Politics (London: Routledge, 1990), p. i, 3. Also see Volker Meja and Nico Stehr eds. Der Streit um die Wissenssoziolosie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1982). Lee Congdon asserted that the "Mannheim debate was a major event in the history of modern social thoughtf'in Lee Congdon, Exile and Social Thouqht: Hunqarian Intellectuals in Germanv and Austria 1919-1933 (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1991), p. 296. social, historical artifact tied to existential factors and partici;larized by different social/historical groups. The American debate that these assertions stimulated was part of a longer and larger debate which can be traced back in Western intellectual history to insights such as Francis Bacon's notion of "idol~."~This notion traced intellectual errors to human nature (idols of the tribe), individual biases (idols of the cave), social influences (idols of the market-place) and false philosophies (idols of the theatre). The immediate antecedents of Mannheim's sociology on the American scene were Marxism, with its outlook of critical debunking and its philosophy of history, and Durkheimian sociology with its interest in the relationship between the form of social organization and categories of thought.' In America Mannheim's thesis followed half a century of similar theoretical movements in Pragmatism, social behaviourism and in~trumentalism.~These American
' Francis Bacon, Novum Orqanum, Book I (1620) p. 39-44. Kurt H. Wolff, "The Sociology of Knowledge and Sociological Theory" Svm~osiumon Sociolo~icalTheorv, ed. Llewellyn Gross. (New York: Row, Peterson and Co., 1959) p. 568. In this article Wolff examined and defended Mannheim's approach to a sociology of knowledge. Wolff noted that although Durkheim was very influential in America his work had little influence on either Max Scheler or Mannheim. Kurt H, Wolff, "The Sociology of Knowledge and Sociological Theory" p. 569. Wolff also criticized American sociology for its preoccupation with "rather ahistorical forma1 'structural' relations" and noted that Mannheim's sociology of knowledge with its historical realisrn might assist in the formation of a historical theory of society. 3
movements, with their orientation towards practical and amelioristic ends, dealt with the central problem of the relationship between society and intellectual life. Mannheim's importance to American sociology can also be related to what Lewis Coser called the "unsatisfactory state" of American sociology in the 1930's especially in regard to its tendency towards "simple minded empiricism".' The time periods covered by this thesis will be the period of 1929-1940 and the post-war period of 1945-60. The first period selected is the period when Mannheim made his major presentation of his sociology of knowledge, first in
the Germa Ideoloqie und Utopie (1929) and then in a revised English version entitled Ideolow and Uto~ia(1936). The war years were then skipped over because European theoretical sociological work almost ceased and American sociology was largely diverted to war-related activities. The second period exarnined, loosely corresponding to the rise of
American post-war hegpmony and American dominance in western sociology, saw a reassessment of Mannheim's work. The continuing debate about Mannheim is important to sociology because Mannheim's thesis (if accepted) would extend the discipline to form a general science and because its epistemological implications would affect the
Lewis A, Coser, "Merton's Uses of the European Sociological Tradition," The Idea of Social Structure: Papers in Honor of Robert K. Merton ed. Lewis A. Coser (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovish, 1975), p. 87. methodology of so~iology.~It is noteworthy that German emigré writers were prominent participants in this American debate, and their influence underlines the European influences in American sociology during the interwar years.
In this regard we can note that Talcott Parsons and R. K. Merton, two of America's most prominent sociologists, founded their careers on the introduction of European writers to America. The sociology of knowledge debate in America can reasonably be said to have started with the publication of
the English translation of Mannheim's book in 1936.? At this time Mannheim- proposa1 of a sociology of knowledge was met with interest and controversy. The central issue of contention was the dispute over how the validity of knowledge should be determined. (Whether it could be determined was also an issue.) This controversy, played out in sociology and to a lesser extent in the discipline of history, dealt with some of the same issues raised in the
more recent debate on postmodernism. The debate examined here was important because it called into question the general directions of American sociologyls development,
Benjamin Walter, IlThe Sociology of Knowledge and the Problem of ObjectivitytlSociolosical Theorv: Inauires and Paradims, ed. Llewellyn Gross, p.335. Walters commented ''Of treatises on the sociology of knowledge there is no end. The catalogued list of scholarly books, articles, and monographs is already immense and the conclusion is not yet in sight."
' Kurt K. Wolff, Tryincr Socioloav (New York: John Wiley & sons, 1974) p. 611. because it raised the issue of the relationship between politics and sociology, and most importantly because it waç a response to the intellectual problems of a new and in some ways radical theory of knowledge.
In this thesis 1 will be examining a selection of authors who addressed major issues in the debate. These authors were selected because they focused on the theoretical problems raised by Mannheim's thesis and because they where important figures who interacted in an ongoing debate. Alexander von Schelting, Ernst Grünwald, and Hans Speier were selected because they were contemporaries of Mannheim who raised important criticisms of his work. Louis Wirth and C. W. Mills were selected because they were contemporary supporters of Mannheim and answered some of the criticisms raised against him. Karl Kecskemeti was a post- war supporter of Mannheim who attempted to place him in the sociological canon. R. K. Merton also attempted to place Mannheim in the canon after the war although in a more
critical manner. We cm also note that Merton went on to found the sociology of science an area related to the sociology of kno~ledge.~ Due to limitations of space and the focus of this thesis, the selection has been limited to theoretical
sociologists. This restricted selection should not be taken
Charles Lemert, Sociolow After the Crisis (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995) p.76. 6
as a exhaustive profile of the debate, which involved other sociologists as well as participants from many other disciplines. In examining the viewpoints and arguments of the selected sociologists treated here, 1 will analyze both their assessrnent of Mannheim and the positions from which they made their assessments. In my treatment of these
commentators 1 will summarize and present their main arguments. To avoid the repetition of consecutive references
to a given page, 1 have consolidated such references in a footnote attached to the last passage in the series.
In chapters III (A), III: (C) and in chapter V, 1 attempt to relate the debate to wider developments in American sociology and to place it in a more general historical context, This debate revolved around some of the most difficult intellectual issues of the day. The particular impact and import of this American sociological debate was due to the fact that it took age-old philosophical questions and addressed them in the contentious context of social/political life and action. It involved basic issues relating to the nature of knowledge and reality, and in particular it addressed the issues of what can be known, how it cm be known, and how we can know that we know. This raised what has been called the "dilemma of modern life," for any social theory that asserts that social conditions "distort our ability to see the truth must 7
cal1 into question the idea of truth it~elf".~In a time of great social and intellectual turmoil, across a World War
and two radical reshapings of Europe, Mannheim addressed the problem of establishing the validity of knowledge, and the problem of understanding the possibilities for action that follow from knowledge. Since then sociology has struggled to "justify its original Enlightenment belief in the accessible truth of the real world - an article of faith shaken by any admission of a systematic distortion of the human ability to
see the truthrr.l0
Lemert, p. 70. l0 Lemert, p. 70. Chapter II. Karl Mannheimfs Sociology of Knorledge
To understand American sociology's response to Mannheim's Ideolocw and Utopia, it 3s necessary to briefly review his proposed theory for a sociology of knowledge. His theory was familiar to German sociologists both through Mannheim's original Ideolosie und Uto~ieand through various
previous essays.' The summary description of the sociology of knowledge presented here is based on Mannheim's Ideolosy and Utopia. This was, in the 1930rs, the only major presentation of his work in English, and as such it was the presentation to which American sociology responded. Mannheim stated that the sociology of knowledge was an intellectual consequence of society's development. In this view the sociology of knowledge had "actually emerged with Marx" although Marx's version had not gone beyond the task of
%runasking ideologies .II2
l In the 1930's there were two German sociologies of knowledge. One was proposed by Max Scheler and the other by Mannheim. Scheler's work, although related, was quite different from Mannheim's. Scheler's thesis, published in German over the period 1924-1960, is available in English as Max Scheler, Problems of a Sociolosv of Knowledae, trans. Manfred S. Frings, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980). Mannheim's early essays published in German in 1923-1930 are available in English in Karl Mannheim, Essavs on the Sociolocw of Knowledae, ed. Paul Kecskemeti (New York: Oxford University Press, 1952).
Karl Mannheim, Ideolow and Uto~ia:An Introduction to the Socioloqy of Knowledcie, trans. Louis Wirth & Edward Shils (1936; New York: Harcourt Brace & CO., 1985) p. 309. Mannheim also related the origins of the sociology of knowledge to the sociological imputations of Nietzsche and to the works of Freud and Pareto; p.310. Mannheim also ties the historical development Mannheim described the sociology of knowledge as a theory that "seeks to analyze the relationship between
knowledge and existence1'. As a theory of "historical- sociological research, it seeks to trace the forms that this relationship has taken in the intellectual development of rnanki~~d."~He stated that its subject matter was not "deliberate deceptionsl! as such, but "the varying ways in which objects present themselves to the subject according to the differences in social setting." In undertaking the development of a sociology of knowledge Mannheim's goals were: the development of a capacity for concrete research, the establishment of criteria for empirical truth, and the identification of various historical and social viewpoints. He hoped to solve "the problem of the social conditioning of knowledge, by boldly recognizing these relationships [of knowledge to social existence] and drawing them into the horizon of ~cience."~His sociology of knowledge was chiefly concerned with the "problem of how men actually think" not in "textbooks of logic" but in "public life and in politics as an instrument of collective acti~n."~We should note that Mannheim's work was motivated by pragmatic and political of thought to the French Revolution p. 67. Ibid., 264.
Ibid., p. 265.
Ibid., p. 1. goals. He believed that his examination of the existential, social underpinnings of ideas and beliefs would restore communication between social groups. In his view understanding the social basis of different viewpoints would allow people to "translate" across different perspectives
and so overcome the problem of people "talking past" one another . Mannheim's basic thesis was that different historical and social experiences led to different understandings of the world. He maintained that different social groups, by the process of repeatedly dealing with typical existential problems, developed particular modes of thought and types of knowledge. Consequently, the structure of thought as well as the content of thought differed for different social and historical groups. This caused the "same object to take on different forms and aspects in the course of social development." This phenomenon, the social variability of knowledge, raised the "question of when and where social structures corne to express themselves in the structure of assertions and in what sense the former concretely determines the later? Mannheim called these different viewpoints of the world "perspectives".' He defined a
Ibid., p. 266. ' Ibid.? p. 266. Originally Mannheim used the term "ideology" to describe these separate world views. However, this term was so loaded with previous, usually negative, connotations that he moved away from its use. perspective as a "subjectls whole mode of conceiving things as determined by his historical and social setting."' In examining the ideas that formed perspectives Mannheim used the concepts of llideology"and "utopia." He described both these concepts as situationally transcendent, Le., as types of thought that were attached to perceptions of what should exist. "Ideofogies" were, in his usage, ideas that supported the existing order and justified the existing order. "Utopias" were ideas that supported a feasible alternative conception of what should be and facilitated change in the existing order. Mannheim traced the development of the concept of "ideologyn from its early development as a "particular" form of analysis. This ltparticular"concept of ideology involved a type of analysis that examined only the contents of a given statement, while assuming the existence of a commonly accepted criterion of validityOgHowever in a more advanced development, the "general-total" concept of "ideologytlencompassed a questioning of categories and style of thought as well as its contents, and included an analysis of the entire world- view of the subject. In this later form of examination there was a search for "the approximate truth [meaning] as it
' Ibid., p. 266. Mannheim made a lengthy historical and epistenological examination of the concepts Itideology" and ''utopia" that is only touched on here. See Ideolow and Utopia part II p. 55-98 for his full development of the concepts. 12
emerges in the course of historical development out of the complex social process."1° Utopias, ideas that carried the
ability to transfont the present, were identified historically in terrns of their success in facilitating a transformation of society. Mannheim asserted that the sociology of knowledge could be used either as a methodology of empirical research, or as a theory of knowledge." As a methodology for "purely empirical investigation" it could use and structural analysis" to examine empirically how social relations influenced thought.12 In this process one could conceptualize different styles of thought as "ideal-types" and as working hypotheses.13 As a theory of knowledge the sociology of knowledge could be used to explain how social/existential factors influenced the construction of knowledge and shaped the development of criteria of validity. Mannheim stated that these two approaches were "not necessarily connected and one can accept the empirical results without drawing the epistemological conclusion^."^^ In both cases Mannheim conceptualized "knowledge as an
'O 'O Mannheim, p. 75. l1 Ibid. p. 267. l2 Ibidœfp. 266. l3 Ibid., p. 308. l4 Ibid.# p. 267. intellectual act" and stressed its active character.15
Mannheim's sociology had ari explicitly epistemological dimension, for Mannheim asserted that to "every factual form of knowledge belongs a theoretical fo~ndation."'~He asserted that knowledge was possible only in terms of a theoretical structure, and that the categories, concepts and assumptions of that structure shaped what was known. This structure, which shaped and held the contents of knowledge, was tied to the social realities of its bearer. For Mannheim sociological analysis exarnined these social realities and reduced "'pure theoretical' cleavagesn to more fundamental philosophical differences. These differences "in turn, are invisibly guided by the antagonisms and coinpetition between concrete, conflicting groups."17 Mannheim asserted that thought and concepts arose from group experiences, He did not mean this in the sense of a "group mind," nor in the sense of a "folk-spirit" but as a group's intellectual response to its interaction with its typical problems and goals.'' The "penetration of the social process into the intellectual sphere" from "forces arising out of living experience" then shaped the organization of thought. For Mannheim "an increasing number of concrete
lS Ibid., p. 298. l6 Ibid., p. 290, l7 Ibid., p. 270. la Ibid., p. 269. cases" demonstrated the reaiity of this process.lg This social genesis of knowledge in turn implied that human will, especially as expressed by groups, could not be separated from knowledge. Every formulation of a problem was based on a human act and guided by a group's experience with similar problems. In every selection of data there was "an act of will on the part of the kn~wer."~OFor Mannheim thoughi was determined not by the object "in itself '' but by the "different expectations, purposes and impulses arising out of e~perience."~~This understanding of the cognitive act rejected the idea of cognition "as an insight into 'eternal' truths, arising from a purely theoretical, contemplative urge."22 Mannheim stressed that cognition was "an instrument for dealing with life-situations at the disposa1 of a certain kind of vital being under certain conditions of life." Consequently the "problems of knowing become more intelligible if we hold strictly to the data presented by
the real factual thinking that we carry on in this world."
l9 Ibid., p. 268. Mannheim examined a number of cases in Ideoloav and Uto~ia. The most notable example was his explanation of the rise of the modern world in parts 1 and II. He also cited a number of sociological and historical studies supporting his thesis. Some of these are discussed in the next section of the paper, notably in the section on C. W. Mills. Ibid., p. 268. '' Ibid., p. 269. '' Ibid p. 298. Mannheim identified Scheler's position as one that tied cognition to a participation in such truths. See p. 310-11 for a fuller description of Mannheim's assessrnent of Scheler. 15
Mannheim asserted that human knowing could not be located in an separate ideal sphere, because the only kind of knowing that was available to us was knowing as a human activity, as a human act. For Mannheim there were three existential factors that influenced thought. These factors were: the nature and structure of the process of dealing with life-situations, the subjectls own make-up (in his biological as well as historical-social aspects), and the peculiarity of the conditions life, especially the place and position of the thinker . In examining Mannheim's system it is important to
remember that he was primarily interested in human activities at the social rather than the individual leoel. As a historical sociologist he also placed the group prior to the individual. Mannheim stated that:
strictly speaking it is incorrect to Say that the single individual thinks. Rather it is more correct to insist that he participates in thinking further what other men have thought before him. He finds himself in an inherited situation with patterns of thought which are appropriate to his situation and attempts to elaborate further." For Mannheim this process of "thinking furtherttdid not imply a group mind or a collective consciousness. In Mannheim's usage it referred to a socialization of meanings that shaped the perceptions of group members. The inherited categories, concepts and mode of thought of a group stabilized its identity and shaped its members'
23 Ibid., p. 298.
24 Ibid., p. 3. consciousness. The individual was the bearer of knowledge, but this was a knowledge conditioned by the group's collective understandings. These collective understandings, expressed in the structure and contents of the group's knowledge, were disseminated through the process of socialization and communication. We should note here that Mannheim's purpose was analytical and his concept of a "perspective" was meant as an ideal-type rather than as an absolute statement of each member's consciousness. It was the thought characteristic of a group, rather than the particularity of an individual mind that interested Mannheim. Nor was his "group thought," or perspective, a strictly determinist concept. Mannheim affirmed a fundamental human freedom when he asserted that: We belong to a group not only because we are born into it, not merely because we profess to belong to it, nor finally because we give it our loyalty and allegiance, but primarily because we see the world and certain things in the world the way it does (i.e., in term of the meanings of the group in question) .25 It was one's choice of meanings that established one's group memberships and it was the social group, constructed as an analytical ideal type, that formed the unit of Mannheim's analysis. The conceptual systems developed by each group were, for Mannheim, a consequence of active economic, political and social cornpetition. These viewpoints were ultimately "the intellectual expression of conflicting
25 Ibid., p. 19. groups' struggle for p~wer."'~ In his discussion of how knowledge was determined Mannheim distinguished between purely theoretical and existential causations. He considered purely theoretical causations such as "immanent historical laws," the "nature of things, " "pure logical possibilities, " or an Vmer dialectic" as unproven.27 Nor did he envision determination as a "mechanical cause-effect sequence" but instead left "the meaning of 'determination' openB1asserting that "only empirical investigation will show us how strict is the correlation between life-situation and thought process."28 He also allowed room for variations in the degree of existential determination. Some thought, such as the type of thought exemplified by the expression 2x2=4, were ltsituationallydetached" and as such removed from human derivati~n.~~Mannheim believed that this sort of knowledge was untraceable and gave "no clue as to when, where, and by whom it was formulated." However, it was: always possible in the case of a work in the social sciences to Say whether it was inspired by the 'historical school' or 'positivism' or 'Marxism' and from what stage in the development of each of these it dates .'O
26 Ibid., P. 269.
27 Ibid., p. 267.
Ibid., p. 267f.
2g Ibid., p. 299.
30 Ibid., p. 272. 18
Mannheim did not "absolutize the concept of 'situational detenninati~n~.~~"Instead he sought to locate the elements of situational determination concretely as a step towards a better understanding of situational determination itself. Mannheim defined "perspectivef1variously as the manner in which one viewed an object, what one perceived in it and how one constituted it in one's thinking. In his thought, lfperspectiveltcontained willful elements. These willful elements, had a "qualitative" nature that would "necessarily be overlooked by purely forma1 logic."" For Mannheim, the presence of willful elements was an unavoidable consequence of the "meta-theoretical pragmatic nature of the human mind," of the human pattern of organizing by inter est^.'^ He asserted that this characteristically human "ontological substratum is fundamentally significant for thinking and perceiving. "" From dif ferent perspectives "the 'ob j ect ' has a more or less different meaning because it [perception of the object] grows out of the whole of their [the observers'] respective frames of reference."" Mannheim considered this qualitative factor, the presence of "meaningful" elements in the social perception of objects, as a basic characteristic
31 Ibid., p. 301.
32 Ibid., p. 272.
33 Ibid., p. 275.
" Ibid., p. 278.
35 Ibid., p. 280. of al1 social analysis. This element of meaningfulness in the contents of "social-intellectual phenornena" was a source of analytical insight and a problem for the sociology of knowledge . For, the presence of Itmeaningful It elements in social knowledge made the ltproblemof interpretation . . . fundamental. " For Mannheim, this understanding of knowledge raised epistemological issues because "behind every definite question and answer is implicitly or explicitly to be found a mode1 of how fruitful thinking can be carried on.n36 This understanding of social thought led Mannheim to advocate the concept of relationism, according to which al1 thought was "relatedu to human and social roots and could only be properly understood in terms of such roots. The concrete, empirical connections of specific ideas to specific social groups made it possible to draw an intellectual map of society, in which a specific groupts "perspective" would constitute a cultural and intellectual index of its historical/social position, Recognition of the existential, relational aspect of al1 thought did not mean that one bad to "deny the existence or possibility of formalized and abstract thought." However, Mannheim held that one had to recognize the social roots even of abstract thought. For there was no "super-social, super-human subject which is
Ibid., p. 276. expressing itself in ' as such' categories. Ir'' It is important to remember here that Mannheim's analytical methodology conceptualized both social groups and their ideas as ideal-types . Mannheim noted that a particular word or concept could mean different things to different groups. Thus "even in the formulation of concepts, the angle of vision is guided by the observer's inter est^."^^ The absence of a concept, the absence of certain points of view, could also indicate "the absence of a definite drive to corne to grips with certain life-problems." For Mannheim, "analysis of the concepts in a given conceptual scheme itself provides the most direct approach to the perspective of distinctly situated strata. "39 As an ideal type, the perspective could be identified by its traits and by criteria that would locate it in relation to a situation or an era. Mannheim asserted that a perspective could be defined by an analysis of the meaning of its concepts, by the phenornenon of the counter- concept, by the absence of a concept, by the structure of categorical apparatus, by the dominant mode of thought, by characteristic levels of abstraction and by the ontology that the perspective presupposed. 'O
'' Ibid., P. 304.
38 Ibid., p. 273.
j9 Ibid., p. 274.
'O Ibid., p. 272. This understanding of a "perspective" raised the problem of objectivity. Mannheim tried to overcome this problem by rejecting al1 notions of objectivity based on the "false ideal of a detached, impersonal point of view," and by advocating instead the "ideal of an essentially human point of view which is within the limits of a human perspective, constantly striving to enlarge itself."" Mannheim believed that the understanding of the nature of the "perspective" was the key to a proper understanding of objectivity. For by comparing different perspectives, the observer, would be able to widen his or her base of knowledge. He noted that a tendency towards an "all- embracing ontology" was already found in intellectual and social history." This movement towards an increasingly inclusive epistemology was initiated with the recognition of the partiality of each particular perspective and continued with the ensuing construction of a more comprehensive perspective. Mannheim noted that the wider view also tended to be more abstract, indicating the presence of a formalizing tendency that placed the analysis of concrete qualitative assertions in a "purely functional view modelled after a purely mechanical ~attern."'~
-
41 Ibid., p. 297. '' Ibid., p. 302. '"bid., p. 302. Mannheim referred to this as the "theory of the social genesis of abstractions". Mannheim believed that his theory of perspectivism allowed objectivity ta be examined in two ways. Objectivity could be studied within the boundaries of a single perspective or objectivity could be studied across the boundaries of multiple perspectives. Observers within a single system would, by definition, share an identical conceptual and categorical apparatus and would participate in a common universe of discourse. Accordingly their analysis would tend towards similar results, and common criteria could be used to "eradicate as an error everything that deviates from this unanimity."" However if the observers had different perspectives they would have to arrive at objectivity "in a more roundabout fashion." Differences in perception would have to be understood in "light of the differences in structure of these varied modes of perception," Therefore an effort would have to Ifbe made to find a formula for translating the results of one into those of the other and to discover a common denominator for these varying perspectivistic insights." Once done, this concrete, empirical operation would allow the separation of "necessary differences of the two views from the arbitrarily conceived and mistaken elements, which here too should be considered as errors." For the resolution of the problem of multiple perspectives Mannheim believed that "objectivity is brought about by the translation of one perspective into the
" Ibid., p. 300-1. terms of another." As to the question of which was the best, "pre-eminence is given to that perspective which gives evidence of the greatest comprehensiveness and the greatest fruitfulness in dealing with empirical rnaterial~.~~"We can note that Mannheim was determining the "bestW perspective by using a criterion that gave precedence to viewpoints that moved closer to a "totalityf'of vision, as well as ones that had a greater ffutilityffanalytically. With these arguments, Mannheim asserted that a realistic epistemology needed to incorporate within itself an understanding of the relationship between social existence and epistemological validity. He asserted that epistemology could not be separated from the social determination of meaning and the social determination of validity. Mannheim joined the epistemological to the social with the concept of relationism in which Ifevery assertion can only be relationally f~rmulated.'~'~He believed that "certain assertions cannot be formulated absolutely, but only in terms of a per~pective."~'Mannheim did not advocate this view as a form of relativism, nor as an assertion that there was no way to establish a legitimate criterion of validity. Rather his theory was tied to the belief that some forms of knowledge were not tied to universal facts of
- -
45 Ibid, , p. 301.
'15 Ibid., p. 300.
" Ibid., p. 283. nature but were instead tied to culture. Therefore the "truth" of culture, the world of human meanings, was a historical variable assessable through the experience of
culture. 4B He believed that relationism became relativism only when "linked to the static ideal of eternal unperspectivistic truths independent of the subjective experience of the observer.v4g Mannheim's view of relativism and relationism involved an ontological consideration. If an "absolute" criterion of validity existed (and was pragmatically available) then Vruth" could be absolutely determined (one truth, at least in theory) and therefore relativism represented error since it postulated multiple trùths tied to multiple criteria. However, if, as Mannheim believed, no absolute criteria existed (or could be found), then "truthftcould not be linked to an absolute. Therefore
Mannheim was left with two choices, he could rej ect the concept of l1truth as such,'' a move that would open the way to an intellectual nihilism or he could tie "truth" to something else. His solution of "relationism" tied "truth" to a social/historical base, thereby giving it an
This separation of cultural knowledge (social sciences) and the knowledge of %ature" (natural sciences) on the grounds that they were different twes of knowledge was an aspect of both historicism and of Hermeneutics. See Lee Congdon, Exile and Social Thousht: Hunqarian Intellectuals in Gemanv and Austria 1919-1933 (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1991), p.267-277 for a description of how the differences were conceptualized.
Ibid., p. 300. 25 "objectivityI1 in relation to a particular social/historical setting. This controversial solution attempted to establish a middle ground between an "absolute" criterion of truth (which Mannheim considered inappropriate for the social sciences) and a relativisrn tied to criteria of "truth" that were infinitely variable and therefore pragmatically meaningless. Relationism, the middle ground, tied "truth" to concrete historical/social situations thereby allowing criteria that were if not absolute at least finite and identifiable, hence usable. However, although Mannheim placed each criterion of validity within a perspective, he did not assert that each criterion established "truth" as such. Each perspective was also evaluated in terms of other perspectives, and its criteria of validity were assessed in terms of a wider view. This wider or more general view was to be established by a comparative method, for "every complete and thorough sociological analysis of knowledge delimits, in content as well as structure, the view to be analyzed." Furthermore such analysis aimed not only to establish the existence of a relationship between a "perspective1'and a particular criterion but also "to particularize its [the relationship'sj scope and the extent of its ~alidity."'~ In proposing these views Mannheim asserted that "no
Ibid. , p. 284. These assertions have correspondences to Merton's "theories of the middle range". denial is made of the importance of epistemology or philosophy as such" for the "basic inquiries which they undertake are indispen~able."~'However, Mannheim believed that the old epistemology was oriented towards the natural sciences and gave priority to the quantitative over the qualitative. Mannheim also argued that this older epistemology stemmed from a dualistic world-view, which presupposed a sphere of "truth as such" that "pre-exists independently of the historical-psychological act of thought." Mannheim noted that the postulation of such "a sphere of perfection" was derived from a "spiritualized metaphysics" that submerged the human element. '' This claim for a "sphere of perfection" raised the question of whether there could be a human knowing without a human element. Mannheim held that the "great esteem for the contemplatively perceived is not the outcome of the 'pure' observation of the act of thinking and knowing, but springs from a hierarchy of values based on a certain philosophy of life. "53 Mannheim also observed that, contrary to its claims, epistemology was not prior to the other sciences, for "although epistemology is the basis of al1 the empirical sciences, it can only derive its principles from the data supplied by them."'' For Mannheim, therefore, epistemology retained its central place in the structure of knowledge, but its place was a conditional one not an absolute. Epistemology was dependent not on a sphere of tmth "in itself," but on the conceptual structure of knowledge in each historical period. Therefore, each perspective's claims to validity, and its criteria of validity were socially/historically conditioned like those of any other perspective. Mannheim thus asserted that relationisrn was an approach to knowledge justified and substantiated by historical reality. In his approach to objectivity Mannheim proposed a comparative methodology leading to a "higher," Le., more inclusive perspective. In his approach different perspectives were seen in termç of their different purposes, motives and intellectual structures. Therefore, the existence of different views were not necessarily an indication of the existence of errors. Mannheim tried to solve the problem of different criteria of validity by advocating a process that involved the "translationw and integration of perspectives. Mannheim believed that this process of cross-checking between perspectives would identify common denominators in both perspectives, as well as isolating any extraneous, arbitrary elements. He saw this process, called "dynamic synthesis, as both incremental and
-- '' Ibid., p. 292. ongoing. For without an "absolute criterion" or an "end to history" there could be no final move to end the game of understanding. Mannheim noted that in this process Ilthe construction of a broader base is bound up with a higher degree of abstractness and tends in an increasing degree to formalize the phenomena." Mannheim believed that this process of progressive abstraction was the intellectual result of I1group contact and interpenetrati~n."~~A perspective became more inclusive by becoming more abstract, by dissolving the earlier more particular and concrete points of view into a more abstract formulation. In the wider perspective the qualitative, historical particulars of concrete perspectives were subsumed into the general and abstract. For Mannheim this wider perspective was produced by a particular social group, the "free-floating intellectuals." These intellectuals, originally from diverse social backgrounds, and having an education that had encompassed different perspectives, were particularly suited to the task of constructing a synthesis of perspectives. In examining Mannheim's system we should note the importance that he placed on history. Mannheim asserted that history was "the matrix within which man's essential nature is expre~sed."~~He believed that "something of profound
55 Ibid., p- 302. Ibid. , p - 92. The use of the generic "man" when "humanity" was intended was a characteristic of the writing of the period. significance does transpire in the realm of the historical '15' This "historical" element in Mannheim's thought had a very "spiritualn and Hegelian flavour to it. He asked: may it not be possible that the ecstatic element in human experience which in the nature of the case is never directly revealed or expressed, and the meaning of which can never be fully communicated, can be discovered through the traces which it leaves on the path of history and thus be disclosed to usOS8 Before going on to examine American sociology's reaction to Mannheim there are several points that should be noted. The first is that Mannheim considered his sociology of knowledge to be a first attempt towards the solution of some very complex and fundamental intellectual problems. He was well aware of the difficulties involved in it and repeatedly stated that a more concrete and substantiated sociology of knowledge would ultimately emerge from further empirical research. We can also note that his work was wide in scope, theoretically complex and nuanced. The brief presentation here, in which 1 have attempted to give a basic rendition of his thought, does not do it full justice. In general terms we can note that he followed the traditions of German historicism both in his preoccupation with the produced character of knowledge and with his separation of the natural and social sciences. This
'' Ibid., p. 93. separation was partially based on the notion that these disciplines were dealing with different types of knowledge. That the natural sciences dealing (largely) with the non- human world could find a form of "absolute" knowledge separate from human meanings and values and thus could in a sense justify an epistemology tied to "absolute truths". However cultural knowledge, knowledge of the human world, was imately tied to meanings and values, a process that added a social/historical dimension to the concept of "truthl'. Thus Mannheim drew a distinction between "positive" natural science and "hermeneutical" social science.59 Mannheim did however soften this distinction by acknowledging that human elements were also found, he believed to a much lesser extent, in the natural science^.'^ Mannheim intended his theoretical work as a fundamental change in the way that human knowledge was conceived. In this change he substituted a historically justified and human-centred metaphysics for what he believed to be an underlying if disguised, divine-centred metaphysics (the sphere of truth). His historical reflections in part 1 and II of Ideolocry and Utopia situated his work as a
59 Ibid., p. 266-291. Mannheim discussed the differences between the natural and social sciences' conceptions of knowledge and "truth" and their approaches to epistemology at some length in Chapter V, part 2, 3 and 4. 6"bid., p. 305. For references to relationism in the natural sciences, see Mannheim's comments on the Heisenberg effect as described in W. Westphal's work. Also see his reference to Dewey's work on the social base of Aristotelian logic, p. 304. continuation and to some extent a re-animation of the Enlightenment. The reference point used in guaranteeing the validity of knowledge, was explicitly shifted from the absolute guarantee of God (the sphere of truth) to a partial and problematic guarantee by man (the sphere of rationality). Mannheim was well aware that particularization, relationism and the problems of synthesis applied to his own thoughts and values. He recognized that his sociology of knowledge itself was an attempt at synthesis, yet ultimately, only a perspective. Mannheim also wrote in what he called an 'lessayistic-experimental attitude" in which contradictions were not resolved because it was: the author's conviction that a given theoretical sketch may often have latent in it varied possibilities which must be permitted to come to expression in order that the scope to the exposition may be truly appreciated" for while "contradictions are a source of discomfiture to the systematizer, the experimental thinker often perceives in them points of departure? The lines he drew between determinism and free will were complex. As a determinist he asserted that humans and their intellectual tools were shaped by their history and their social position. As a proponent of free will he asserted that there was always a choice, even if a historically constrained choice, in our perception of the world. As a determinist he saw that our actions were based on cultural values and beliefs, and that our world was always, to an extent, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet he repeatedly asserted that there was always a choice of meanings and values, and therefore always a choice in how we shaped our world. Mannheim believed that both facts and values arose out of life experiences, that there could be no social fact without valuation and no valuation without çome factual context. For Mannheim, human values were inseparable from human interests and human concerns. He asserted that the basic motor of historical societies was cornpetition, for "in the final analysis al1 . . . social groups arise from and are transformed as parts of the more basic conditions of production and dominati~n."~~We can also note, as a final comment, that Mannheim was arguing from a realist position. In his theories the object had an identity "in itself" and however plastic society might be, however its examination might be "coloured by values and collective-unconscious, volitional impulses" the object was what 3t was. Concrete "realityN took the intellectual place of a hypothetical sphere of truth. Thus "reality" (the object), in a sense, formed an ernpirical base that constituted the solid non- relativist point in his syste~n.~~
62 Ibid., p. 276.
63 Ibid., p. 5 Mannheim stated that "the ultimate criterion of truth or falsity is to be found in the investigation of the ob j ect" . Chapter III. The Interwat Reception (A) The Contours of Interwar American Sociolow
To understand American sociology's response to Mannheim's Ideolow and Utopia it is necessary to have a general understanding of the various intellectual currents in American sociology itself. Accordingly, let us examine, in a very brief and general manner, some of the relevant schools of thought that had a bearing on the reception of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge. American sociology, like European sociology, grew out of several trends in Western thought and originally did not differ significantly from its European counterpart. Like European sociology, American sociology was shaped by enduring concerns about social order. In the American case, the roots of academic sociology lay in problems raised by the turbulent industrialization and urbanization that followed the American Civil War. In the pre-World War 1 era those concerned with the application of scientific method to American social problems tended to follow "asswnptions of natural law, progress, meliorism, and
individualism."' However, following World War 1, a war that many regarded as both irrational and lawless, methodologies based upon supposed Vaws of historyfrand human rationality
l Roscoe C. Hinkle Jr. and Gisela J. Hinkle, The Development of Modern Sociolow: Its Nature and Growth in the United States (New York: Random House, 1954) p. 1. seemed seriously flawed. By challenging 19th-century optimism the war undercut people's faith in a natural, rational progress. This questioning of rationality in turn led to greater emphasis on psychological motivations and irrational elements in society. The war also led the young and rapidly growing American discipline to take on a
distinctive national character of its own, to a shift away from grand speculative theory, towards an emphasis on concrete researcho2 Another development relevant to the reception of Mannheim's work was the collapse of "instinct" theory in the 1920's. This theory, which was closely associated with a natural law understanding of society, had explained civilization and progress in terms of certain inherent human facilities or "instincts." "Instinct theory" was criticized by researchers such as L. L. Bernard whose review of the literature revealed that researchers had postulated no fewer than 15,789 separate "instincts" of 6,131 different typesO3 From this Bernard concluded that "instinctsfthad become too
problematic a category for scientific use. Ellsworth Faris, another critic, noted that "instincts" were hypothetical,
* Ibid., p. 18-19. In the period 1920-30 the number of students studying sociology doubled to 462,445 and graduate students tripled. For the shift towards concrete research see Ibid., p. 22.
L.L. Bernard, Instincts: A Studv in Social Psvcholow, (1924). unobservable and ethnographically inconsistent.' This debate, and the resulting shift away from explanations based on innate traits, is of particular interest to us because it moved American sociology away from biologically based theories and towards social and environmental explanations of human behaviour.' As American sociology developed into the 1930's attempts to explain irrational forces continued. The struggle for valid explanations, and a desire for "scientificr'merit fuelled interest in methodological concerns. One prominent trend was the case-study and life- history method. This school of thought sought a total view of the subject by the construction of detailed personal historie^.^ However, the case-study approach conflicted with another emerging school of American sociology, namely, the
Ellsworth Faris, "Are Instincts Data or Kypotheses?", American Journal of SO-ciolosv, 27: (Sept., 1921) p. 184-196; and Ellsworth Faris, "Ethnological Light on Psychological Problems", Publications of the American Socioloqical Society, XVI, (1922) p. 113-120. For a fuller description of the debate see Hinkle's Development of Modern Sociolocw p. 29-30. This shift was not absolute, for biological, racial and eugenic theories continued to have an important influence throughout the interwar period and their successors can still be found in such contemporary publications as The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray. See also Elazar Barkan, The Retreat from Scientific Racism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
An influential example of the life-histories approach was, W.I. Thomas and F. Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (Boston: Gorham, 1918). See Heinz Maus A Short History of Sociolocw (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962) p. 120-25 for a more detailed description of the book's impact and the shift away from speculation. statistical approach. This approach usually equated '%cience" with quantitative methods and emphasized measurement of elements in society.' It should be noted here that both approaches focused on the immediate present, differing mainly in what was measured and how it was measured. Those who preferred the statistical approach argued for the scientific merit of the inductive, empirical and verifiable results that "hard numbers" offered.' They specifically criticized the case-study and life-history methodology for what they considered its inherent subjectivism. The case-study proponents answered these charges by asserting that statistical methods were too narrow and left out essential variables that were inherently subjective and ~nquantifiable.~ A third school of American sociology in the interwar years was composed of researchers who defended a separation between the natural and social sciences. These researchers felt that a methodological distinction was justified because of the active, self-aware nature of human subjects. These sociologists tended to defend references to history and
' Heinz Maus, A Short Historv of Socioloqv (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962) p. 150. Notable proponents of quantification and statistics were Albion W. Small, Franklin H. Giddings, F. Stuart Chapin, William F. Ogburn, Stuart A. Rice and John Gillin and R.E. Park of the Chicago School. Some prominent proponents of the Case Study and Life History methods were William 1. Thomas, Florian Znaniecki, William Healy, Robert S. Lynd, and Helen M. Lynd. philosophy, and they criticized American sociology's ahistorical concept of culture.1° This tradition was in many ways a continuation of American sociology's European heritage. Its viewpoint was supported by journals such as the American Socioloaical Review which kept alive concerns for a broader, more historical sociology. We can see the influence of this school in the fact that European works of interest such as those of Leopold Von Wiese and Ferdinand Tonnies were translated within a year of their European publication, and from the fact that Talcott Parsons introduced and popularized the works of European theorists
such as Max Weber. l1 Mannheim's Ideolocry and Utopia, translated by Louis Wirth and Parson's associate Edward Shils, was very much part of this stream and underlined the heavy influence of German sociology in the U.S. at this
t ime - l2 Drawing on these many strands, the Chicago School of Social Psychology came to dominate American sociology in the
'O Notably Scot Robert Morrison MacIver, "1s Sociology a Natural Science?", Publications of the American Socioloqical Society, XXV (1930) p. 28-36.
l1 Leopold Von Wiese, Svstematic Sociolocw (1932) and Ferdinand Tonnies Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1932) were both translated and presented in Communitv and Association (1933) (P. Loomis, ed.). Max Weber, trans. Talcott Parsons, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London: Allen and Unwin, 1930). From Max Weber, Essavs in Sociolow trans. Hans Gerth, (Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 1946).
lZ It should be noted that Durkheim too had a strong influence on American sociology, particularly through the works of Talcott Parsons and R.K. Merton. 38 interwar period . Its main figures were Charles B.Cooley,
John Dewey, G-H. Mead, Robert E. Park, and W.1.Thomas. They advocated a theory of social interaction that stressed the formation of the human identity by socialization. Yet despite an almost universal desire to become more "scientifictlAmerican sociology continued to be deeply divided about what precisely "scientific" meant in the
social sciences- This was a basic disagreement that found expression in methodological differences as well as in disputes over what sociology was and what it was for.'' In these divisions the mainstream tended to follow a sociology that focused on relatively narrow problems and was quantitatively based. It was into this context of a turbulent, developing discipline that the deep structural questions of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge were introduced.
l3 For questioning of the role of the sociologist, see F. Znaniecki, The Social Role of the Man of Knowledqe (New York: Columbia U press, 1940). For questioning of the role of sociology itself see, Robert S. Lynd, Knowledse for What? (1939). (B) Critics and Supporters 1929-1940 (1) Scheltinq The first response to Mannheim that we will examine is that of Alexander von Schelting (1894-1963).' His 1936 book review was one of the earliest criticisrns in English of Ideolocw and Uto~iaand it raised issues that reverberated throughout the later debate about Mannheim's work.' In this review Schelting located Mannheim as a theorist working on the same problems as Max Scheler. He also identified
Alexander von Schelting, (1894-1963) was managing editor of the Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik from 1931. He emigrated in 1933 and taught at Columbia University in New York from 1936 to 1940. rom-1948 to 1953 he worked for UNESCO, and taught sociology at the University of Zurich. Von Schelting's major cxitical work was analysis of philosophical and methodological problems in the social sciences. Selections from his publications include: "Zum Streit um die Wissensoziologie",Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (1929); Max Webers Wissenschaftlehre (1934); Russland Und Europa in Russischen Geschichtsdenken (1948). Biography from Volker Meja and Nico Stehr, Knowledqe and Politics: The Sociolouv of Knowledcre Dis~ute(London: Routledge, 1990) p. 312. The review is interesting for several reasons. It was primarily a review of Mannheim's Ideolosie und Utopie (Bonn: Friedrich Cohen Verlag, 1929). This German edition was considerably different £rom Mannheim's later English edition. Parts II, III and IV of the English translation reflect the German original. Part V of the English translation was originally "Wissenssoziologie" published in Alfred Vierkandt's Handworterbuch der Soziolocrie (Stuttgart: F. Enke, 1931) and was not part of the German version. However the Schelting review included comments on "Wissenss~ziologie'~.The preface by Louis Wirth and Part 1, "Preliminary Approach to the Problem" by Karl Mannheim were unique to the English edition. The review article contained a footnote by Howard Becker, the American Socioloaical Review's assistant editor, stating that the review was unusual both because of the time elapsed since the book's publication and because of the review's extended length. Becker also announced the forthcoming English edition and called Mannheim's book one of the dozen most important sociological works to have appeaxed since 1930. Mannheim's work as a form of Marxist criticism, with a special connection to the works of Georg L~kacs.~He stated that there "cannot be any doubt as to the vital importance, scientific interest and peculiar attraction to the sociologist of the range of problems covered by the term
' sociology of knowledge ' .'14 Von Scheltinglsmain criticism of Mannheim's views was their "basic lack of loqical and epistemoloqical consistency and their incompatibilitv with empirical fact. The first difficulty identified by Schelting concerned Mannheim's notion of the existential connectedness of al1 thought. According to this concept, al1 thought was socially based; indeed, the forms and categories of thought, as well as its contents, were socially determined. Schelting considered this concept "very doubtful" because of its inclusi~eness.~ This inclusiveness was a problem for Schelting because he believed that Mannheim had confused "the purely cognitive
While still a student Mannheim was strongly influenced by Lukacs. He was a member of the "Sunday Circle", Luckac's political discussion group at the University of Budapest. Lukacs, as Commissar of Education during the Hungarian Soviet Republic, appointed Mannheim a professor of philosophy in 1919. Mannheim's first German publication (1921) was a review of Luckac's Theory of the Novel. For an description of Mannheim's involvement with Lukacs and the "Sunday Circle" see Lee Congdon, Exile and Social Thouqht: Hunqarian Intellectuals in Germanv and Austria 1919-1933 (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1991). * Alexander Von Schelting, rev. of Ideolocrie und Uto~ie,by Karl Mannheim, Arnerican Sociolouical Review (Feb. 1936) p. 664.
Ibid., p. 664.
Ibid., p. 666. sphere with conceptions in which creeds, volitions, and emotions are involved,"' For Schelting validity resided in this "purely cognitive sphereu where the "theoretic value - which is to Say, the truth - of cognitive achievements" was established.' We should note here that Schelting ignored Mannheim's epistemological distinction between the natural and social sciences and his arguments asserting different types of knowledge, Schelting asserted that for "Mannheim, the total structure of consciousness is included in the ideological concept . . . consequently, there cannot be anv thinkins but ideolosical thinkinq.'I9 As a consequence of this Schelting believed that even scientific thought became "'functionalized'" with respect to social factors thereby
destroying its 'lobj ective, impartial validity. "'O For Schelting, this "socializing" of scientific (logical) thought by Mannheim resulted in the formation of a self- referential paradox." Mannheim, by making a proposition
' Ibid., P. 670. * Ibid., p. 674. Ibid., p. 666. Italics in original.
'O Ibid., p. 666.
l1 A self-referential paradox is one that cancels itself out. Perhaps the oldest is the Liar Paradox: Epimenides, a Cretian claimed that "al1 Cretians are liars". If he was telling the tmth, his truthfulness contradicts the statement (proposition). If he was a liar, then the statement must be a lie which would mean that Cretians are not liars, again contradicting the statement. The absoluteness (unconditionality) of the statement prevents a sometimes lying, sometimes truthful solution to the riddle. about al1 thought, necessarily included his own thought
within the proposition. Thus Mannheim's own statement, being socially comected, was, according to Schelting's opinion, reduced to an ideological assertion. Schelting considered this to be "astounding" since Mannheim "apparently claims to be offering scientific truth," a tmth which Schelting believed was excluded by Mannheim's own assertion.'* For Schelting therefore Mannheim's whole endeavour was undercut by a primary logical inconsistency. This had to follow since the "minimum demandl' for a meaningful analysis was the capacity to "postulate the possibility of objective validity for cognitive achievements," a demand that Schelting believed rested on the "separatenessfl of a "cognitive sphere." Mannheim's "socializing" of this cognitive sphere was therefore a major error that eliminated the "space" in which objective criteria for validity could exist. Schelting recognized that Mannheim was aware of this
problem and had tried to deal with it by taking the "astonishing" step of making the "'total, absolute and universal' ideology concept become an 'evaluating' ideology concept." Schelting thought this new approach to be founded on the "debris of traditional epistemology," and he made it the focus of further criti~ism.~'He asserted that Mannheim had used utility as a criterion of value, by making an
l2 Schelting, p. 667.
l3 Ibid., p. 667. idea's function determinate of its meaning. However, Schelting asserted that while social function might give ideas an f'untheoreticalttvalue, social function did not "necessarily constitute their coqnitive value."" In particular he questioned why the validity of scientific statements should depend on their functioning in society. Further he noted that the concept of "function" required a fixed criterion of what a "function" was. That is, in order to be used, it required the sort of "objective" analytical criterion that Mannheim rejected. Schelting identified, in Mannheim, a second criterion
for judging validity, that of historical COM~C~~~~SSor correspondence. Schelting found in Mannheim's writings the beliefs that "the process of history realizes by stages an immanent meaning" and that "[tlhinking participates in this reali~ation."'~For Mannheim Vtlhe value, the 'truth,' of social conce~tionsis bound to their actual role in the
historical ~rocess.lfl6 Nor does this apply to just any role in the historical process. For only those ideas that promote the Itfnextstepf in the realization of the meaning of the historical process confer this dignity." However, whetber ideas do promote the next stage could only be understood
l4 Ibid., p. 667. Italics in original.
l5 Ibid., p. 668. The quote given is Schelting's summary of Mannheim's position, not a quote from Mannheim.
l6 Ibid., p. 668. Italics in original. after the event, and hence "correct" ideas could only be seen as lltruellin hindsight. This "sociological theory of knowledgeN had, according to Schelting, two implications rejected by "traditional" epistemology. The first was that the "meaning of the historical process, or at least the direction of its realization is knowable." The second was "that it is possible to ascertain a concrete historical change as the 'next step' of this de~eloprnent.~~~~Schelting pointed out that both these assertions carried dubious metaphysical assumptions about "meaning" in history. Here again we have a basic disagreement between Schelting and Mannheim, for Mannheim explicitly saw something of humanity's "essential nature," that "something of profound significance" was recognizable in history." Schelting on the other hand doubted the scientific admissibility of this recognition and was sceptical about whether any agreement could be reached as to what the "meaning" of history was. Even more problematic for Schelting, was the realization that this approach "implies . . . the 'traditional' concept of truth!". Truth cannot be based on a concept's social role unless that role can be reliably identified. Its social validity must be "ascertained, in a way that necessarily carries conviction, on the basis of
l7 Ibid., p. 668. la Mannheim, Ideoloav p. 83. historical facts, and by the means of logic." Schelting noted that even if one accepted the "rnetaphysical implications" of "meaning" being present in the historical process itself, this criterion demanded the "possibility of objective cognition of historical facts and their relationship." This objective cognition could not, in Schelting's view, be established by any 'fsocial 'functi~nality'.'''~To be usable the concept of truth must have a criterion of validity that was of ilautonomous, intrinsic, theoretic value, demonstrable on the basis of autonomous and immanent criteria of scientific thought and re~earch."~~Mannheim's depiction of shifting social criteria lacked this auton no mous, intrinsic" quality and was therefore "self-contradictory to the point of ab~urdity.''~' This criticism also applied to Mannheim's concept of "utopiaffand its decisive component of social change. Identifying a "utopia," in Mannheim's sense, required an "objectively valid cognitionf1of the actual social changes achieved. Schelting also questioned Mannheim's use of the term "transcendental." Schelting's first pxoblem with this was the use of "transcendental" in the sense of "not yet realized, " rather than in its "proper sense - i .e., religious and metaphysical ideas." A second problem, for
l9 Schelting, p. 668. Ibid., p. 668-9.
*l Ibid., p. 669. Schelting, was the tying of "utopia" to the criterion of "realizability in the future," which based the category of "utopia" in the unscientific practice of prophecy. "Utopian" ideas were "not yet real," "daydreams, or "wish- fulfillments," and presented the problem of identifying their future effectiveness in transforming reality. Moreover "utopian" ideas, being only discernible through an ex post facto criterion established a category that was unusable for the assessment of ideas in the present. Schelting also observed that the ideas that broke dom the old social order were not necessarily the same ones that were established in the new order. Schelting identified in Mannheim's works an attempt to establish the t'value-criterion'lof ideas by linking this "value-criterion" to given stages of history. In his view this was an attempt which confused the "purely cognitive sphexe with conceptions in which creeds, volitions, and emotions are involved." For Schelting, this tying of different criteria to different stages of history raised the problem of identifying which ideas "suited" each stage. He noted that Mannheim had proposed the use of the criterion of "adequate ideas and normsttwhere "adequate" or "true" norms were those that one could act upon, and that accorded with social reality." This congruence theory was criticized by Schelting on several counts. First, it required that one
-- -- - *' Ibid, , p. 669, establish what the "norms" were, a process that would require an a priori criterion of "nom." Then following Mannheim, one would have to separate the noms that could be acted on from those that could not, a problem that again required a criterion of choice, Further, even having made this selection of "actableN noms there would still remain a multiplicity of conflicting or partially conflicting norms in any real society. Which of these then would be the tltrue" norm? This was especially true since "it cannot be assumed that the true norms simply sanction the existing situation." Schelting pointed out that the use of a criterion of "correspondence" "itself needed interpretation and criteria." The "definition of the true norm-criterion necessarily implies the possibility of objective cognition . . . cognition of the 'correspondencest of norm and social reality." Therefore Schelting concluded that these value criteria were al1 "'translogical,' 'material' criteria
applicable 'ex ~ost','~whose effectiveness could only be found "in practice," 'Ibeyond the logical sphere as such."" Therefore, for Schelting, these criteria failed because they necessarily rested on prior and unstated criteria, and worse because they were located outside the "purely cognitive sphere" in the material, social world. Schelting also criticized Mannheim's assertion in "Wissenssoziologie" that validity criteria were "constituted 48 and demonstrable within an Aspektstruktur (a universe of disc~urse)."~'This was an assertion, by Mannheim, that the critexia of validity used in each system were in a relationship of correspondence to the system itself, and hence their validity was tied to the system of belief that they were part of. Therefore a criterion's power to convince, or prove, its binding force, was limited to those who shared the same universe of discourse. This move by Mannheim tied the concept of "truth" and the related criteria of validity to social positions, so that "objective validity independent of social position [was] irrevocably destroyed." In addition to undercutting the possibility of any universal criterion, (Schelting's sphere of cognition), this view raised the problem of how a comparative evaluation across several "particular" views would be possible. Schelting asked how comparison or synthesis was possible "if there was no universal basis with 'superparticularf logical structures and validity-criteria?" Schelting then examined Mannheim's portrait of that "relatively classless body," the "free floating intellectuals." The synthesis of perspectives produced by this group was seen by Mannheim as both Vactually possible" and possessing a lv'superparticularvalidity"' that extended beyond a "definite social 'positionr." To Schelting this synthesis was especially problematic because Mannheim had
-p. -.
24 Ibid., p. 672f. found it in such diverse formats as "social philosophies, party progranis, political ideals, ethical norms, and cognitive conception^."^^ Schelting identified this synthesis as Mannheim's attempt to bring back, in the shape of a "free floating intellegensia," an "objective validity of scientific cognition" in a "sociologically disguised form." He judged that at this "point the confusion created by Mannheim is permanent."26 He asserted that for Mannheim epistemological validity was equivalent to the ideas of the intellegensia. Thus "the fact that a conception cornes out of the brain of a sociallv unbound intellectual is the suarantee of its validitv." This raised the problem of judging what constituted "social unboundednessl' and whether a particular idea was llsociallyunbounded." This according to Schelting was a problem that Mannheim did not address. Despite criticisms Schelting rounded out his assessrnent of Mannheim by noting that "a number of his concepts 1.1 [flreed from their 'evaluatingl and epistemological claims" were usable, The factual connection of social thought to social reality was workable as I1theoretical characteristics of certain factual types of social thought and their factual relations to social reality.'12' As working hypotheses these concepts would "greatly stimulate concrete research as well
25 Ibid., p. 672,
26 Ibid., p. 673.
27 Ibid., p. 673. Italics in original. as abstract discu~sion."~~Schelting regarded the "free f loating intelligentsiag'as a useful ideal-type, and considered it "plausible" to credit it with a "'natural' disposition towards comprehensive vision, objectivity, and scientific achievement. '' He recommended Mannheim' s concepts of "social connectedness, " "ideology and utopia" and "the free floating intellectual" for use in practical analysis, especially as Mannheim used them in "his laying bare of the ideological and utopian nature of social and historical conceptions, especially those of political parties." The important point, for Schelting, was that these concrete problems and analyses should be treated without the "logical nonsense" of Mannheim' s epistemology.29 Schelting asserted that the concrete origins of ideas and the social factors determining thought did not affect the value of conceptions (the genetic fallacy). For Schelting Mannheim's locating of the "truth - of cognitive achievements" or their "validity, their binding force exclusivelv upon certain actual functions of these conceptions in social reality" was "intrinsically inconsistentu and formed a "vicious circle" of paradox .
Ibid., p. 673.
29 Ibid., p. 674.
30 Ibid,, p. 674. Italics in original. (2) Grünwald
Ernst Grünwald (1912-1933) entered the sociology of knowledge debate in 1934 with his book Das Problem der Soziolosie des Wissens. This work quickly became part of the American debate and was referred to as a standard source of information on the sociology of knowledge-' In this examination of Grünwald, I will focus on his epistemological
criticisms of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge rather than his response to it as a sociology. Grunwald began his criticism by stating that it "is not the material truth of the sociological interpretationttbut rather the "formal lack of imer contradictions" that determined "whether the sociological interpretation is at al1 meaningful." He asked if Mannheim's sociology of knowledge was a "meaningful" system, a system that could "make assertions about the validity of the propositions it interprets as manifestations of social beingeU2Grünwald pursued this question by using the tenets of logical positivism to examine Mannheim's
Ernst Grünwald, "Wissenssoziologie und Erke~tniskritik", Das Problem der Soziolosie des Wissens (Vie~a/Leipzig:Wilhelm Braumuller, 1934) p. 228-35. Grünwaldfs position, as presented here, is from the English translation, "The Sociology of Knowledge and Epistemology", Knowledse and Politics: The Sociolosv of Knowledse Dispute, trans. and ed. Volker Meja and Nico Stehr (London: Routledge, 1990) p. 261-265. Grünwald (1912- 33) was a law student in Vienna. He was killed in a mountaineering accident and his book was published posthumously. As will be seen below his work is a good example of the interwar connections between German and ~mericansociology.
Grünwald, p. 261. sociology of knowledge for internal systematic flaws or contradictions. He referred to Mannheim's system as sociolocrism and noted that it rested on beliefs "that al1 thinking and knowing are existentially connected," and that "this connectedness to existence bears on the validity of
propo~itions."~Grünwald began by examining the proposition
that any connection of knowledge to existence would destroy that knowledge's validity (its tmth). He pointed out that if existential connectedness necessarily meant inherent
falseness, then any proposition COM~C~&to reality (existentially connected) would, by definition, be a false proposition. However, noting that this first linkage was itself a proposition about reality, he argued that it must, by its own assertion, be false. This internal contradiction therefore constituted a self-referential paradox in the sense that the statement made a truth-claim that applied to itself and simultaneously asserted that this truth-claim was false. Accordingly this first combination constituted an imer contradiction in Mannheim's system. Grünwald identified this as a ''form of scepticism that cancels itself out and is therefore absurd."' However, we should note that,
' Ibid., p. 261. Grünwald's attack on "absolute sociologism" (the view that existential connectedness necessitated incorrectness) refuted a position Mannheim never took. The central tenet of Mannheim's position was that valid knowledge (even if of a conditional sort) did exist, despite, and in a as Grünwald later recognized, Mannheim never made the claim that existential co~ectednessdestroyed the validity of knowledge, Therefore Grünwald's argument against "absolute sociolocrism," while interesting, constructed something of a strawman when applied to Mannheim's actual position. Grünwald then examined how "absolute sociolocrism," had been replaced (its original existence was a matter of Grünwaldts opinion) by a "more modest" variety that claimed only a specific or limited validity. This "more modest" claim was founded on Mannheim's argument that there was a multiplicity of validity criteria, each tied to a specific social group or system, Grünwald noted that Mannheim had, in part, justified the use of this type of validity (validity with a limited scope) by the assertion that the "wholen could not be seen. Inability to see the "whole" meant that "the essence of the given in general, and especially of historical and social reality, [was] that it can be grasped only in perspectives." Therefore the use of a criterion of "limited validity" was justified by Mannheim as a concession to pragmatic reality and reflected the human position of the observer. For Grünwald this "moderate sociologism, so-called relationism" was conceived by Mannheim as a middle ground between relativism and absolutism, Grünwald stated that this approach "declares war on every epistemology that has sense because of existential co~ectedness. 54 existed so far as well as on every absol~tism."~Thus he saw Mannheim's approach both as a rejection of absolutism (certain knowledge) and as an attempt to escape the relativism that resulted £rom the lack of certain knowledge. Grünwald then examined how Mannheim tried to fend off the charge of relativism (multiple truths) by arguing that the concept of absolutism (one exclusive truth) was tied to a perspective, the perspective of the exact sciences, which Mannheim identified as "'the idealistic epistemology prevailing todayl. '16 According to Grünwald, Mannheim' s linking of al1 knowledge to a and therefore to a "partial validity" applied to the natural sciences, and thereby identified "scientific" knowledge with a "false absolutism." We should again note that Grunwald was misstating Mannheim's position. Mannheim did not make the claim that science was "false,~' indeed he stated that the natural sciences were significantly less influenced by social determinations of knowledge than were the social sciences.' Mannheim' s position was founded on a
Ibid,, p. 262. Ibid.? p.262. quoting from Mannheim, "Wissenssoziologie", p. 670b or from Ideolocw and Utopia p. 264. Mannheim following the tenets of German historicism explicitly divided the natural (exact) sciences ftom the social sciences. As noted in the second section of this paper Mannheim explicitly stated that his work in Ideolosv and Utopia was rnainly concerned with the social sciences. Mannheim also explicitly stated that he considered knowledge in the exact sciences to be much less susceptible to social influences and hence more reliable. 55 methodological and to an extent epistemological separation of the exact and social sciences, a distinction that was conflated by Grünwald's presentation. Here Grünwald correctly presented Mannheim's assertion that the demand for one exclusive truth was itself only one of a number of possible perspectives, but rather confused it with a claim against "scientific merit'' itself. Grünwald asserted that Mannheim's defence against relativism also involved relationism in another imer contradiction. For relationism 'klairns absolute validity for its own proposition, that al1 thought is only relatively valid." However, this claim produced a self-contradiction: al1 claims to validity were relative, but this proposition itself was absolute (not relative). Therefore, this proposition of Mannheim's was another self-referential paradox. Grünwald claimed that this problem was inherent in the structure of Mannheim's system itself, for it was "part of the very concept of a proposition to claim general validity." This was necessary since a proposition must mean what it says and not something else, its claim of validity must be a claim "absol~tely."~On this basis, Grünwald argued that Mannheim's system was inherently flawed, since its most basic proposition contradicted the essential characteristic of a meaningful proposition. Reasoning from this understanding of a proposition Grünwald asserted that
a Grünwald, p. 262. there could be no "middle ground, If since to be cognitively and logically meaningful a proposition had to be either true or false.' Mannheim's system therefore "gets entangled in al1 the absurdities of scepticism and relati~isrn."~~ Grünwald further criticized Mannheim's approach to the problem of "relativized" thought in relationism as an attempt to partialize and devalue thought. He noted that Mannheim had proposed the solution of "conceiving thought as a mere partial phenomena belonging to a more comprehensive factor within the totality of the world process."ll Grünwald noted Mannheim's assertion that "if one maintains that the sphere of thought (that of concepts, judgements, and inferences) is merely one of expression rather than of the ultimate cognitive constitution of obiects " then the "sphere of theoretical communicationw, being only partial, was devalued, and therefore the importance of theoretical
Logical positivism as developed in the 1920-30's by the Viema Circle stressed the need for verification. It asserted that only verifiable (empirical) propositions had any cognitive meaning. This was the basis of Grünwald's insistence on the absolute nature of a logical proposition and for his insistence that al1 assumptions must be verified. Logical positivism encountered problems over the process of verification. See "Logical Po~itivisrn,'~A Dictionarv of Philoso~hv2nd ed. (London: Pan Books, 1984).
'O 'O Grünwald, p. 264. '' Ibid., p. 263. The quote is from Karl Mannheim, "Das Problem einer Soziologie des Wissens", Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft, 53. 3(1925). Available in English as, "The Problem of a Sociology of Knowledge", Essays on the Sociolocrv of Knowledqe (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), p. 138. contradictions was deval~ed.'~This reduction of thought to a partial phenornenon was described by Grünwald as a "contradiction to any logic known so far."13 This dispute over the %tatus" of thought rested on an important philosophical difference. Mannheim was arguing from a realist position, advocating an "act of breaking through the immanence of thought - with an attempt to comprehend thought as a partial phenornena within the broader field of existence, and to determine it, as it were, starting from existential data"" For Mannheim the "'existential thinker' . . . asserts precisely that his ultimate position lies outside the sphere of thought - that for him, thought neither constitutes objects nor grasps
l2 Ibid., p. 263. This quote is from Mannheim, "Das Problem einer Soziologie des Wissens", Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft, 53, 3(1925), p. 581f. The translated version in English is "The Problem of a Sociology of Knowledgeft,Essavs on the Sociolosv of Knowledqe (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952), p. 138. Grünwald's argument rested on a philosophical position. In subjective idealism (Grünwald's position) objects were constituted by the act of cognition, things were what we perceived them to bel In contrast the realist viewpoint (Mannheim's position) asserted that objects have an identity "in themselves" and that our perceptions, besides being of variable accuracy, did not ffmake''the object into something it was not. We can note that Mannheim's system with its two types of knowledge ("natural science" and "socialm) gives a flhardflidentity to natural objects "in themselves" and softened the distinction between objects "in themselves" and the "perception" of objects in the social (cultural) sphere. Mannheim asserted that in the social world the values and meanings that we give to objects were part of their "identity" and that this made the "truth" of their identity variable.
l3 Ibid. , p. 263.
l4 Mannheim, "The Problem" p. 138. ultimately real matters of fact but merely expresses extra- theoretically constituted and warranted belief~."'~Thus Mannheim's position was that I1ultimate philosophical principles are supra-theoretically [sic] grounded" and that "inner contradictions . . . and paradoxes can no longer be considered as symptoms of defective thinking - on the contrary, such symptoms may be valued as manifestations of some extra-theoretical phenornenon being truly grasped in e~istence."~'Mannheim, the realist, thus defended the "~bject,~'the "reality outside thought" as the ultimate warrant of validity. Taking the very different stance of logical positivism, Grünwald rejected this sphere of validity "outside thought" and asserted the impossibility of getting out of thought. Asking "who actually posits thought as a partial appearance and who 'devalues' the sphere of theorizing?" Grünwald noted that the idea of "thought as partial, " and " theory as devalued" were themselves thoughts and theories. Thinking them does not get one lroutllof thought. (This was a misstatement of Mannheim, who did not claim that he was "getting out" of thought, but only that the ultimate criteria of validity lay "outside thought" ) Grünwald asked: is it not thinking itself that performs this devaluation? 1s not thought, the sphere of theoretical expression, by that fact acknowledged
lS Mannheim, "Problem" p. 138. l6 Mannheim, "Problem" p. 138. as the ultimate, highest authority?" Mannheim's l'solution," of a sphere both grounding validity and outside thought, (a solution based on a different philosophy) was therefore seen by Grünwald as another inner contradiction in Mannheim's system. Grünwald criticized Mannheim for mixing the system of observation with the object of observation. He argued that the "object of any consideration from without, . . . is not the proposition itself but its material." Therefore the sociology of knowledge does not, and could not, "deal in that area consisting of the claim to validity and cannot Say anything about it." Here Grünwald, following logical poçitivism, was making a sharp distinction between the system of observation, where the nature of the "proposition1' and the criterion of validity were established, and the material under study, the object of observation. For Grünwald, what the term "validity1l meant and how it was established, was inherent in the formation of a proposition, and was necessarily tied to the signifying function of the proposition itself. It was only here in the "significative function" of the proposition itself that "the dual concept true-false is meaningful.llle Grünwald asserted that the standard of validity to which a proposition was subject could only be tied to the proposition itself, not to the
l7 Grünwald, p. 263. la Ibid., p. 264. 60 object. The standard of validity was thus, in a sense, an "outside" standard applied the analysis of the object. If this rule was violated then the criterion of validity of the sociology of knowledge would itself become the object of analysis. Grünwald pointed out that this would entai1 "a view which every sober analysis will immediately recognize as untenable," for it would result in an infinite regression of analysis. Each analysis, instead of being based on a proposition answerable as true or false, would instead become an object for its own analysis and that analysis in turn would become an object for analysis, ad infinitum. We
cari note here that Mannheim recognized and accepted this conclusion and included it in his concept of a dvnamic synthesis . Continuing his application of the logical positivist approach Grünwald criticized the sociology of knowledge for resting on a hypothetical phenomenon. In his view "[e]xistential connectedness can have 'relevance to meaning' (Mannheim) only if it in fact exists as a clearly demonstrable phenomenon." Grünwald held that "different propositions start from different metaphysical axioms and that this ideologicalLy conditioned background 'betrays itself' in the particular proposition." Therefore he believed that the existential connectedness of knowledge in Mannheim's system "'exists' only hypothetically, conditionally, as a result of the arbitrarily chosen basic thesis" and therefore was not a valid proposition.lg For Grünwald then, Mannheim's assertion of the connection of knowledge (and propositions) to existence was an a priori lfmetaphysicalaxiom", which was "not demonstrable" and was therefore necessarily invalid, Further, for Grünwald, the problem of how an "objectively valid propositionI1 could grow out of "psychic acts which are part of the causal nexus of nature and fully determined by it" was a philosophical question and inappropriate to the sociology of kno~ledge.~~ Let us at this point examine Grünwald's arguments. If, as Grünwald says, "different propositions start from different metaphysical axioms," and if such "metaphysical axioms" are "invalid because unprovable" then Grünwald's "metaphysical axiom" that there is a separate sphere of cognition, can also be regarded as "unprovable" and therefore invalid.*' Further, the assertion that "valid
l9 Ibid. P. 264. Ibid., p. 265. The full citation is "No doubt every epistemology will have difficulty in solving in a completely satisfactory manner the problem of how an objectively valid proposition can grow out of psychic acts which are part of the causal nexus of nature and fully determined by it. But the problem of methexis, rather than merely an interna1 affair of the sociology of knowledge, is an eminently philosophic question," '' Although he does not refer to it directly Grünwald makes it clear that he is postulating two different spheres of knowledge by his handling of the material. We can note that he begins by separating the question of a proposition's "material truthflfrom the question of its theoretical value (imer contradictions) Griinwald p. 261, Grünwald asserted that the validity daim (the measure of "truthW) was located in the analytical system (the proposition) "outside" the object and not in the "material" propositionsr' grow out of "psychic actsu that are part of the kausal nexus of nature" raises problems for Grünwald's arguments.'' First, the acknowledgment of psychic acts (thoughts) as part of "nature" contradicts his whole "separate sphere of cognitionttargument.23 This assertion, which Grünwald introduced almost as an afterthought in his article, would seem to introduce a realist element into Grünwald's system. For it is not clear what the difference is between Mannheim's Irtotality of the world process" and Grünwald's "causal nexus of nature", since both seem to be assertions of a sphere that is at least partially "outside thoughtu and "effects validity." Grünwaldrs statement, which unfortunately he did not elaborate on, therefore seems to be itself. Therefore Griinwald argued that the object of the sociology of knowledge was "net the proposition itself but its material, and that the sociology of knowledge therefore does not deal in that area consisting of the claim to validity and cannot say anything about it" Grünwald p. 264. Grünwald's rejection of Mannheim's "existential connectednessrlof knowledge (that existential rrfactorstreffect or shape criteria of validity) rested on this separation of knowledge into the sphere's of lltheoretical"and "material".
22 Grünwald's separation of "material truthm from cognitive validity claims makes his assertion of psychic acts "from nature" problematic. His exact meaning is unclear but he seems to be claiming that "nature" effects psychic (cognitive) acts, and at the same time rejecting Mannheim's assertion of the "existential" co~ectednessof knowledge (cognition). Unfortunately the terms being used can be defined in a variety of ways philosophical and without having a clearer understanding of what Grünwald meant by "nature" and "psychic actsr' and how closely he associated them with Mannheim's lrexistentialr'and Vmowledge" it is difficult to asseçs their impact on Grünwald's argument. It is assumed here that Grünwald did not mean that al1 "nature" was " thought" . a contradiction of his own position regarding a separate sphere of cognition and as such undercuts his argument against Mannheim. Moreover, Grünwald's statement about "psychic acts which are part of the causal nexus of nature and fully determined by it" [italics added] seems to be an assertion of the existential "determination" of knowledge
and as such would seem to support Mannheim's position. Grünwald's immediate removal of these problems of ''methexis" to wphilosophy" is perhaps an indication that he was aware that he had raised problems for his own argument. Grünwald concluded that sociolocrism (Mannheim's sociology of knowledge) was self contradicting and therefore a "sceptical relati~ism.~'Further sociolocrism was "positively wrongl' since it started from a false premise, namely the unverifiable existential comectedness of knowledge. He thought that the sociology of knowledge could therefore only be salvaged if it gave up its claim to epistemological relevance and stopped pretending to be a "comprehensive sociological interpretation and orientation
in the world. Il2'
24 Ibid., p. 265. (3) Speier
Hans Speier (1905-90) of the New School for Social
Research in New York contributed to the Arnerican discussion
of Mannheim's program with a review of Ideoloav and Utopia
in The American Journal of Socioloq.' In this review he attempted to place Mannheim in current intellectual debates
and to assess his importance. He noted that Mannheim's work
had generated a wide and passionate response because it "goes to the heart of a matter which concerns philosophers and politicians, professors and laymen alike."' This matter was the problem of truth in an age of propaganda, and the problem of values in an age that had become "permeated with a feeling of the historical relativity of value^."^ Speier considered Mannheim's merit to be the "uncompromising
Hans Speier, review of Ideolocw and Utopia, by Karl Mannheim, The American Journal of Socioloav vol XLIII July 1937- May 1938: p 155-166. Hans Speier was a lecturer at the Hochschule fur Politik in Berlin until his emigration in 1933. He taught at the New School for Social Research from 1933-1942. He was employed by the Rand corporation from 1948-69. He was Robert McIver Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) from 1969 until his death in 1990. His publications include Social Theorv and the Risks of War (1952). Speier, p. 155. Ibid.? p. 155. Speier agreed with Louis Wirth's assessment of the universality of the intellectual crisis that Mannheim addressed. See Louis Wirthrs, "Preface" to Ideolow and Utopia p. x-xi. Also see Chapter III (4) for a cornmentary on Wirth's position. sincerity" of his inquiry into these questions .' He praised Mannheim for his "marked advance" over Marxism and, like Wirth, saw the great benefit of Mannheim's work as the development of a "technique for detecting the influence of valuation upon the formation and structure of thought- ~ystems."~Speier advocated, as the proper concern of sociologists, the development of Mannheim's technique, rather than "continued discussion of the epistemological implications".' In Speier's view Mannheim "arrives at a historical- social relativism concerning the validity of knowledge - which he calls 'relati~nism'.~'This relationism, which asserted the connection of thought to the social, rested on Mannheim's understanding of thought as a social practice. The theory conceptualized the development of ideas as a group activity, in which group membership 'lmanifestsitself by the individual's participation in the thought patterns of a group or in the 'collective unconscious motives' and interests of the group."' Speier noted how Mannheim's system was based on examination of active groups, whose striving to shape nature and society had produced "the guiding thread
--- ' Ibid., p. 155. Ibid., p. 156. Speier credits Wirth for this appraisal of Mannheim's work. ' Ibid., p. 156. ' Ibid., p. 157. for the emergence of their problems, their concepts, and their forms of thoughtf."* The coinpetition among such groups according to Mannheim, led to the development of particular
"stylesr1of thought and particular systems of ideas that were responses to typical group experiences and problems. Speier criticized Mannheim's "imputation of ideas to certain groups" and felt that this notion "may embarrass the sociologist who is aware of the infinite number of social CO-ordinates" and of the many ways in which group memberships o~erlapped.~Although Speier was correct about Mannheim's ambiguity in defining "classu, we can note that his criticism, based on the fact that individuals were members of multiple groups, ignored how Mannheim's was conceptualizing the group as an ideal-type. A further problem for Speier was Mannheim's use of the notion of "typical problems". Speier questioned whether typical problems " could be "detached from the ideological material in which the problems were intellectually defined."1° Could "typical problemsl' be used as a "source" of group ideas if the definition of the "pr~blem'~was a social and historical construct? This criticism regarding the reflexivity of group consciousness (groups perceive
a Ibid., p. 157. This is a quotation from Ideolow and Uto~iap. 4.
Ibid., p. 162. Ibid., problems, because groups define problems) was pertinent to Mannheim's system, and Mannheim tried to address it with his
recognition of the "imposed" element in thought. We can also note that this was a greater problem for Speier who emphasized cognitive "reality", since Mannheim's object "in itselfn would act as an "outside" influence on the group and thereby tend to prevent a completely reflexive system. Speier further noted that Mannheim's work stressed the importance of aware, politically active groups with well- defined economic interests, but he argued that it ignored such groups as the "leisurel' classes." These classes, in Speier' s opinion, were "very important in the formation and diffusion of culture" but could not be defined in terms of political attitudes or economic interests since "work, success, efficiency, and al1 the other values which enjoy social validity in the modern class structure were promoted against leisure classe^."'^ This argument, if we are to take it literally, would conceptualize the "leisure" classes as both idle and socially disengaged. This is problematic, especially if Speier was using Veblen's notion of the term ''leisure class" to describe the American business elite. Speier's argument did not address the issues of how "leisure
classes" achieved their privileged positions and how such
l1 Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), an early and influential American sociologist, had proposed a theory that the dominant class in America was a "leisure class". classes maintained their privileged positions, processes scarcely conceivable without an engagement in politics and
economics. We cm also note that such a class, a class that rejected the "values which enjoy social validity in the modem class structurett,would constitute an argument in support of Mannheim's thesis, since Mannheim was asserting a connection between class position and values. Speier criticized Mannheim's treatment of the public which "tends to disappear from the picture."13 In particular Speier found difficulties with Mannheim's conception of intellectual. competition since he believed that "intellectual competition in the proper sense of the term occurs only when the intellectuals attempt the competitive satisfaction of overt and presumed demands of speciiic groups," that is, when intellectuals are "selling" ideas to a group rather than expressing group ideas." Thus Speier linked Mannheim's conception of competitive intellectuals to a "rhetorical" model, asserting that the "Greek sophists . . . were the first sociologists of knowledge in Mannheim's sense." For Speier this prioritizing of "persuasion" over the "expository" was a result of the "theory that indisputable knowledge is impossible to attain." Mannheim's
l3 Ibid., 164. Speier's assertion that the intellectual' primary task was the "selling" of ideas to the public, a rhetorical activity, was similar to Merton's association of intellectuals with mass communications and propaganda. see Chapter IV (2) for a fuxther description of Merton's argumen
l4 Speier, p. 164 reference to Bacon's "idols" was also, in Speier's opinion, mistaken since "Bacon did not think that philosophers could take idola as tr~th."~~Thus for Speier Mannheim's assumption of the existential determination of knowledge could be used for Vhetorical thinking" but was not suitable for "nonrhetorical thought and cultural achievement in general." Speier asserted that Mannheim's "valuable methods in detecting the influence of fundamental values on the structure or style of these [nonrhetorical and cultural] achievements should be presemed and developed," but his idea that these values were "ultirnately traceable to motives of social classes striving for power is so hypothetical in character that it cannot be accepted as a general theory." Speier attributed Mannheim's error to his "basic fallacy" of "obliterating the differences between philosophy and rhetoric-"16We can note that with these arguments Speier was defending a separate sphere of cognition (philosophy) and reversing the direction of intellectual competition. Mannheim's intellectuals (including philosophers) expressed the perspectives of groups, and their intellectual competition was an expression of group competition. On the
other hand Speierls intellectuals (excluding philosophers)
l5 Ibid., p. 164. Speier's assertion is questionable since one of Bacon's idols involved the influence of false philosophies (idols of the theatre).
Ibid. , sold their ideas to groups and to "controlling publics."" Speier noted that Mannheim's sociology sought to reconstruct the relationships between: a given set of ideas, on the one side, and the historical and social position of a group, its actions, and its 'collective-unconscious motivations', on the other. This was a process in which Mannheim l'focuses his attention on the origin of valuations and attempts to discover it in the historical process."18 For Mannheim these historical/social origins of ideas gave them a "sort of objectivity" because there was an "empirical" correspondence between the group and the idea. This congruence theory of
t'truth'' was problematic for Speier, since "truth is thus existentially determined and existence historically
changing, no truth can be enduring. "19 This conclusion led Speier to disagree with Wirthts view that Mannheim's sociology was an "advance in the discussion of
ob j ectivity. Ir2O Speier considered Mannheim's ideas to be unphilosophic and to contain contradictions. In his view Mannheim was a
l7 It is interesting how this selling of ideas parallels Merton's observations on the intellectualts role in mass advertizing. Speier's assertions clearly separate two types of endeavor; philosophy - the search for truth, and rhetoric - the selling of ideas to the public.
l8 Speier, p. 157.
Ibid., Ibid. %ociological historicist, and historicism is an unphilosophical doctrine."" Speier saw the source of the problem in the way that Mannheim conceived the relationship
between action and thinking, a problem that was Itat the bottom of the contemporary predicament of thought.'"' However, this problem was not tied to Mannheim's analysis of the thoughts of acting men per se, which "is a perfectly legitimate and useful branch of kn~wledge."'~Rather the problem was caused by the descent "from language to 'life'," by the subordination of "thought to action."" Here, Speier believed that Mannheim was violating a necessary distinction between philosophic (pure) and non-philosophic (practical) thought. Hence: one of the most striking omissions in Mannheim's sociology is his neglect of what might be called 'qualitiest of thinking' for in an action-based system there is no categorical distinction between the thinking of a 'party boss' and that of 'Kant'.2S This problem was associated with the conflict between theorizers and men of action. For Speier, when "action is made both the basis of thought and the criterion of truth,
'' Ibid., p. 159-60.
22 Ibid., p. 160.
23 Ibidœ, p. 161.
" Ibid., P. 160.
25 ibid. , p. 161. philosophy becomes impossible. "'' He asserted that Mannheim's theory of thinking had "obliterated the difference between philosophy and rhetoric.'"' Speier described academic interest in Mannheim's epistemology as the "professional self-hatred of the intellectualsl'who discuss a "philosophic problem after accepting its definition from those who boast of not being philosophers ."'' Speier noted Wirth's identification of Mannheim's thought with American Pragmatism and agreed that Mannheim saw the cognitive act as an instrument for dealing with life ~ituations.~~Speier also noted Mannheim's belief that the thinking of philosophers was "not so often applicable in practice" as that of acting men. However Speier ob j ected that Mannheim had not analyzed "the philosophic proofs that were given for the excellence of contemplative lifen and instead had asserted that "knowledge obtained through participation in life and action" was superior to philosophical knowledge. Speier considered this to be proof of Mannheim's downgrading of the "vita contemplativa" and of his "antiphiloçophic tendency ."'O He viewed Mannheim's
26 Ibid., p. 160.
27 Tbid., p. 165,
2a Ibid., p. 160,
29 Ibid., p. 157.
'O Ibid., p. 160. downgrading of philosophic thought to be an error in
Mannheim's system because for Speier philosophy was necessarily prior to sociology and "philosophical knowledge concerning man's nature - . . must underlie any sound
sociological theory. Il3' Further, sociology could not subsume philosophy for "no philosopher, past or present, even when dealing with political or social issues, can be adequately understood in sociological terms.""' With regard to philosophical thought, Speier asserted that "sociological method is supplementary rather than essential for interpretation" and "'socially ambivalent' thought disappears only with philosophical thought.'13' Speier disagreed with Mannheim's depiction of the intellectual as a special bearer of knowledge. He noted that the category of the "socially unattached intelligentsia" had been taken up from Alfred Weber?' Speier observed that Mannheim's intellectuals, although they did not have a privileged direct access to truth, had, by their education (a cultural possession) access to the perspectival views of al1 classes. Speier pointed out that "existential determination of thought is not suspended for them but
31 Ibid., p. 165.
32 Ibid., p. 161-
33 Ibid., p. 161-2. '' Mannheim, Ideolow, p. 155. Mannheim credited the term to Alfred Weber (freischwebende intelliqenz) but does not state his source in Weber. 74 merely complicated," for they are "only free to choose among perspectives and to synthesize them." Mannheim's intellectual was therefore in a position to select and combine the most valuable aspects of the various perspectives. Yet for Speier this task "presupposes criteria which cannot be derived from these viewsl' for "any synthesis postulates 'nonideological' knowledge rather than multiple social determinati~n."~'Speier therefore saw a problem where Mannheim saw a process. Speier's criteria for synthesis were "outside," "fixed" and "nonideological," while Mannheim's criteria were dynamic and arrived at through selection (based on a utility that was tied to the purposes of the inquirer)- Despite these criticisms, Speier praised Mannheim for the "richness and force" of his writings and for his "numerous fascinating ideas." Subordinated to philosophy and separated from epistemology, Mannheim's ideas could be "to the profit of sociology in general and, ultimately, of public life" if they were l'seriously criticized, developed, and applied in historical and empirical research." Speier recommended that "philosophers and sociologists, historians and psychologists, CO-operate in order to clarify the conceptions that have been courageously expounded". This process of cooperation would have a "wholesome effect" on
35 Speier, p. 162. the "overspecialization of the social sciences"." Yet, Speier maintained, that Mannheim's theory tracing criteria of validity to social causes was "so hypothetical in character that it cannot be accepted in general theory.""
(4) Wirth
The American sociologist and social activist Louis Wirth (1897-1952) wrote the introduction to the American edition of Ideolow and Uto~ia.' In his introduction he reflected on the importance of Mannheim's work and its relationship to sociology. Wirth began by noting that discussion of the issues raised in Ideolocw and Utopia had been silenced in Germany by the exiling of many intellectuals. He believed that Mannheim's work addressing the contemporary crisis of "social and intellectual chaos," formed a "sober, critical and sckolarly analysis of the
j6 Ibid., p. 166.
37 Ibid., p. 165.
l Louis Wirth (1897-1952) was born in Germany and emigrated to the United States at 14. A social activist associated with the University of Chicago and the tradition of Robert E. Park, E.W. Burgess, W.I. Thomas and A.W. Small, he considered theory to be deeply connected to research and practice. He was president of the American Sociological Association and the first president of the International Sociological Association. He defended the view that knowledge could not be separated from social action, nor could sociology be separated from the problems of society. Biography from the Encyclo~ediaof the Social Sciences p. 558-9. 76
social currents and situations of Our tirne".' In his view the "upheaval that has shaken the foundations of our social and intellectual order" was tied to the questioning of "noms and truths" which had once appeared "absolute, universal, and eternaLn3 Wirth stated that the progress of knowledge was "impeded if not paralysed at present by two
fundamental factors " : on the one hand by those "powers that have blocked and retarded the advance of knowledge in the past'' and on the other by the attempt to carry over the "whole apparatus of scientific work from the physical to the social realm,'14 This latter attempt at a direct transfer of the natural sciences' mode1 conflicted with the nature of a science of society that was inherently political, since "every assertion of a 'factl about the social world touches the interests of some individ~al."~ Wirth noted that many American theorists had preceded Mannheim in addressing, in one way or another, the issue of the social connectedness of knowledge- These authors, such as Sumner with his work on the distorting influence of
Louis Wirth, "Prefacet'to Ideolocrv and Uto~iatrans, Louis Wirth and Edward Shils (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1936) p. x. This is a reprint of the International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method edition of 1936. Wirth, p. x-xi. ' Ibid., p. xi. Wirth specifically referred to the rise of fascism and to the post-World War 1 Red Scares. He also referred to theological resistance to the Enlightenment.
Ibid., p. xv. 77 ethnocentricism, and Veblen with his work on cultural values and intellectual activities, produced insights that paralleled those of Mannheim. Wirth also saw a basic correspondence between the works of the American Pragmatists (James, Peirce, Mead and Dewey) and Mannheim. Beyond their common central concern with practical action in the world, such thinkers shared similar insights into the problem of ob j ectivity. Wirth also noted that the search for a notion of objectivity suitable to the social sciences "gives rise to peculiarly difficult problems in the attempt to establish a rigorous scientific method.'" Wirth linked these difficulties to the rationality and self-awareness inherent in human subjects. Unlike the natural sciences, studies of humans involve both external, directly observable aspects, and internal, or not directly observable, aspects of the object. Hence there was a need to penetrate into the "inner meaning of the phenornena" as well as into the externals.' Defending Mannheim's sociological understanding of knowledge Wirth noted that human beings' imer meanings were associated with social as well as individual motives and goals. Thus in the social sciences "we cmot afford to disregard the values and goals of acts without missing the
-- - Ibid., p. xviii. ' Ibid., p. xix. significance of many of the facts inv~lved.~~'Therefore the social scientist, involved with "meaningful" objects, must necessarily use categories that are inclusive of meaning. And since the social scientist was himself comected to history and society he had to have "categories which in turn depend on his om values and meanings."' Wirth believed that in this area Mannheim had made a "distinctive advanceil by rnoving from the general connection of interest in thought, to tracing out the influences of specific interests in thought.1° In this process Mannheim's general categories of "ideology" (thought that supported the status quo) and "utopia" (thought that tended towards changing the status quo) provided a basis of "fruitful empirical resear~h.~~ll Here Mannheim was: in accord nith a growing number of modern thinkers who, instead of positing a pure intellect, are concerned with the actual social conditions in which intelligence and thought emerge. Wirth stated that Mannheim had been well aware of his theory's implications for epistemology and had sought to form a %ew basis for objective investigati~n."'~An
Ibid., p. xx. Ibid., p. xx-xxi. Ibid., p. xxi. The connection of interest and thought was a theme that Wirth found in the American Pragmatists. Wirth noted the use of this theme by sociologists Charles H. Cooley, R.M. MacIver and to a lesser extent W.I. Thomas and Robert E. Park.
l1 Ibid., p. xxi.
l2 Ibid., p. xxvi. important part of this new basis was his explicit
recognition that human thought needed to be studied sociologically as well as through logic and psychology. Wirth agreed with Mannheim's contention that the sociological understanding of thought was essential to understanding and communication between social groups. For it was this sociological understanding of the thoughts of others that raised the possibility of a mutual recognition and working agreement between groups. Wirth similarly agreed with Mannheim's belief in the possibility of a solution to the social and political problem of people "talking past each other." Wirth noted that Mannheim's rejection of a "hypothetical pure intellectf1had led him to re-examine the idea of knowledge in itself. This se-examination allowed Mannheim to develop a "social-psychological elaboration of the theory of knowledge it~elf."'~By this move treatment of the problem of knowledge, which had been located in philosophy and psychology, was extended to the social sciences and society as a whole. However, Mannheim's program "requires more than the application of well-established logical rules . . . for the accepted rules of logic themselves are here called into question."14 It raised the question of how knowledge was created, shaped and accepted
l3 Ibid., p. xxvii. '' Ibid., p. xxviii. 80 in society. For Wirth, Mannheim's Ideolosv and Utopia was itself the product of a period of "chaos and unsettlement," and it addressed these questions. In Wirth's view, Mannheim's work, even though it "proffers no simple sol~tion,~~was useful because it formulated the "leading
problems. "15
(5) Mills
The young C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) was strongly influenced by Mannheim's work. As a Ph.D. student at Wisconsin he wrote a critical essay on the sociology of knowledge which was published in 1940.' In this essay entitled f'Methodological Consequences of the Sociology of Knowledge" he addressed issues raised by Mannheim's work and sought to situate him in relation to American so~iology.~
l5 Ibid., P. XXV.
l Mill's career was heavily influenced by Mannheim's writings. He wrote "Methodological Consequences of the Sociology of Knowledge" while at University of Wisconsin under the supervision of Howard Becker. While there he was also influenced by Hans Gerth, a student of Mannheim's. See chapter 7, "From the Sociology of Knowledge to the Knowledge of Society" in Irving Louis Horowitz, C. Wricrht Mills: An American Utopian (New York: The Free Press, Macmillan Inc.,1983) p. 148-172 for a discussion of Mannheim's influence. * C. Wright Mills, "Methodological Consequences of the Sociology of Knowledge" American Journal of Sociolow, Vol. 46, no. 3 (1940). This article can also be found in Power, Politics and Peo~le:The Collected Essavs of C. Wriqht Mills, ed. Louis Horowitz (New York: Oxford U Press, 1963) p.453-468. Citations in this paper are from Power, Politics and People. Mills began his examination by noting that Schelting and Speier had both rejected the epistemological implications of Mannheim's theory of a social determination of knowledge. Mills agreed with this in the "cnide sense" that the 't'socialposition"' of a thinker did not determine the truth or falseness of their statements.' But Mills challenged the truth criteria of those who "assert the irrelevance of social conditions to the truthfulness of propositions." He pointed out that there "have been and are many ways of determining 'truth' and 'validity'."' Even in philosophy, Fritz Mauthner and John Dewey had found linguistic and cultural factors in Aristotelian 10gic.~Mills pointed out that linkages between social factors and truth criteria could also be found in the medieval and modern eras. Even in the realm of science Mills pointed out that R.K. Merton had established a connection between "'utilitariân and experimentalr canons of verification" and the "social ethos of seventeenth-century Puritanism," a social connection that lay at the very historical centre of modern sciencew6Mills
' Ibid., p. 453-454. This is sometimes called the genetic fallacy. Tbid., p. 454. Ibid., p. 4540 For Mauther's work see Aristotle, trans., C.D. Gordon (New York, 1907). For Dewey see Experience and Nature (New York, 1929) p 48-50, 87, 91-2. See also C. W. Mills "Language, Logic, Culture1', American Socioloqical Review Vol. 4, 1939 p. 670-680. Ibid., p. 455. See R. K. Merton, Science, Society. and Technolow in Seventeenth-Centurv Ensland (Bruges, Belgium, emphasized that there "have been and are diverse canons and criteria of validity and truth" and that it was these that determine the "truthfulness of propositions." For Mills the epistemological "[clriteria, of observational and verificatory models, are not transcendental," and were "not drawn theoretically pure from a Greek hea~en."~ Epistemological cfiteria were not "a priori or innate, equipment of 'the mind1 conceived to be intrinsically
logical . lt8 Comparing Mannheim and Dewey, Mills noted that Dewey
had for "forty yearsfl contended that the "verificatory models upon which imputations of truthfulness rest are forms drawn from existent inquiries and have no meaning apart from inquiries."' Both Dewey and Mannheim asserted the social genesis of epistemological forms, and in their separate works they had both gone beyond the assertion of a general relationship between thought and reality to engage in concrete investigations.1° Mills also found support for Mannheim's contentions in
' Ibid., p. 455. Ibid., p. 456. Mills refers this point to comments by Hans Speier . Ibid., p. 456 referring to Dewey, Looic: The Theorv of Inauiry, (New York, 1938).
'O Ibid., p. 456. See Dewey, Studies in Loaical Theory (Chicago, 1909) chaps. i-IV. the works of C.S. Peirce." He noted how the choice of an epistemological model, or criterion of knowledge, was a major part of Peirce's early work, which involved an explicit recognition of the necessity of choice. Mills commented that the "'acceptance' (usage) and 'rejectiont of verificatory models by individual thinkers and by elites was another juncture at which extralogical" factors entered thinking. He examined how Mannheim's use of the concept of ideology tied the form as well as the content of knowledge to the social sphere. This approach constituted a "social- historical relativization of a model of truth." Mills asserted that those who "contend that sociological
investigations of thinking have no consequences for the truth or validity of that thinkingt' are engaged in a misunderstanding. They assumed that the criterion of validity could not be examined "empirically and sociologically" for "extra-logical factors" that might affect the validity of the results, an assumption that Mills
tied to a "blurred theory of knowledge and mind."12 Mills asserted that these critics were incorrect to attack Mannheim for crudely proposing a form of the genetic fallacy which tied validity solely to the speaker's position. Continuing his examination of the historicity of validity
Ibid., p. 457. See Peirce, "Methods of Fixing Belief" Collected Paeers (Cambridge Mass, 1934), Vol.V, Bk II Chap. IV sec. v.
IZ Ibid., p. 457. 84 systems, Mills noted that the current "'scientific thought- rn0de1~~of experimentation had only been established with the rise of the natural sciences. Further, even with this model, motives and social positions were not the only elements that might distort knowledge. For "any observational and verificatory pattern may itself be socially relativized, and the 'çelectiont and use of any model . . . is open to sociological explanation."13 Mills asserted that social and historical patterns affected analysis and that the categories and concepts of a model could affect inquiry by their availability or unavailability and by their social conditioning. Mills also drew attention to a related problem inherent in a technical vocabulary: such a vocabulary could result in a world of objects "that are technically tinted and patterni~ed."'~Hence "the observational dimensions of any verificatory model are influenced by the selective language of its users. "15 For these reasons Mills rejected a simple correspondence theory of truth and asserted the necessity and legitimacy of the sociology of knowledge's epistemological researches. Mills then examined the argument commonly used against relativism that either the relativistts own theory was
" Ibid., p. 458. l4 Ibid., p. 459. l5 Ibid. P. 460. relative, and therefore could make no truth claim, or that the theory was absolutely true, in which case it
contradicted its own assertion of relativism. According to this argument as made by Schelting and Grünwald, the sociology of knowledgefs depiction of a truth relative to social/historical location was absurd. Mills refuted this by pointing out that Mannheim had both recognized the social location of his own theory and empirically documented the cultural and historical conditions at the root of his sociology of kn~wledge.'~Further, the anti-relativist argument assumed the existence of an alternative, an "absolute truth having no connection to inquiry . Therefore this argument against Mannheim made sense "only from an absolutist viewpoint." However, Mills asserted that Mannheim's rejection of an absolutist viewpoint did not destroy al1 validity, for Mannheim's mode1 could be verified by testing, for example according to the models of Peirce and Dewey. But this was, as Mills acknowledged, not an "absolute guaranty" of truth.18 These arguments by Mills supported Mannheim and asserted that knowledge could still be "real" even if it could no longer be regarded as
l6 Ibid., p.460. Mills referred to chapter 1 of Ideolow and Uto~iawhere Mannheim extensively examined the historical and social roots of his own theory. Mills related this criticism to Von Schelting's review p. 667.
l7 Ibid. P. 460.
le Ibid., p. 461. absolute. For Mills, epistemological models were socially developed over time and the "precondition for 'correcting' the modell' was "self-consciousness" about its use.lg The sociology of knowledge escaped the absolutist's dilemma by rejecting absolutism, and referring to degrees of truth "stated as probabilitie~."~~Mills defended the position that probability was the criterion for the validity of knowledge. He believed that this criterion allowed for translations between perspectives and allowed for the possibility of self-correction. Referring specifically to Schelting, Mills stated that the effort to exclude epistemology from the sociology of knowledge was in his view "mislocated and not consonant with modem theories of
know l edge ."" Mills also examined Speier's argument that because the sociology of knowledge assumed a purposive element in thought it could only examine "promotional" thinking, which in Speier's view differed from f'theoretical thinking" which
aimed only at truth. 22 These " ' qualities of thinking '
l9 Ibid., p. 461. Mills quotes Dewey: "Inquiry into inquiry [logic] is ... a circular process, it does not depend on anything extraneous to inquiry" from Dewey, Losic: The Theorv of Inauirv (New York: 1938) ch. 1.
20 Ibid., p. 461.
21 Ibid., p. 461. Mills also related this point to the growing awareness amongst logicians and social psychologists of a purposive element in al1 perspectives. p. 461f.
22 Ibid., p. 462, Mills related this argument specifically to Speier. He also noted that Speier had not defined his arguments identified by Mills in Schelting, Grünwald and Speier were linked to the tltimelessranks of those who seek the truth," to that special bearer of knowledge the "philosopher." Mills pointed out that "seeking truth" was, in itself, purposive thinking, and that the "philosopherstl, who were identified as the legitimate bearers of this activity, were themselves an elite social group. Further, he noted that they followed a specific 'vthought-modelnand that "seeking truthu was linked to complying with specific aspects of that model. Such a group was "sociologically significant" and their 'kategories of technical discourse, the problems addressed, and perceptual schematatlwere al1 valid subjects for the sociology of kn~wledge.'~However, Mills pointed out that "seeking truth" was not a guarantee of finding it. In his view " '[t]ruet is an adjective applied to propositions that satisfy the forms of an accepted model of verification." Mills noted that verification models had changed over time, and that there was also a lack of consensus about verification in the modem world, For in the "face of epistemological diversity and confusion it seems foolish to cal1 our work irrelevant to some one arbitrarily selected essential category of "theoretic" thought. Speier's arguments are outlined in the Speier section of this thesis. Further elaboration of them many be found in Speier, "Social Detexmination of Ideas" Social Research: An International Quarterlv of Political and Social Science (May 1938) p. 182-205. 88
set of With Wirth (and for that matter Mannheim), Mills saw awareness of epistemological construction and diversity as a condition that allowed for the possibility of positive epistemological construction. Mills asserted that 'lin its 'epistemologic function' the sociology of knowledge is specifically propaedeutic to the construction of sound methodology for the social sciences.ff25He held that the "sociologist of knowledge joins the live logician and social methodologist in the critical building of sowid rneth~ds."'~ Mills noted that "the 'control1 and manipulation necessary to 'experimentall work . . . [in the social sciences] . . . assume political and evaluative dimension^,"^' He argued that there was always a problem of value in social inquiry and that questions of value affect research. Even the choice of a problem was an expression of value. Mills asserted that "the detailed self-location of social science, if systematically and sensitively performed" would lead to the detection of error and result in 'lsounder
24 Ibid,, p. 463.
25 Ibid., p. 464, Mills iinds this epistemological relevance from methodological examinations in Wirthls preface to Ideolosv and Uto~iap xvii-xxiii, He finds similar connections in Spencer Studv of Sociolocw (1873), J, S. Mill A System of Loqic Bk. VI., also in E. Durkheim Rèsles de la méthode sociolocriwe (Paris, 1895) Ch. ii.
f6 Ibid., p. 465.
'' Ibid. , p . 466. 89 paradigms for future resear~h."~~For Mills epistemology could not be relegated to a "higher" realm of philosophy, and its development was a central task for the sociology of knowledge .
28 Zbid., p. 468. (C) Comments on the Interwar Period
Examination of American sociology's response to Mannheim in the internas period reveals a clear division of opinion. We can note first that there was virtual unanimity in acceptance of the sociology of knowledge as a sociological/historical methodology. However, there was a sharp controversy over Mannheim's claim for the epistemological importance of the sociology of knowledge. In part, positions in this debate followed disciplinary lines, and discussion centred on the philosophical implications of the sociology of knowledge. In this area, especially regarding epistemology, there was general agreement that some criterion, some meaningful standard for judging the validity of ideas, was essential to the process of knowledge. The question then became one of locating and identifying the necessary criterion. It was Mannheim's rejection of any "absolute" criterion tied to a "sphere of truth," and his move toward a socialized epistexnology that created controversy. In this controversy it was generally acknowledged that his rejection of an "absolute" standard was also a rejection of "certain" knowledge. Some authors responded to this with the assertion that this loss of an "absolute" removed al1 certainty, reducing knowledge to mere subjective relativism. Others asserted that another standard, a social measure, was both necessary and possible. As Mannheim pointed out, it was possible to see his epistemological shift as part of a continuing process of secularization, that is, as the final logical step in the Enlightenment, in which a "divine" or "natural" guarantee of truth gave way to a human measure.' It is noteworthy that this loss of an "absolute" standard was seen as a problem, and sometimes as a problem with an opportunity attached. The loss of an absolute, extra-human standard such as the "sphere of truth" could be seen in both lights. The l'humanizingflof values removed the certainty of a deterministic "truth" and left the problems of choice and relativism. However, the loss of an absolute "truth" also cleared the field for choice, for the assertion of human freedom in "creating" the values of a humanized world. We can note that Mannheim, like Wilhelm Dilthey, emphasized the willful dimension of thought. In this emphasis al1 social thought was tied to values and motives, a process that made objectivity a problem. Thinkers such as Schelting and Speier regarded this as a collapse of knowledge into Mas and propaganda. Others, like Mills, saw it as an opening to more realistic notions of objectivity conceived as a process that facilitated the purification of knowledge. For such thinkers the genetic fallacy cut both ways, for the fact that knowledge had social roots neither
l Mannheim The Origin of the Modern Epistemological, Psychological and Sociological Points of View" in Ideolow and Utopia, p. 13-33. confirmed nor denied its truth. Nor could knowledge be validated merely by its social bearer. Mannheim's notion of the "free-floating intelligentsia" as a solution to the problem of objectivity was criticized as unworkable. Yet thinkers like Schelting and Speier who rejected this solution championed the ideas of philosophers as reliable standards of truth. This is curious, for if one puts aside issues of disciplinary it is not clear what difference there is in theoretical status between a
"philosopher" and a "free f loating intellectual ." Both are referred to as seekers of truth, ''above" the biases of lesser mortals. In relation to epistemology and the criterion of "truth" Mannheim tried to identify a middle ground that allowed for a modest daim to objectivity. His conception of this middle ground rested on the realist asswnption that there was an object "in itself" separate and distinct from human perceptions.' Therefore he repeatedly asserted that the best approach to the problems of the sociology of knowledge was through the practice of "concrete empirical" research. In this middle ground, objectivity could not be a "pure absolute" because knowledge itself was never "pure."
Knowledge, human knowledge, was I' impure" because it was inseparable from the human bearer of knowledge. For Mannheim
Mannheim, Ideolocrv, p. 5 Mannheim stated that "the ultimate criterion of truth of falsity is to be found in the investigation of the object". knowledge was only partially determined by an independent object "in itself." Knowledge also contained elements from
the plastic, human social world, from objects that were "real" because people had created them. In both these cases the perception of the "realn was, necessarily, conditioned by an inherent human subjectivity expressed in meanings and values. Mannheim's "middle ground" objectivity could thus be described as a refined subjectivism, the subjectivism of a
reflexive, self-aware subject who was in contact with objects that had identity "in themselves." In examining the interwar period we can note that the human "subjective" standard of truth raised political problems. These flowed not only from the circumstances of an academic discipline that was trying, in the United States, to be apolitical and "scientific," but also from the major international political tendencies of the interwar period. It was in this period that the Soviet Union was establishing "official truth" under Stalin and that the Fascist states were asserting an irrational philosopby of the will. By the 1930's intellectuals such as Bertrand Russell had corne to associate subjectivism with totalitarianism.' R.K. Merton even asserted, without justification, that "totalitarian theorists have adopted the radical relativistic doctrine of Wissenssoziologie as a political expedient" and that
Bertrand Russell, 'Tan Men be RationalW(l923) and "The Ancestry of Fascisrn"(1935), reprinted in The Will to Doubt (New York: Allen & Unwin Ltd,, 1958) P. 11, 86-104. 94
politically effective variations of the "relationism of Karl Mannheim (for example Ideolosie and Utopia) have been used
for propagandistic purpose by such Nazi theorists as Walter Frank, Krieck, Rust and R~senberg."~Consequently, for some, Mannheim's thought had become associated with some of the very forces he was trying to counter. For some, the sociology of knowledge had corne to be perceived, not only as an incorrect theory of knowledge, but as a dangerous theory of knowledge.
' Robert K. Merton, llScienceand Social Order" Philosophv of Science 5 (1938) p. 321-37. This paper was first read in 1937 to the American Sociological Society. It can be found in Robert K. Merton, The Sociolow of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investiqations (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1973) p. 254-267. Merton's reference to Nazi propaganda making use of Wissenssoziolosie is p. 260f. It should be noted here that there is no evidence of this, and that this view is not reflected in the rest of the literature. Further, the whole political thrust of Mannheim's work was to preserve freedom and oppose totalitarianism. Chapter IV. The Post War Period 1945-1960
(1) Kecskemeti
In 1952 Karl Kecskemeti edited a collection of Mannheim's early German essays entitled Essavs on the Sociolow of Knowledqe.' In the introduction to this work he examined and contextualized Mannheim's work on this subject. Kecskemeti noted that "Mannheim's sociology of knowledge was often misunderstood as a variant of scepticism and illusi~nism,'~an interpretation that ignored Mannheim's "thesis that, in spite of the inescapability of certain relativist conclusions, genuine knowledge of historical and social phenornena was p~ssible.''~According to Kecskemeti, this problem of knowledge, the "problem of the relationship between the 'genetic process' in history and the 'validity' of knowledge" was central to Mannheim's sociology of knowledge. Kecskemeti considered this an important issue
l Karl Kecskemeti (1901-1982) was a close associate of Karl Mannheim. At the invitation of Karl Mannheim's widow and lifelong collaborator Dr. Julia Mannheim he collected and edited a number of Mannheim's essays from the 1920-30's in Essays on the Sociolow of Knowledqe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1952). He was also responsible for editing the subsequent collection of Mannheim's works in Essavs on the Socioloqv of Culture (Lonaon: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1956). As a longtirne research assistant for the Rand corporation he published Strateaic Surrender (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1958) and The Unexoected Revolt (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961). Karl Mannheim, Essavs on the Sociolow of Knowledqe ed. and trans. Karl Kecskemeti (New York: Oxford U. Press, 1952) p. 1. 96 because of the "universal and vital import of the subject treated and of the author's appr~ach."~
Kecskemeti began his overview by placing Mannheim in the social and historical context of the post-World War 1 generation. The period of war and collapsing empires, of revolution and counter-revolution, created a situation in which "what everyone had taken to be reality itself now stood revealed as an illusion.'" For this generation, especially in Germany and Central Europe, there was the "impression of a complete intellectual, spiritual and moral reorientation," a "feeling of having broken through the maze of old errors and illusion^."^ Kecskemeti believed that Mannheim, as a survivor of the Hungarian Soviet Republic and the White Terror of the counter-revolution, and as a refugee to the turbulent Weimar Republic, was shaped by these events. In examining this context Kecskemeti identified Marxism, historicism and phenomenology as the roots of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge. Kecskemeti noted that Mannheim, while not himself a Marxist, explicitly accepted that Marxism was the penultimate step leading to a sociology of knowledge. Mannheim had made use of Marx's concepts, especially that of ideology, although he sought to go beyond the assertion of
Ibid., p. 1.
fbid., p. 2.
Ibid,, p. 3. an "ultimate" intellectual criterion in proletarian consciousness. Kecskemeti noted that Mannheim's notion of the "existential determinism" of knowledge was clearly attributable to Marxism and that Marx's "'structural' approach . . is a fundamental feature of Mannheim's sociological method/ With this approach Mannheim sought to explain things by their surroundings, by the place they occupied in a social structure, In this approach the meaning of an object was supplied by the object's interrelations; and simpler cultural forms such as concepts, being interconnected, were understood in terms of a total cultural system. Kecskemeti noted that the intellectual movement towards the synthetic understanding of objects in terms of a larger whole was a trend of the post-World War 1 era which found expression in such theoretical systems as Gestalt psychology, This movement rejected mechanical determinism and asserted that "only the bold, 'synthetic' anti- positivist approach was truly 'scientific'."' Kecskemeti identified Wilhelm Dilthey as an early representative of this point of view. Kecskemeti noted that another major influence on Mannheim was historicism, which held that the analystls understanding was enhanced by involvement rather tban detachment, a position also elaborated by Dilthey. For,
Ibid,, p. 9.
' Ibid,, p. 5. Mannheim believed that the "historian was able to establish genuine communion with the true import of the works and actions he studied,"* This viewpoint led Mannheim to stress the need for commitment on the part of the historian. This stress can also be seen in Mannheim's commitment to a progressive political creed. Besides its emphasis on the involved analyst, historicism also asserted the: central thesis . . . that no product of human culture could be analyzed and understood in a 'timeless fashion'; interpretation had to begin by ascribing to each product a temporal index, by relating it to a period-bound 'style'. Kecskemeti noted that the belief in the perspectivist nature of human knowledge formed a central element in Mannheim's theory. Perspectivism carried the philosophical implication that standards of validity and knowledge were historically variable and that the essence of understanding was the
ability to see events from the actor's viewpoint. We can note here that this raises the problem of achieving understanding from another's viewpoint, a problem that historicism attempted to resolve with concepts such as "sympathetic understanding" and Verstehen. Kecskemeti observed that this xelativization of values "was not felt to amount to a destruction pure and simple of the values thus
a Ibid., p. 5. Wilhelm Dilthey's influence on Mannheim can be seen in Dilthey's historicist assertion of the possibility of intuitive understanding, Verstehen, Dilthey's central theme of a true knowledge based on social and historical studies (Geisteswissenshaften) and the importance of lived experience to knowledge also contributed to Mannheim's sociology. relativized" for these values were preserved "in history."' For Kecskemeti these elements underlined Mannheim's strong identification with historicism, which like Marxism, contributed "essential ingredients of the sociology of knowledge." The third influence Kecskemeti identified in Mannheim's sociology was phenomenology. This philosophy, formulated first by Edmund Husserl, rejected tfio "Kantian tradition of viewing al1 obiects of knowledge as the reflections of the subjective factor in knowledge." Husserl asserted that in
"truc knowledge, it was the 'things themselves' that were grasped, not mere reflections of a pre-existent, autonomous 'consciousness'."loThe "'substantial knowledge' promised by phenomenology was to be knowledge of 'essences' rather than of tangible things of the outside world."ll Kecskemeti noted that phenomenology represented an "aspiration to achieve communion with reality itself," an aspiration that appealed to Mannheim's generation.12 He asserted that as a "doctrine of absolute as against relative subjective values; it stood at the opposite pole from relativist historicism." But Mannheim, unlike Max Scheler, rejected Husserl's theory of values while accepting Husserl's idea of "intentional acts."
Ibid., p. 6.
'O Ibid., p. 7. l1 Ibid., p. 8. lZ Ibid., p. 7. 100 According to this, "in order to grasp an object belonging to a certain type, one had to adopt a specific 'intentional' attitude that corresponded to that type of object." Objects in the material world required an "attitude" appropriate to the use of sense data and quantification, an attitude unsuitable to the "impulses, values and acts" of the human world.13 Kecskemeti asserted that phenomenological understandings led Mannheim to reject positivist sociology and assert a difference between natural science and social science methodologies. Kecskemeti observed that Mannheim had to fight on two fronts: "against the thesis that al1 cultural production is essentially irrational and impervious to analysis, as well as against the doctrine that al1 scientific analysis must conform to the mode1 of the natural sciences." This fundamental separation of cultural from physical phenomena was used to justify different approaches to methodology. The "correct understanding of cultural phenomena always involves the interpretation of meaning, and meaning cannot be 'observed' like the things with which physicists deal." Kecskemeti noted that this separation of the cultural sphere led to a structural analysis of the cultural sphere as a system, for "al1 interpretations . . . presuppose a grasp of some totality, some system, of which meaningful elements
l3 Ibid., p. 8. are parts. "" Kecskemeti observed that the primacy of the social factor in Mannheim's sociology of knowledge was adopted from Marxism, though Mannheim rejected Marx's use of the proletariat as the solution to the problem of social knowledge. For Mannheim, the products of the human mind could be approached from the "perspective" of a particular system using the standards of that system, or from a wider "outside" perspective that included other "perspectives." Kecskemeti commented upon the volitional element of thought in the sociology of knowledge and argued that: al1 existentially determined thinking is the reflection of some social aspiration; 'theories' about society, history, man as a whole always have a 'volitional', practical, political basis .l5 Kecskemeti noted that for Mannheim "various philosophies . . . express different political positions1' and engage in a struggle for intellectual domination.16 He also identified a paradigm of historical evolution in Mannheim's theory of knowledge. The first step was the development of an "unmasking science" linking particular knowledge to particular groups, a development that Mannheim credited to Marxism. The second step was the recognition
l' Ibid., p. 12.
l6 Ibid., p. 25. This idea is similar to Gramsci's idea of hegemony . 102 that al1 thought was related to social position, a process of total relativisation that Mannheim identified with the intellectual crisis of the interwar period. The third stage was the recognition of the social sphere as the decisive, determining factor in culture, a step that created the sociology of knowledge and a new epistemological standard for assessing the validity of knowledge. Kecskemeti asserted that this third step, the establishment of the sociology of knowledge as a new master science, led to a "strange conclusion", for the "demonstration of the dependence of thought on social reality serves to open a road to freedom."17 This "strange conclusion" was reached because Mannheim asserted that making the process consc ci ou^^^ opened the process to understanding and action. In examining this conclusion Kecskemeti noted that Mannheim's concept of truth was different from the Aristotelian notion. In his view Mannheim's "thinking was of the voluntaristic type: the 'truthl which interested him was a 'trutkl embodied in a real process, rather than a 'truth' merely exhibited in discourse." Kecskemeti identified this as a "religious concept: truth is an object of belief. Mannheim believed in the truth of History; historicism for him [was] the legitimate successor of religion."" Therefore Mannheim, in Kecskemeti's view, did not see the sociology of
l7 Ibid.? P. 27. la Ibid., p. 15. knowledge as a "relativist agnosticism," but as a "relativist 'gnosticism'; history, for him [Mannheim], was a royal road to truth".lg Mannheim did not see this historical approach as relativism because the viewpoint had to fit the known facts of a history in which truth itself was assumed "to be the sum and substance of the dynamic process of hist~ry."~OIn this historical process "values" arose and were the result of the interplay of historical, social forces. We should note that Kecskemeti's assertions, about Mannheim's vreligious'lposition, were somewhat distorted. Clearly Mannheim believed that there was a "truth" to be found in history, that real events had existence "in themselves", a position that reflected realist assumptions. He also clearly believed that there was a "spirit1' (he left
the term undefined) animating humari life. Whether these two beliefs added up to a "religious" position is debatable. Further if we examine Kecskemeti's reference we find that Mannheim was referring to historicism as a new world view that had the same "universalityn as the old religious world
l9 Ibid., p. 16. Two of Mannheim's contemporaries Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) and R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943) also advocated history as a master science of knowledge. Ibid., p. 14-15. Although he did not name it as such Kecskemeti was identifying a Hegelian element in Mannheim's Historicism. viewO2' This justified Kecskemeti's assertion that Mannheim saw historicism as a successor to religion; it does not justify the daim that Mannheim was proposing a "new religion" where "truth" was belief. We can also note that a major part of Mannheim's work was an attempt to establish criteria for "truth" that did not rest on faith. Kecskemeti observed that from this sociological viewpoint "no conceptual system, no value system can claim timeless validity"; that is, there was a historical element to al1 tho~ght.~'He also observed that Mannheim had turned history into an "evaluational" structure, a structure in which empirical history formed a framework and particular evaluating structures were linked to the values of particular historical societies. Kecskemeti noted that Mannheim in his essay on "Weltanschauung" had identified three types of meaning: "objective" meaning, a means to ends correlation; "expre~sive~~meaning, the emotional-psychic
state of the sub ject; and 'ldocumentary'lmeaning, the global outlook or worldview of the a~tor.~~It was "documentary''
'l 'l Ibid., p. 15. He is referring to Mannheim's assertion in "Historicism", Essavs on the Socioloqv of Knowledse, p. 85: "it is just historicism, and historicism alone, which today provides us with a world view of the same universality as that of the religious world view of the past."
22 Ibid., p. 14. There are parallels here with Croce's conception of history as liberty. Croce also proposed that history, in his terms "Historiography", should form a master science. See Benedetto Croce, History as the Story of Liberty trans. Sylvia Spigge. (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1941).
23 Ibid., p. 12-3. 105 rneaning (the weltanschauunq) expressed in historical and social tenus that most interested Mannheim. Kecskemeti noted that, for Mannheim, the "analysis of society as an entity developing in history succeeds to al1 philosophy as the 'fundamental science'."z4 Kecskemeti observed that, for Mannheim, the old epistemology, a discipline that arranged knowledge from the fundamental sciences of psychology, logic and ontology, had been replaced by the sociology of knowledge. This replacement necessarily brought the problems of epistemology, the problems of truth and validity into the sociology of knowledge, and in Mannheim's view established it as a new and fundamental science. Kecskemeti further observed that Mannheim had set out to show that the sociology of knowledge, "as a new type of insight, becomes possible only when the political and economic development of society has reached a certain stage.n25However Kecskemeti noted that "undertaking to demonstrate that human thought is determined by objective factors, such as social reality, is a hazardous enterprise," for such a theory can be objected to as being itself the product of social forces, and hence mere subjecti~ism.'~ Kecskemeti observed that Mannheim's use of the term knowledqe, with its implied epistemological claim, invited
" Ibid., p. 11.
25 Ibid., p. 18. '' Ibid., p. 27. 106 this criticism. He also found it "quite bewildering" that Mannheim was trying to demonstrate that social factors determined "factual knowledge of a certain kind which he [Mannheim] refused to consider as being separable from values." Yet he noted that Mannheim "took the greatest pains to demonstrate that such knowledge was valid and legitimate, even though this lsocialt knowledge was not 'verifiable' by positivist standards." For Mannheim defended the idea that each period had to "re-write history to do justice to insights that were not attainable bef ore. 11z7 This was an affirmation that human knowledge was dynamic and could not be "fixed" in one final form. Kecskemeti also examined the problem of a logical inconsistency in Mannheim's social determination of knowledge. This problem, also noted by Schelting and Grünwald, arose because Mannheim proposed an "absolute': theory in a wnon-absolute" world, This problem was a consequence of Mannheim's rejection of a separate, not socially determined, sphere of knowledge (the sphere his criticç tended to associate with philosophy) and his resulting assertion that al1 thinking was socially determined. His position therefore had to be self-inclusive, since the theory itself was socially determined. Yet in order to make such an overarching statement about al1 thinking there had to be some "Archimedean point beyond al1
27 Ibid., p. 28. existential determination" that would allow such an over~iew.~~However, the theory's daim of universal social determination also denied the existence of an such "Archimedean point," Kecskemeti agreed with Mannheim's critics that "any theory which asserts that al1 thinking is totally determined by social factors is effectively destroyed by this argument," but he noted that this was true only if the determination was "total determination of a causal type which leaves no room for freedom or Kecskemeti recognized that this type of rigid "static" determination had been rejected by Mannheim, but he also recognized the ambiguousness of Mannheim's l'determinism." Kecskemeti noted that the factor Mannheim "assumed to play the role of determinant (or CO-determinant) was 'history'," yet "history itself was a 'meaningful' processeV3' Kecskemeti therefore understood Mannheim's concept of "determination" in "history" not as "determination" in the familiar causal sense, but rather as a "determination" in the sense that a question "determined" an answer, in that it "effectively delirnits a range within which meaningful answers are possible." The subject, by its historical position, had access to certain perspectives, and: immersed in the historic-social process, by
-
28 Ibid., p. 29.
29 Ibid,, p. 28-9.
30 Ibid,. p. 29-30. utilizing the chances it [the historic-social process] affords for insight, the subject achieves a kind of 'truth' that cannot otherwise be attained. Kecskemeti noted that Mannheim believed that the "various interpretations of the world Iprompted' by history are not meaningless, automatic responses" and that it was possible to "argue about their meritsfl'and appeal to "'structural' facts about its [historylsJdynamic flow which indicate at each moment, which position is 'genuine'." This debatabilty of "history, " this interplay of lrperspectives," made it "possible to work towards a synthesis from each perspectivertlfor if "one finds out what the bias inherent in his perspective is he can discover the 'truthl contained in the moving structure embracing perspectives. t1 This task of synthesis, of "enhancing the objective validity of truthI1, was the job of the sociology of knowledge. However, Kecskemeti argued that the move of tying synthesis and valid understanding to a correspondence with the dynamic flow of "history" was completely metaphysical.
As he said, "what makes 'existentially determined1 knowledge valid is that it has been attained in communion with the historical process itself which is conceived of, in some way, as representing absolute truth.'Ix Therefore there was a "dilemma facing the theory of the 'social determination' of thought," for "if his theory escapes the logical objection of self-contradictoriness, it courts the methodological one of meta-physical arbitrariness." Kecskemeti identified this as the dilemma facing Mannheim's "existentially determined" thought: it 'lis either too rigidly 'determined' or too uncontrollably free to be called knowledge ' ." Kecskemeti noted that Mannheim's solution could be reduced to a question of how one defined "truth." If one continued to def ine "truth" in a narrow, '%tatic" way, if : the only truth attainable by man was the truth of propositions stated once and for all, and verifiable by anyone, then [Mannheim's notion of] 'socially determined' thinking was cut off from truth - and history. If however: one accepted the thesis that 'truth' consisted essentially in some pragmatic character of one's response to reality -'being in truth' rather than 'speaking the truth' - then the difficulty vanished. Kecskemeti identified this as an "unresolvable philosophic difference" the "difference between the existential concept of truth as 'being in truth' and the Aristotelian concept of truth as 'speaking the truth." Kecskemeti resolved Mannheim's position, in part, by locating him in the historical context of a generation that "accepted as an axiom the organic unity and the creative and progressive character of the historical process."" However, this "progressive and human doctrine" of Mannheim's
32 Ibid., p. 31. historicism was not one that Kecskemeti's generation could accept. Kecskemeti noted that for his generation it had: been demonstrated since [Mannheim's writing] that a pragmatically adequate (successful) response to historic reality, even if accompanied by a subjective feeling of 'truthl and of communion with the Absolute, can be profoundly negative and pernicious for man, so that a yardstick beyond history is in fact indispensable. Social theory, too, needs such yardsticks: it cannot rely on historical structure alone for illumination. Yet Mannheim's sociology of knowledge was still "profoundly relevant" to the necessary task of "accounting for the historical process as a whole and as [sic] defining our relationship to Our culture." Kecskemeti asserted that, if the problem of the sociology of knowledge was re-formulated in terms of the insights participants could have into the social process, then it would "appear to constitute one of the vital areas of resear~h."~~
33 Ibid., p. 32. Robert K. Merton's Social Theorv and Social Research, published in 1949 presented a compilation of sociological
theory and methodology.' One part of this work examined Karl Mannheim's work and its place in American sociology. Merton observed that the arriva1 of emigré sociologists from Europe, especially Germany, had made the sociology of knowledge available to an American audience. However, Merton asserted that its acceptance in America was not merely a product of availability, but rather a sign that America had corne to resemble Europe. In his view the sociology of knowledge, or Wissenssoziolocrie as he referred to it, had been accepted "largely because it dealt with problems, concepts and theories which are increasingly pertinent to our contemporary social situation."' Merton identified this social situation as one of increasing social conflict, a
situation that led to the development of distinct and
l Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, Illinois, The Free Press, 1949). The references given here are from the revised and enlarged edition 1957. The two principle chapters dealt with here (chapter XII 'The Sociology of Knowledgetland chapter XII1 "Karl Mannheim and the Sociology of KnowledgeI1) are both unchanged from the 1949 edition. R.K. Merton began as a student of Talcott Parsons and taught for four decades at Columbia University from 1941. During that period he was one of the defining establishment figures of American academic sociology. He is particularly recognized as the founder of the American school of the sociology of science, See A. Bullock and R. B. Woodings, Fontana Bioara~hicalDictionarv to Modern Thousht (London: Fontana, 19831, p. 508-9.
Ibid., p. 457. incompatible universes of discourse. These separate discourses undercut each other's legitimacy, and contributed to a general atmosphere of distrust. That distrust led people to identify certain ideas with particular groups and to begin to functionalize thought along psychological, economic, social and racial lines. Merton asserted that under these conditions American academicians had "seized upon and assirnilatedl' the sociology of knowledge in an attempt to bring Ilorder out of the chaos of cultural conflict. Merton traced the American understanding of the sociology of knowledge to two main sources, namely the German Wissenssoziolosie and the French sociology of
Durkheim with its focus on ethnographie material. Merton noted that the German sociology of knowledge "came into being with the signal hypothesis that even truths were to be held socially accountable, were to be related to the historical society in which they emerged."' This was an aspect of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge that he traced to the influence of left-wing Hegelianism and Marxism, as translated into sociology. The comection had led some, he observed, to refer to Mannheim's work as a "Bourgeois Marxism. "'
Ibid., p. 459- ' Ibid., p. 460. Ibid., p. 490-1- Merton noted that from Marx, Engels and Georg Lukacs Mannheim had adopted a far-reaching historicism, a dynamic idea of knowledge, an activist interpretation of the dialectic between theory and practice, and an assertion of the role of knowledge in shifting human action from "necessityl'to "freedom. "'But he felt Mannheim "derives from Marx primarily by extending his conception of existential bases," bases which, in the light of each individual's membership in multiple groups, raised the problem of identifying both individuals and groups .' Mannheim was also identified as "following in the Marxist tradition of exempting the 'exact sciences' and ' formal knowledge' from existential determination."* Merton observed that in his sociology of knowledge Mannheim had used the Marxist's concept of "situationally adequate" to measure an ideats validity. This understanding linked an idea's validity to its historical context: an idea that "matched" its historical time and place was regarded as "correct" or "true," while one that did not was a false consciousness. Merton noted that this formed a historical criterion of validity and implied a sort of "truth over tirne. l' As Merton put it, the "Marxist theory of history assumed that, sooner or later, idea-systems which are inconsistent with the
Ibid., p. 490-1. ' Ibid., p. 465. Ibid., p. 470. actually prevailing and incipient power-structure will be
rej ected" for lttruer''ideas. According to Merton these Marxist concepts, notably existential determinism and the ''historical" criterion of validity, reappeared in Mannheim's sociology of knowledge. Merton also traced Mannheim's ideas to the Neo-
Kantians, Dilthey, Rickert, Troeltsch and Max Weber, an intellectual stream that emphasized the affective-volitional element in thought, as well as proposing a separation between the exact and social sciences. Merton noted that Mannheim had adopted the Neo-Kantian belief that the "value- relevance of thought . . . [did not involve] . . . a
fundamental invalidity of empirical judgement ."1° A third influence identified by Merton was that of the phenomenologists, Husserl, Jaspers, Heidegger and "especially Max S~heler.''~~In accord with these authors, Mannheim had placed "emphasis on the accurate observation of facts 'given' in direct experience, . . . [and on] . . . relating various types of intellectual cooperation to types
Ibid., p. 479. This view of the role of ideas in history might more accurately be traced back through Marx to Hegel, although Merton writing for an American audience neglected to do so. Italics in original.
'O Ibid., p. 491. Ibid., p. 491. As commented upon elsewhere in this paper there are large differences between the theories of Husserl, Jaspers, Heidegger, and Max Scheler. There are also major differences between their works and Mannheim's. However, as Merton points out, there are a few general correspondences. of group structures.'f12In his examination of these varied sources Merton noted that Ifeach type of imputed relation between knowledge and the social presupposed an entire theory of sociological method and social ca~sation."~~ Merton asserted that this "varied background is reflected in his [Mannheim's] eclecticism and in a fundamental
instabi 1ity in his conceptual framework. "14 Merton observed that the sociology of knowledge was primarily concerned with the interrelation of knowledge and social position. He also noted that it could be approached as a substantive, "purely empirical investigation through description and structural analysis" or as an epistemological analysis dealing with the problem of ~alidity.'~Merton noted that most commentators in the debate had focused their criticisms on the epistemological question. However Merton asserted that it "seems more fruitful to devote attention to the substantive sociology of knowledge," and invoked Mannheim's authority to support this view.16 A further concern of Merton's, associated with his
l2 Ibid., p. 491.
l3 Ibid., p. 476. '' Ibid., P. 491.
l6 Ibid., p. 494. Merton asserted that Mannheim had recognized that the empirical sociology of knowledge was more fruitful, referring to Mannheim's statement that the "most important task of the sociology of knowledge at present is to demonstrate its capacity in actual research in the historical- questioning of Mannheim's epistemology, was Mannheim's belief in the existence of "extra-theoretical'' determinants of knowledge, determinants other than "immanent laws of growth (based on observation and logic)."17 These "extra- theoretical" factors came from Mannheim's social determination of knowledge, a determination that Mannheim had left largely undefined and unproven. In examining Mannheim's social determination of knowledge, Merton criticized what he took to be Mannheim's confusion of the (valid) idea of a "greater probabilitv" of error when social interests were involved, with the (invalid) assumption of the "necessit~of significant bias in al1 situations involving 'vital interestedness'."" Another problem identified by Merton, as well as by Kecskemeti, was Mannheim's definition of "knowledge" and his categorization of the different "types" of knowledge. Merton sociological realm," (Mannheim, p. 306). Mannheim believed that this was necessary to enable the sociology of knowledge to "emerge from the stage where it engages in casual intuitions and gross generalities", (Mannheim p. 306). However Mannheim also stated that this separation of particularistic research and epistemology must ultimately be regarded as an "artificial isolation," (Mannheim, p. 286). Further, the main thrust of Ideolocw and Utopia was an assertion that the existential co~ectednessof knowledge did have consequences for epistemology, consequences that must be part of any correct theory of knowledge. Merton's assertion was therefore correct if taken as a statement of Mannheim's priority for the next developmental step but misleading if taken as an assertion of the value of the sociology of knowledge.
l7 Merton, Isis p. 493-4.
la Merton, Isis p. 501. believed that Mannheim had been "persistently bedeviled by this fundamental question and, moreover, that he has failed to corne to any clearcut, though provisional, conclusion concerning it." This failure to define and properly categorize "knowledge" introduced "serious discrepancies between some of his theorems and specific empirical enquiries." He noted that Mannheim had effectively separated the "exact sciences" and "forma1 knowledge" from existential determination, but had failed to allow for different "sets of ideas" that "performed different functions," According to Merton, Mannheim's "subsuming different types of inquiry under 'social determination' . serves only to confuse rather than to clarify the mechanisms involved," By treating ideas with different functions as if they were similar, Mannheim had opened the way for lllogomachyand endless
confusion. "lg Mannheim also dispiayed a "serious confusion of essentially different spheresl' and had: ethical and aesthetic norms, political and religious beliefs (prejudices and convictions) and scientific judgements . . al1 lumped under the one rubric 'Wissen'.'O Merton thus asserted that Mannheim's "general theorems are rendered questionable by his use of an inadequately differentiated and amorphous category of kno~ledge."~'
l9 Ibid,, p. 497.
*O Ibid., p. 501, '' Ibid., p. 498. Merton noted that the central element of Mannheim's theory was the "social determination" of knowledge, and asserted that Mannheim's failure to specify how this "social determination" actually took place left a llvaguenessand obscurity at the very heart of his central the si^."'^ To illustrate this criticism Merton subjected Mannheim's writings to a linguistic analysis and identified a "variety of unintegrated assumptions" that he took to be Mannheim's "mechanisms" of social determination. The first "mechanism," for Merton, was "a direct causation of forms of thought by social forces1'typif ied by Mannheim's expression 'lit is never an accident," Merton described this "mechanism" as "the natural-science viewn in which a "general rule accounts for aspects of the particular instance." The second "mechanism", identified by Merton, was an "interest assumption," in which "ideas and forms of thought are 'in accord with,' that is, gratifying to, the interests of the subj ectsl'. This l'mechanisml'of "vested interest" was criticized by Merton as a form of llVulqarmarxismus.'Iz3 Merton identified the third "mechanism" of determination as "'focus of attention,'" where the "subject limits his perspective in order to deal with a particular problem". In this process the subject's thoughts were "directed by the very formulation of the problem" which in turn was 119 "attributed to the social position of the subject." The fourth type of social determination, as identified by Merton, was by "social structures as simple prerequisites to certain forms of thought," a process in which there was an "empirical correspondence" between social structures and ideas, Merton criticized this llmechanism"for "shading" into the belief that correlation was causation. The fifth rnechanism that Merton identified was an "emanationist or quasi-aesthetic" process, referred to by Mannheim with such terms as "harmony," llconsistency, or "styles, " and he criticized Mannheim for leaving only implicit criteria for establishing these relations." Having demonstrated that Mannheim had not been explicit about the "mechanism1' of social determination Merton asserted that this failure "virtually precludes the possibility of formulating problems for empirical in~estigation."'~ In examining Merton's arguments we can note that he correctly identified Mannheim's "failure" to specify the "mechanisms" of "existential determination." Merton was also correct that this failure could hinder the formation of clear hypotheses. Yet, although clear hypotheses would facilitate precise questions to the empirical data, it is not clear why this would have "precluded" the possibility of empirical investigation of the process itself, which was
*' Ibid., p. 500-1.
25 Ibid., p. 498. 120 what Mannheim advocated. We might also note that Merton's identification of five "mechanisms" could serve as a starting point for such an investigation. Observing that the sociology of knowledge was largely concerned with the problem of objectivity, Merton noted that Mannheim had sought "to eliminate the acutely relativistic and propagandistic elements which persisted in the earlier formulations of Wissen~soziolosie.~'~~However, according to Merton, Mannheim's thesis of historically changing categories of thought was never demonstrated because he had compared "positive thought," the "canons of logic" and "verifications basic to positive thought," with "religious
and magical conceptions. Il2' That is, he had compared Yheoretical" thought with "non-theoretical" thought, thereby confusing the issue with mixed categories. Merton identified in Mannheim's work three solutions to the problem of relativism: Mannheim's notion of a "dynamic" criterion of validity, his relationism and his notion of
26 Ibid., p. 494. Here Merton reasserted that "the theory of ideology is primarily concerned with discrediting an adversary", that it was a "political" discipline. He stated that "politics" must be "openly repudiatedtlby the sociology of knowledge if it was not to "over~hadow~~its "cognitive purposes" . These statements indicate that Merton was continuing to use the term "ideology" in a way that Mannheim rejected as rnoralistic. Merton also retained his concerns about the dangers of propaganda and "official truthl'. However he had reversed his 1939 position on Mannheim, seeing him as fighting against "propagandistic elements" rather than being a source of theoretical inspiration to Nazi theorists. Merton did not explicitly acknowledge this change in his position.
27 Merton, Isis, p. 502. 121 structural warranties of validity. The "dynami~'~criterion of validity (associated with Mannheim's dynamic synthesis and his "~topia'~)was the "validity of historical judgements, the empirical congruence of ideas and historical situations. In Merton's view this "criterion of adjustment or adaption begs the question unless the type of adjustment is specifiedl' for "social adjustment tends to be a normative rather than an existential ~oncept."~"Merton also noted that establishing which ideas were "appropriate" to a historical situation presupposed a criterion, and Mannheim's failure to name and define his criterion led to obscurities and ambiguities in his system. The second solution, 'lrelationism"involved the concept of the "perspective." Merton pointed out that the concept of the "perspective" carried with it the assumptions that each view was only partial and that the social position of the observer limited their view. The partial nature of each view then llparticularizedllits scope and limited the range of its validity. Merton criticized this approach because "Mannheim has corne almost full circle to his point of departure," insofar as situationally determined thought "no longer signifies inevitably ideological thought but implies only a certain 'probabilityl." Thus, what Mannheim "called particularization is, of course nothing but a new term for a widely recognized methodological precept," namely, that what is true under certain conditions is not necessarily, universally truc." Therefore relationism had a limited claim to truth and could, at best, be only a partial answer to the problem of establishing knowledge's validity. Merton noted Mannheim's recognition of this problem in Mannheim's statement that: the mere delimitation of the perspectives is by no means a substitute for the immediate and direct discussion between the divergent points of view or for the direct examination of the facts .30 Merton noted that in 1936 Mannheim had stated that "the ultimate criterion of truth or falsity is to be found in investigations of the object, and the sociology of knowledge
is no substitute for this. "31 Merton examined Mannheim's third solution, the structural warrant of validity, in which there was an element in a social structure itself that could be used to "guarantee" validity. He began by noting that this solution
2g Ibid., p. 505. Merton was quite correct in asserting that relationism was only a partial solution to the problem of establishing "truth." This was a fact that Mannheim hirnself had acknowledged. However Mannheim's intent was to establish the reality of the existential location of knowledge as a step towards establ ishing '' truth, '' while Merton sought overarching criteria of the "truth" of knowledge. Therefore for Mannheim a "partial" criteria was not in itself a problem, while for Merton "partiality" was a symptom of error.
'O 'O Ibid., p. 505. Mannheim quote from Ideolow and Utopia p. 256. " Ibid., p. 505. Mannheim's quote is from "Preliminary Approaches to the problem" in Ideoloav and Utopia p. 4. This is more recent in that the original work was in German and published in 1929 while the chapter on "Preliminary Approaches to the Problem" was added to the English edition in 1936. 123 resembled those of Hegel and Marx, each of whom had identified an historical element that se~edas a guarantee of valid knowledge. In Hegel the "absolute Geist" guaranteed validity and in Marx the "proletariat" was the guarantee. In each case the guarantee was tied to the historical process, as the Spirit behind history in Hegel and as a product of historical evolution in Marx. Merton noted that in Mannheim's theory the I1socially unattached intellectual" replaced Marx ' s proletariat . These rfsolutionsr'were described by Merton as being self-referential and comparable
to "Munchausen's feat of extricating himself from a swamp by pulling on his whiskers."" In Mannheim's solution, the socially unattached intellectual's wide social background and lessened "self-interest" were justification for ascribing this group privileged status. Meston asserted that thîs allegedly privileged social position alone was not enough to ensure validity. He commented that: if super-particular validity is vouchsafed to the 'socially unattached intelligentsia' how does one arrive at this valid generalization, except by epistemological fiat, and secondly, bow can one objectively establish the fact that a specific individual is 'socially unatta~hed'?~~ Commenting on Mannheim's "solutions," Merton asserted that: if intellectual anarchy is to be avoided, there must be some common ground for integrating the various particularistic interpretations, . . [some way to judge) , . . among the babel of
" Ibid,, p. 507.
33 Ibid., p. 502. competing voices .14 Merton argued that Mannheim's "multiple criteria of 'truth'
- an idea's fulfilment of function, active efficacy etc. - are non-cognitive, non-theoretical bases for evaluating ideas" and that they presupposed the presence of an over- riding objective criterion of validity." Merton believed that part of the problem stemmed from Mannheim's "indefinite distinction between incorrectness (invalidity) and perspective (one-sidedness). Another part of the problem, for Merton, stemmed from the flawed metaphysical and epistemological assumptions of the sociology of knowledge, assumptions he traced to the "first proponents of this discipline . . . [who came] . . . largely from philosophical rather than scientific circles." For Merton these problems would have to be solved if "further research is to turn from this welter of conflicting opinion to empirical investigations which may establish in adequate detail the uniformities pertaining to . . . knowledge and ideas .Ir3' Continuing his examination of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge Merton contrasted the "European" approach to
3' Ibid., p. 507-8.
'"erton, Isis, p. 502. Merton, p. 506. '' Merton, Isis, p. 503. sociology with the "Ameri~an~~appr~ach.~' He noted that Mannheim's ideas about knowledge were already familiar to Americans from the theories of Peirce and James as mediated by Dewey and George Mead, according to whom thought was only one of many activities. Yet Merton found major differences between the "European" and "American" approa~hes.~~Merton identified the sociology of knowledge as a "European" species and "mass communications research" as the "American" species. According to him both dealt with the interplay of ideas and social structure, but in different ways. In the European variant there was a "very substantive orientation towards the humanities" with an "aversion to standardizing observational data and interpretation of data."40 Merton noted that this separation could also be seen in the "European" emphasis on systematic knowledge versus the "American" emphasis on information in the form of aggregate data. The 8fEuropean"approach stressed logical comection while the llAmerican"stressed empirical connections. Merton identified social factors as the root cause of
je In his comparison of the sociology of knowledge ("European-style" sociology) and the mainstream of American sociology Merton closely paralleled a comparison done by Mannheim. See the American Socioloaical Review Vol. XXXVIII (July 1932-May 1933) p. 273-282, for Karl Mannheim's book review of Methods in Social Science, ed. Stuart A. Rice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931). The differences discussed here are of course general; there are examples of each "type" in each country.
'O Ibid., p. 449. 126 the "European/American" difference. In America, he believed, research was pushed by advertising dollars, and the military's interest in propaganda, and had been channelled towards mass communications research. In Europe the sociology of knowledge was more academically oriented and faced fewer commercial pressures. The "European" focus was more on the systematic knowledge of experts and elites, whereas the llAmerican" focus was on popular belief and opinion." In Merton's opinion this separation reflected the iact that "European" researchers were interested in intellectuals and concerned with "structural" determinants of thought, whereas llAmerican"researchers were interested in mass communications and the "social and psychological consequences of the diffusion of opinion.'143Highlighting the "European" tradition of the lone scholar working with little likelihood of exact replication, Merton contrasted it with the "Americant'use of "teams" which replicated and correlated each othersl data. Merton asserted that the "European" sociology of knowledge was carried out, for the "most part," by "global theorists" for whom the breadth and significance of problems justified research even if the research could not go beyond "ingenious speculation and
Ibid., p. 451.
42 Ibid., p. 440-1.
'Vbid., p. 450. 127
impressionistic conclu~ions.~~"However in "America" commercial interest in public opinion and mass communications produced sociologists and psychologists who emphasized the collection of data and expressed "little concern with the bearing of these data on theoretic problems. "45 Merton asserted that the two sociologies had llnotably different conceptions of what constituted raw empirical data," In "Europe" there was a "systematic neglect of the problem of reliability," a tendency inherited "from hist~rians."'~"European" sociology accepted historical impressions as empirical data even though such impressions might rest only on the authority of authors and on broad generalizations. Merton asserted that the "European" use of generalizations to describe mass behaviour amounted to an "established convention of avoiding embarrassing questions about the evidence."" However, in "American" sociology the emphasis on mass communications "virtually forces attention to such technical problems as reliability" especially in collective research efforts that necessitated uniform analysi~.'~Merton asserted that problems with historical
44 Ibid., p. 439-40.
45 Ibid., p. 440.
46 Ibid., p. 442.
47 Ibid., p. 446.
" Ibid., p. 453-4. data had led "American" sociology to an "emphasis on empirical confirmation that devotes little attention to the historical past" and to a focus on short-run problern~.'~ Merton pointed out that this I1primary emphasis on establishing empirically the facts of the case under scmtinyIr led to the llAmerican"tendency to ignore the "big picturetlfor detail .'O This amounted to a "Pyrrhic victory. It means that reliability has been won by surrendering theoretic relevance?' Merton attributed this tendency to the fact that in American society "vast possibilities and numerous alternatives of action provide a degree of elasticity which in fact permits some remedy for institutional defe~ts."'~He based this judgement on the idea that in a "nation with expanding economic and territorial horizons" the detailed investigation of problems taken in isolation was considered adequate .53 Merton noted that the "European" and "American" varieties of sociology tended to counteract each other's weaknesses and complement each others' strengths. This meant there was the possibility of a "fruitful union" that "wedded" fact-finding and generalization and would therefore
49 Ibid., p. 444.
50 Ibid., p. 443.
51 Ibid., p. 449.
52 Ibid., p. 495-6.
53 Ibid., p. 495. be able to focus on problems "at the very center of
contemporary intellectual interest. IIs4 With this perspective Merton asserted that: shorn of their epistemological impedimenta, with their concepts modified by the lessons of further empirical inquiry and with occasional logical inconsistencies eliminated, Mannheim's procedures and substantive findings clarify relations between knowledge and social structures which have hitherto remained obscure.55
We can note that this judgement by Merton, with his importance in American academic sociology, represented a definite, if critical, acceptance of Mannheim into the post-
war "canon" of American sociology. This acceptance was emphasized by Merton1s belief that Mannheim's insights (with qualification) could be fruitful and that they would clarify the investigation of contemporary problems in American sociology .
54 Ibid., p. 488. This union of theory and practice, each informing and improving the other, parallels proposals made by Mills, Wirth and Mannheim.
Ibid., 130 Chapter V. Conmante and Comparisons in the Mannheim Debate
In their analyses of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge the writers treated above presented arguments that raise a number of important issues. The first such issue is raised by the way they framed their analyses. Their framing implied an acceptance of Mannheim's thesis of the social detexmination of knowledge, for in their efforts to understand and explain Mannheim the cornmentators moved immediately to an examination of his social/historical location. Some commentators were explicit, explaining his sociology of knowledge in terms of the experiences of the post-World War 1 generation (Kecskemeti) or as a result of an increase in social conflict between the wars (Merton). More generally, they located Mannheim intellectually by tracing his connections to particular schools of thought such as Marxism, historicism and phenomenology. His sociology of knowledge was then "explained" in terms of these social/historical influences and in several cases described as a synthesis. It is worth noting that these influences, particularly Marxism, were discussed generically as ideal-type approaches rather than through examination of the ideas of any particular Marxist. The differences between American sociology and European sociology were also described and explained as differences in theory and methodology rooted in social and national 131 differences. Merton's contrast of European sociology's ione academic with America's commercialized teams was perhaps the most explicit example of this, although Mills also raised similar issues.' Indeed Merton gave two examples of the social determination of interest in Mannheim's theory. In his view the sociology of knowledge was accepted, or at least seriously considered, in America because the country was becoming "more like Europe" especially in respect to social conflict. However, he also thought the sociology of knowledge met with resistance in the United States because,
unlike Germany, America was expanding, full of opportunity and had "endless horizons."* We can also note that Merton, Kecskemeti, and Wirth, like Mannheim, al1 explained the sociology of knowledge as an "outgrowth" of the process of social history. Our examination of the debate about Mannheim's sociology thus reveals that academic practice conformed with Mannheim's paradigm. Despite arguments that depicted his
approach as problematic the commentators examined above used Mannheim's paradigm of the existential determination of
C. Wright Mills, "Methodological Consequences of the Sociology of Knowledge" American Journal of Sociolocw, Vol. 46, no. 3 (1940). This article can also be found in Power, Politics and People: The Collected Essavs of C. Wrisht Mills, ed. Louis Horowitz (New York: Oxford U Press, 1963) p.453-468. Citations in this paper are from Power, Politics and People. Mills discussed social influences in American sociology p. 467-8. Robert K. Merton, Social Theorv and Social Structure (Glencoe, Illinois, The Free Press, 1949). The references given here are from the revised and enlarged edition 1957. p. 457-9. knowledge to "explain" his theories. In practice they engaged in intellectual cornpetition, made use of the concept of ideal-types, and in doing so presented what amounted to "historical" explanations, Pragmatically Mannheim's paradigm of how knowledge was constructed was being confirmed in practice. This can be taken as lending support to his assertion that his theory dealt with the "problem of how men actually think."' The centre of the American debate about Mannheim's work was therefore not over Mannheim's assertion that social factors shape knowledge. The central problem, variously described and variously addressed, was whether coherent analysis and understanding must rest (at least temporarily) on some fixed criterion of truth. The question was whether, without the methodological stability provided by such a criterion, the findings of any analysis would be reduced to a meaningless jtunble of discordant parts. The task of finding a criterion by which knowledge could be validated was therefore seen as essential to understanding the construction of knowledge.' For many of the commentators the perils of subjective relativism, intellectual nihilism, and cynical propaganda were real and pressing. In addition there
l Mannheim, Ideolosie, p. 1, The problem of finding adequate criteria for analysis runs through the debate. Schelting asserted that a failure of validity criteria (a problem he attributed to Mannheim's work) would lead to scepticism and nihilism. Grünwald denounced Mannheim's move away from "absolute" criteria as sociolocrism. was a dispute over the nature of the criterion of truth, over whether the criterion could or must give certainty, or whether a relative criterion could be adequate for establishing valid knowledge. It was around this set of epistemological questions that the hottest debate took place. Each commentator considered above addressed this issue, either in criticizing Mannheim's solutions or in proposing
his own. Schelting and Grünwald were perhaps the most adamant in insisting that Mannheim's sociology of knowledge had to be limited to empirical studies, that there had to be a separate sphere of "theoretical thought" or "cognitive thought," the sphere of "tr~th.~"They asserted that in this realm, the realm of "philosophers," there were absolute criteria, eternal yardsticks for the measurement of value, meaning and "truth."' Outside this sphere there was the
" Schelting refers to a "purely cognitive sphere" a place where the "theoretic value", the truth of "cognitive achievements" was established (Schelting p. 674). Griinwald refers to a "sphere of thought", and a "sphere of theoretical communicationu which was not effected by existential determination (Grünwald p. 263). However it is not precisely clear how Schelting, Grünwald, and to a lesser extent Speier were constructing this special sphere since they did not describe or define it. It is however clear from their writings that they considered this sphere to be the place were validity criteria were located, that this sphere was immune to contamination by existential, or social, factors and that they considered the criteria located in this sphere to be essential to the identification of valid knowledge. ' Both Schelting and Grünwald made it clear in their writings that there were fixed criteria for establishing validity. Neither described or defined exactly what these criteria might be. Schelting associated them with "philosophy" lesser world of social/historical realities full of disputes and contentions. This solution had the advantage of positing both an absolute, certain criterion for judgement and a social/historical reality that included actual human thought and recognized the concrete fact of change. Its difficulty, as Mills pointed out, lay in locating and constructing the "sphere of truth." For despite Schelting's and Grünwald's treatment of it as an established "given," notions of this "eternal" sphere were constnicted and changed, a process Mills saw as casting doubt on its claims to authority. If we examine the advocates of an absolute criterion of knowledge, we can note that they were themselves open to the same charge of intellectual imperialism or "metaphysical fiattlthat they levelled against Mannheim. The proponents of this notion of a "sphere of truth" varied in the explicitness of their position. Some wrote literally of a "spheretl;others (like Merton) were less explicit and limited themselves to defending methodologies of "formal thoughtmff5In either case their notion of a "sphere of
and implied, by his style of writing, that they were common knowledge. Grünwald was sornewhat more explicit, talking about the test for 'limer contradictions1' to establish validity; however, he did not detail how this worked. The various references to a special sphere of knowledge are discussed in the commentator's sections of this paper. Schelting ref erred to a "purely cognitive sphere'' (Schelting, p. 670), Grünwald to a "sphere of thought" and a "sphere of theoretical expression (Grünwald, p. 263.), Speier to "qualities of thinkingffand "philosophic thinking" (Speier, p. 161), and Merton to the "theoretical sphere",(Merton, Isis, p. 493-4), as truthm could, like Mannheim1s j udgement of history, l' be criticized as a metaphysical construction that was unprovable. At the philosophical level, we can note that the tlabsolutists"lcognitive idealism lay behind their utter repudiation of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, which was based on an experiential realism. Of al1 the commentators examined here Mills and Wirth came closest to accepting Mannheim's realist position. Both rejected the solution of a separate sphere of a "truth from a Greek heaven" and advocated an empirical praxis of research and theory which would use our growing understanding of the social connection of knowledge to purify and develop both the content and methodology of kn~wledge.~This coincided with Mannheim's position that a greater awareness of the social determination of knowledge was the key and in a sense the antidote to subjectivism and bias. In this process the category of "absolute" truth was replaced with "probable1'truth, and epistemology was moved from the "separate" sphere of philosophy to the more "empirical" sphere of the sociology of knowledge. well as "scientific judgements" and the "immanent laws of observation and logic", (Merton, p. 501).
Wirth, p. xxvii. Wirth saw the sociology of knowledge as having the potential of forming a new discipline based on "the social-psychalogical elaboration of the theory of knowledge itself. The comment "truth from a Greek heaven" was from Mills, p. 455; Mills saw the possibility for a "detailed self location of the social sciences" that would lead to a llsounder paradigm" (Mills, p. 468). In a sense Merton1s idea of blending "European" theory and "American" practice also supported this idea. 136
Mannheim's idea that there was a "special bearer" of knowledge was also a heated topic of debate in the United States, This "solution" to the problem of finding a criterion for determining valid thought and action had a
history. In this tradition we can identify Hegel's "world
historic figure, I1 the Marxist proletariat, Lenin' s vanguard party, Schelting's philosopher and Mannheim's "free-floating intellectual." In each case some virtue of the bearer guaranteed truth. " Accordingly there was, in each case, a certain blurring of distinctions: each bearer in its own way was an ideal-type, a "hi~torical'~social group and a symbol of moral-political exhortation. Further, each solution was open to the same problems of selection and verification. Examination of the American sociology of knowledge debate shows that the successive commentators on Mannheim's work presented different reasons for their rejection of Mannheim's theory. Merton asserted that, between America and Germany, the differences in disciplinary organization and the differences in national circumstances explained the American resistance to the socioXogy of knowledge. Kecskemeti, amongst others, criticized the lack of rigor and exactness in Mannheim's definition of concepts, such as "~ynthesis,'~"situationally adequate thoughtw and "social change-" This vagueness clearly presented a problern for American sociologists, for ambiguity was in principle anathema to the methodologically rigorous and quantitative schools of American sociology. However, conceptual definitions also presented a problem for Mannheim. For it would be very difficult to introduce sharp definitions for terms such as "synthesis" or "situationally adequate thought" without at the same time re-introducing a system of meta-criteria or "laws of history," a step that Mannheim was explicitly trying to avoid. Kecskemeti, like Merton, also criticized Mannheim's vagueness about the actual rnechanisms by which knowledge was socially determined. This vagueness was a serious flaw in a theory whose central tenent was "social determination." A further issue raised by Mills, Wirth and Merton was that of the political dimensions of the sociology of knowledge. The assertion that there were political factors in science, especially social science, was clearly important for the commentators, because it carried with it implications for their own discipline and their own work. Empirically Merton and Mills explicitly recognized the influence of commercial and military agendas in the development of American sociology. Yet the raising of political linkages (and here we can remember Merton's linking of Wissenssoziolocrie to Nazi propaganda) recalled very troubling precedents. This was a problem, especially for a discipline that aspired to be "scientific" in the sense of "apolitical." While some sociologists, notably Mills, went on to develop this insight, the reflexive political questions raised by Mannheim's thesis could be said to be outside the mainstream of American sociology.' Several commentators also discussed the multidisciplinary scope of Mannheim's theory. In terms of established disciplines the sociology of knowledge aimed to make genetalizations about virtually the whole range of the social sciences and philosophy. This breadth attracted some commentators; both Mills and Speier saw it as an antidote to overspecialization. But it was clearly unacceptable to otherç, especially to those trying to preserve the "purityn of philosophy. In general, however, the sociology of knowledge's scope as a "grand theory" was in conflict with the usual noms of problem definition and with the trend towards specialization in American sociology, a discipline that focused on immediate results, largely in the service of
' American sociology has had and does have its critics of excessive empiricism and of its tendency towards uncritical subordination to the political status quo. See C. W. Mills; also Reinhard Bendix Social Science and The Distrust of Reason 1951. For questioning of the role of the sxiologist, see F. Znaniecki, The Social Role of the Man of Knowh@g (New York: Columbia U. Press, 1940). For questioning of the rcle of sociology as an instrument of administration and atrthority see, Robert S. Lynd, Knowledqe for What? (1939). Chekki commented on a lack of self criticism in sociology, and a lack of research in the "sociology of so~iology'~:Daxi B. Chekki, American Sociolosical Hesemonv: Transnational Ex~lorations (Lanham: University Press of America, 1987), p. 8. While some of the commentators reviewed in this thesiç are clearly of the opinion that politics and commercial interests had a significant impact on American sociology (particularly Mills and Merton) this thesis has not attempted an examination of the impact or scope of this influence. Such a study, while interesting, would require a thesis of its own. 139
large scale industry and g~vernment.~In correspondence with this approach most universities taught techniques of practical social research as the only suitable form of social scienceegThis American focus on detailed studies was also apparent to Mannheim who comented that American sociology suffered from an "excessive feat of theories, from a methodological asceticism," and that this "ascetic attitude towards theories seems to be based on a mistrust of 'philosophy' or 'metaphysics' and demonstrates a need for 'constructive imagination'."1°
This thesis has examined only a small fraction of the developments in the sociology of knowledge. Yet even from this limited examination, there remain many questions. Part of the problem of defining the extent of Mannheim's influence derives from the philosophical nature of the
debate. 1 have argued above that the foundations of the
For an examination of trends in American Sociology see Roscoe C. and Gisela J. Hinkle, The Development of Modern Socioloqv (New York: Random House, 1954) especially p. 44-48. See also Heinz Maus, A Short Historv of Sociolow (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956) p. 120-165. Chekki asserted that universities and research institutions are "closely tied to the interests of corporations and government" , and sociology llby and large, has been subservient to the needs for practical knowledge and legitimation of the corporate system." Dan A. Chekki, p. 23-24. See also A. Szymanski, "Toward a Radical Sociology~,Radical Sociolow, ed. 3. D. Colfax (New York: Basic Books, 1971). Maus, p. 153.
'O Mannheim, rev. of Rice p. 277. debate in the United States lay in ontological and metaphysical assumptions. We can see that Mannheim's sociology of knowledge rested on certain basic propositions about history, about the nature of humanity and about the nature of reality itself. These underlying assumptions are themselves still subject to ontological and metaphysical disputes that continue to resist resolution. The question "what can we know?" is inevitably tied to the questions "what are we?" and "what is the world?". These questions in turn are linked to others such as: is there a "meaning" to history and, if so, does humanity have the faculties to detect it? 1s there a super-human sphere of truth "free" of human error and, if so, is that sphere accessible to humanity? These sorts of questions have no readily provable answers, yet any final assessment of Mannheim's sociology is tied to them. Mannheim's postulation of an active, pragmatic, self-aware, and cornpetitive subject formed a basis for his sociological theory. His belief in the ''meta- theoretical pragmatic nature of the human mind"" typical of a "certain kind of vital being under certain conditions of life" formed a human centre to his sociol~gy.'~In his critical (and criticized) assessment of absolute or certain knowledge, Mannheim asserted that for practical purposes knowledge meant human knowledge, and that human knowledge
l1 Mannheim, Ideolocry, p. 275.
I2 fbid., p. 298. was and would always remain, at Least in part, subjective. For human knowledge could not be separated from its human bearer, its human element, and still by definition remain as
human knowledge. This position was clearly open to the charges of relativism that have been associated with it. Further, while Mannheim's attempts to circumscribe the problem of relativism can be supported by evidence and argument, they ultimately rested on metaphysical and ontological premises. If one did not accept his premises, and clearly a majority of the commentators here did not accept them, then his t'solutionsttdid not solve the problem of relativism. However (as Mi11s pointed out) this charge of being metaphysical could also be raised against the
%olutions" of fered by his critics .13 The underlying problem running through this debate was
the question of determining the objectivity and the validity of ideas. Despite attempts to ignore or dismiss it, this question remains central to any meaningful notion of
knowledge and cannot ultimately be eluded. The attempts of certain American sociologists to shift it to "philosophy" or
to encapsule it in a specialized sub-field of sociology are avoidances not solutions. The problem has in fact proven to
be a very hardy peremial, which continues to absorb scholars from many disciplines. In our contemporary setting
l3 The establishing of metaphysical and ontological premises and how they might be validated is a complex problem which 1 can not attempt to resolve in this thesis. 142
(1996) the main arena for debating these issues has shifted to what is loosely described as "postmodernism." Here in literary criticism, anthropology, sociology, history and elsewhere the issues raised and addressed by Mannheim return as pertinent and troublesome as ever. If this thesis has thrown light on some of the problems involved in cesolving these basic issues then it has served its purpose. Bibliography
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Schelting, Alexander von. rev. of Ideolosie und Utopie, by Karl Mannheim. American Sociolocrical Review (Feb. 1936) p. 664-74. Speier, Hans. rev. of Ideoloov and Utopia, by Karl Mannheim. The American Journal of Sociolosy XLIII (July 1937-May 1938) p. 155-66. Stark, W.. The Sociolocw of Knowledqe: An Essay in Aid of a Deeper Understandinq of the Historv of Ideas. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958.
Westby, David L.. The Growth of Sociolosical Theorv: Human Nature, Knowledqe, and Social Chancre. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, IWl. Wirth, Louis. Pxeface to Ideolosv and Utopia. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1936.
Wolff, Kurt H.. Trvins Socioloqv. New York: John Wiley Sr Sons, 1974. Zetterberg, Hans L.. ed. Sociolow in the United States of America. UNESCO, 1956.