Some German connections

Marx and Mannheim

pp. 179-203

in: Robert Nola, Rescuing reason, Berlin, Springer, 2003

Abstract

Broadly understood, the sociology of knowledge (SK) is that field of sociology which investigates the alleged relationships between the thoughts, ideas, beliefs, knowledge and/or other cognitive activities of the members of a given society and their social, historical and cultural situation. It is a highly contested field — including its very name. That there is even a sociology of knowledge, as distinct from, say, a sociology of belief, is resisted by those who adopt philosophical accounts of the nature of knowledge. The focus of Part II is on the very viability of not just a sociology of knowledge but of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK). The second section of this chapter contains a discussion of Karl Mannheim,¹ a leading founder of twentieth century SK. In his "Brief Survey of the History of the Sociology of Knowledge", Mannheim mentions Marx and Nietzsche as the two important nineteenth century precursors of SK (Mannheim (1936), pp. 278-9). Marx will be discussed in the first section of this chapter while the discussion of Nietzsche will be left to Part IV. The final section of this chapter draws a contrast with Merton's quite different conception of the ethos of science that does not depend on any account of SK.