Karl Mannheim Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Karl Mannheim (1893–1947), was a Hungarian-born sociologist. He is considered one of the leading figures in the development of sociology as a discipline and is regarded as the founder of the sociology of knowledge.

Mannheim, originally named Mannheim Károly, was born in Budapest, which was then part of the Hapsburg Empire. He studied in several cities before completing his doctoral dissertation, “The Structural Analysis of Knowledge,” in 1922. From 1922 to 1925, he worked at the University of Heidelberg under Alfred Weber, the brother of German sociologist Max Weber. In 1926 Mannheim started teaching sociology courses at Heidelberg.

In 1930 Mannheim was appointed professor of sociology and economics at the University of Frankfurt. In 1933, as part of the Nazi regime’s persecution of Jews, he was fired from his position at Frankfurt. Forced to flee Germany, he was invited to England by British political scientist Harold Laski. Mannheim became a lecturer in sociology at the London School of Economics, where Laski taught. In 1944 Mannheim joined the University of London’s Institute of Education as a professor of education and sociology. He was appointed chair of education at the institute in 1946; he held this position until his death the following year. During his years in London, Mannheim edited the International Library of Sociology and Social Reconstruction series.

Mannheim is best known for his work on the sociology of knowledge. In 1929 he wrote Ideologie und Utopie (published in English as Ideology and Utopia in 1936). He believed that knowledge could not be isolated but was related to its social context. Mannheim called this approach “relationism,” and it took into account the influence of social factors, status, and class. The objective is to explain how people frame, perceive, and interpret information. Knowledge is not conveyed to people unfiltered—they interpret knowledge though filters based on culture, position, interests, and ideologies. Mannheim distinguished between two types of ideology: particular and total. A particular ideology is composed of the ideas that reflect an individual’s own specific interest. Total ideology is how people see the world around them.

Ideology was not a concept invented by Mannheim. He acknowledged German philosopher Karl Marx’s theory of ideology. However, Mannheim was critical of Marx’s belief that ideologies involve the conscious intention to distort reality and questioned Marx’s view that ideologies emerged only from social classes. While Mannheim agreed with Marx that class stratification was a source of ideology, he believed it was not the only source.

After his move to England, Mannheim began to consider education and democratic social planning as critical to the survival of democratic society. Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction (1940) and the posthumously published Freedom, Power, and Democratic Planning (1950) reflected this concern.

Bibliography:

Kettler, David, and Volker Meja. Karl Mannheim and the Crisis of Liberalism. New Brunswick, N.J.:Transaction, 1995.
Kettler, David,Volker Meja, and Nico Stehr. Karl Mannheim. London: Tavistock, 1984.
Loader, Colin. The Intellectual Development of Karl Mannheim. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Loader, Colin, and David Kettler. Karl Mannheim’s Sociology as Political Education. New Brunswick, N.J.:Transaction, 2001.
Mannheim, Karl. Ideology and Utopia. London: Routledge, 1936.
Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction. London: Routledge, 1940.

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