120

Ideology and Utopia

in

Mannheim:

Towards the Sociology of Self-Knowledge

1

M.H. (Behrooz) Tamdgidi

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

There are new reasons for probing therecords of Mannheim’s search, espe-cially since the theoretical approachesthat had so confidently declared hiswork anachronistic and hopelesslyeclectic have themselves fallen on hardtimes. The self-aware and self-criticalrhetorical constituents of his thinking,his sensitivity to cultural contexts, hisinformed skepticism about Marxisthistorical ontologies, his experimentswith dialectics that eschew more thanprovisional syntheses, his recognitionof multiple modes of knowing, and oth-er features of his unfinished thinkingrepay critical attention. And that re-quires a reconstruction of his project asa whole

(Kettler and Meja 9).

I

NTRODUCTION

Can we transcend our own ideologicaland/or utopian biases to scientifically un-derstand and change our social realities?The question Karl Mannheim posed for so-cial science in his

Ideology and Utopia

(1936)still remains a contested terrain amongstsocial scientists and cultural relativistsalike (e.g., Bordo 1987; Foucault 1972; Har-ding 1991; Laslett 1990; Longino 1990;Kurzman 1992; Nelson 1993; Wallerstein1991, 1999). A by-product of this intellectu-al impasse has been a revival of interest inMannheim’s original formulations of theproblem and ways of resolving it (e.g., Ket-tler and Meja 1995; Kuklick 1983; McCarthy1996; Pilcher 1994; Turner 1995).

Undoubtedly, there is much in Man-nheim that is valuable. Kettler and Meja(above) are justified in inviting us to criti-cally revisit and reconstruct Mannheim’sunfinished project. The words

critical

and

unfinished

in their call must be underlined,however, for otherwise the dialectics of re-visiting Mannheim may reproduce hisshortcomings as well as his achievements.We may still continue to practice a sociolo-gy of knowledge which does not treatknowledge as a part of social existence as awhole. We may still continue to practice the“social origins of knowledge” discourse inour sociologies. We may still continue totreat the self not as what it is: a

social rela-tion

. We may still remain reluctant to ex-tend the reality of “social existence,” andknowledges of it, to the intrapersonal andworld-historical domains.

This article revisits the conceptualframework employed by Karl Mannheimin his

Ideology and Utopia

(1936), seeking (1)a new appraisal of the self-defeating argu-ments which influenced later develop-ments in the scholarly field of sociology ofknowledge, and (2) new avenues to ad-dress the vital issues originally raised byhim. After a brief overview of the history of

1.An earlier version of this article was pre-sented to the “History of Sociology” RefereedRoundtable Session at the 94th Annual Meetingof the American Sociological Association, Au-gust 6-10, 1999, Chicago. I thank Judith Stacey,Patricia Lengermann, and Jill Nieburgge-Brant-ley for their encouragements. Participants in agraduate seminar at the sociology department atBinghamton University (SUNY) provided criti-cal and useful feedback. J.I. “Hans” Bakker(University of Guelph, Canada) and Kevin FoxGotham (Tulane University) provided usefulcomments on an earlier draft.

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Vol. I, No. 1, Spring 2002. ISSN: 1540-5699. © Copyright by Ahead Publishing House (imprint: Okcir Press). All Rights Reserved.

HUMAN ARCHITECTURE

Journal of the Sociology of Self-

A Publication of the Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)

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sociology of knowledge and the place ofMannheim in its development, his book

Ideology and Utopia

will be used as an em-pirical site of conceptual exploration in or-der to shed new lights on the theoreticaland methodological roots of Mannheim’sarguments in his work, and to search for al-ternative avenues to address the vital ques-tion he raised.

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ANNHEIM

In broad outlines, the sociology ofknowledge has been concerned with thestudy of the relationship between societyand knowledge. However, throughout thehistory of the subdiscipline the particularviews and approaches of individual schol-ars regarding various methodological, the-oretical, and historical issues seem to haveoften overshadowed their broader defini-tions of the field. For this reason, the historyof the sociology of knowledge has aptlybeen characterized as the history of its con-flicting definitions (Berger & Luckmann 4).

The sociologists of knowledge may behistorically classified into seven categories,depending upon the nature of their contri-bution to the field’s development:

1

1-

Pre-cursors

, those in the distant past fromwhose texts indirect concerns with the sub-ject matter of sociology of knowledge maybe found; 2-

Originators

, those in the past inwhose texts a conscious, explicit, and directconcern with the subject matter of the soci-ology of knowledge was evident; 3-

Founder

,the scholar who formally and systematical-ly developed the “classical” definitionaland conceptual frameworks of the sociolo-gy of knowledge as a subdiscipline; 4-

De-

baters

, those who became immediately orsoon engaged in arguing for or against thevalue of the new formalized subdiscipline;5-

Diffusers

, those who, going beyond intel-lectual debates about the need for the newsubdiscipline, actually began to carry outconcrete research in the new field; 6-

Talkersof the Prose

, those who have been or are car-rying out research within or relevant to thesociology of knowledge without necessari-ly acknowledging the connection of theirwork with the subject matter of this so-called “marginalized” discipline; and 7-

Re-vivers

, those who have, in recent years, con-sidered it vital to revive the explicitconcerns of the subdiscipline, though in thecontext of contemporary intellectual andscholarly interests.

What strikes a reader of texts producedby these scholars over time are the manydifferent ways in which the complexity ofthe interaction of social existence and con-sciousness have been tackled, and some-times reduced, by focusing on one oranother aspect of the total dialectical pro-cess. However, a survey of the historical de-velopment of the sociology of knowledgealso clearly demonstrates how this field ofsocial scientific inquiry has never been“marginalized,” but has in fact grown inimportance, though in the deceptive cloth-ings of changing research field names, in-terests, and titles introduced by differentsociologists of knowledge. The specific ap-proaches of particular sociologies of knowl-edge may have turned in time to betransitory and limited in content; however,as a scholarly discipline, the sociology ofknowledge continues to be an importantand growing area of scholarship. This factbecomes even more clear when we realizethat the essential concern with the relation-ship between knowledge and society wasas much a central concern for the Mannhe-imian paradigm as it is for the contempo-rary debates in the so-called culturalstudies, discourses on postmodernism andpoststructuralism, or studies on coloniality

1.Given the particular focus of this study onMannheim, a survey of scholarship in the sociol-ogy of knowledge based on the proposed classif-icatory scheme will not be presented here. Foran effort towards that end, see Tamdgidi (forth-coming).

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and post-coloniality. There is a strange and peculiar irony in

the historical unfolding of the sociology ofknowledge, however. While Mannheimsought to transcend the relativism of ideo-logical and utopian mental structures insearch of a “relational” science of politics,believing in the possibility of revising sci-ence’s epistemological foundations toachieve that purpose, he was sometimes vi-ciously attacked and criticized (e.g., Popper1963) for having in fact embraced “relativ-ism” himself and undermined the possibil-ity of “science,” including his own soughtafter science of politics. Today, however,when contemporary scholarship has dis-covered “relativism” to be the rule, and sci-ence and search for universals have beenrelegated by some postmodernists to thedustbin of “modernity,” the revivers of theMannheimian sociology of knowledgepraise Mannheim for his “relativism,” atendency for which his older critiques ac-cused him, and, by the way, a tendency hehimself denied in his work (85).

The unfolding of this historical irony,however, indicates that the dialectic of thenegation of Mannheimian sociology ofknowledge is by no means over. Is it possi-ble to revisit the original questions Man-nheim raised in his sociology of knowledgeand discover what led to the future emer-gence of a postmodernist paradigm which,by denying the possibility or value of sci-ence, stands today in the very opposite ofwhere Mannheim stood almost seventyyears ago? Is it possible to find a mode ofresearch which addresses not only the goalsand dilemmas of the classical sociology ofknowledge, but also the important issuesand dilemmas raised in the contemporaryscholarship?

Although the origins of the sociologyof knowledge may be traced to variousnineteenth century sources, and its philo-sophical problems received considerableattention in the early twentieth centuryfrom Mannheim’s contemporary, Max

Scheler, who coined its name, it was inMannheim’s works that the scientific studyof “social origins of knowledge” found anexplicit and systematic sociological treat-ment. It is no wonder that subsequentworks in the field have predominantly in-volved arguments with and/or commen-taries on Mannheim—and not Scheler.

1

Mannheim’s works, especially his

Ideologyand Utopia

, have often been treated asmarking a turning point in the unfolding ofscholarship in the field.

2

As recently as in1995, it was suggested that “It is still impos-sible to think critically about the sociologyof knowledge without reflecting on

Ideologyand Utopia

” (Kettler and Meja 3). It has alsobeen observed that “It is safe to say whensociologists today think of the sociology ofknowledge,

pro

or

con

, they usually do so interms of Mannheim’s formulation of it”(Berger & Luckmann 9). It is therefore im-possible to critically study and evaluate thehistorical development and prospects ofthe scholarly subdiscipline of sociology ofknowledge as it stands today without pay-ing central attention to Mannheim’s contri-butions to and receptions by thescholarship in the field.

For Mannheim, the sociology of knowl-

1.Bryan Turner has suggested that “Man-nheim’s text [

Ideology and Utopia

] proved suffi-ciently influential to earn him the, probablyunwarranted, title of ‘the founder of the sociolo-gy’ as a new and separate field of sociological in-quiry” (Turner 718-727). Although Turner doesnot further explain in the same article in whatsense he considers Mannheim’s status as the“founder” of the sociology of knowledge “un-warranted,” he seems to recognize the signifi-cance of Mannheim’s work not only forsociology and political science, but also as“clearly central to many problems in conven-tional debates about epistemology in both thenatural and the social sciences” (718).

2.Note for example this observation by edi-tors of a reader in the sociology of knowledge:“Although our principal concern here is withdevelopments in the sociology of knowledge af-ter the translation of Mannheim’s

Ideology andUtopia

was published in 1936, it should be recog-nized that the roots of this perspective go muchfurther back in history” (Curtis & Petras 3).

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edge was concerned with the scientificstudy of the “social origins of knowledge”so that our knowledge of and in politicsmay become less ideological or utopianand more “scientific” as a means for diag-nosing the ills of present society and forplanning and building a just society. Man-nheim distinguished the “particular” con-ception of ideology, involving theadversary’s individually articulatedthoughts, beliefs, and deceptions, from the“total” conception of ideology, involvingthe overall socially conditioned structure ofthe adversary’s world-view, both of whichwere then distinguished as “special” con-ceptions of ideology from the “general”conception of ideology, involving the rec-ognition by observers that even theirown—and not just the adversary’s—knowledge is ideological and thus sociallyrooted. Mannheim’s sociology of knowl-edge dealt with the “total” and “general”conceptions of ideology, leaving the “par-ticular” conception to other studies of ide-ology.

Mannheim then proceeded to constructtypologies of historical forms of ideological(bureaucratic conservative, conservativehistoricist, liberal-democratic bourgeois,socialist-communist, and fascist) and uto-pian (Chiliastic, liberal-humanitarian, con-servative, and socialist-communist)collective mental structures. The problemfor Mannheim, who was seeking a scientificapproach to politics free of such one-sidedbiases, was how to synthesize the partialtruths embedded in each of these political“perspectives” on social reality when hehad already emphasized that even the ob-server’s own knowledge is sociallygrounded. He suggested that the way outof this impasse is through the agency of themodern “unattached intellectuals” trainedin the new discipline of sociology of knowl-edge—who were then encouraged by Man-nheim, by the example of his own efforts inhis book, to scientifically and critically syn-thesize and transcend various partial ideol-

ogies and utopias, and keep alive the hopeand the efforts for a scientific approach tosocial knowledge and change.

The ultimate goal of Mannheim’s soci-ology of knowledge as introduced in

Ideolo-gy and Utopia

was to contribute to thedevelopment of a social science (especiallyof politics) that helps overcome the ideo-logical and/or utopian distortions in ourthinking. One way to evaluate Mannheim’scontribution is to investigate whether andhow his “sociology of knowledge” helpedhim transcend his own potential biases in

Ideology and Utopia

. In other words, as a po-tential (or actual) member of the “unat-tached intelligentsia” upon whom he laidgreat hopes in rescuing socio-politicalknowledge from ideological and/or utopi-an distortions, was Mannheim himselfaware of, and did he succeed in transcend-ing, any such biases in his own argumentsthroughout the book?

I

DEOLOGY

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IN

I

DEOLOGY

AND

U

TOPIA

Given the centrality of the “social ori-gins of knowledge” thesis in Mannheim’sconception of the sociology of knowledge,it is logical to begin our exploration by ask-ing how Mannheim traced his own intellec-tual genealogy in the historical panoramaof the scholarship preceding him. How didMannheim situate the “origins” of his ownthought in the (pre-)history of the scholarlyfield he intended to build?

“Social Determination of Knowledge” as Ideology

A puzzling aspect of Mannheim’sthought, which at the same time constitut-ed the core of his argument in the book, washis taken-for-granted “social determinationof knowledge” thesis. At this stage of argu-ment, the purpose is not to question the va-lidity of this thesis itself. Our question is:

124

how had Mannheim determined that “so-cial determination of thought” (or “socialorigins of thought”) is the fundamental the-sis of the sociology of knowledge as intro-duced in his book?

For Mannheim the thesis of social de-termination of thought did not seem to be amatter for dispute, to be tested and provenin the course of scientific research process;it was a taken-for-granted truth alreadydiscovered, only to be demonstrated histor-ically and further developed in the episte-mological domain. He not only insisted on,or rather took for granted, the truth of histhesis, he even used it in order to explainand demonstrate the historical origins ofhis “sociology of knowledge” itself—morespecifically of his own thoughts regardingthe emergence of the “general” conceptionof ideology, and thus the socio-historicalbasis of his own approach to the sociologyof knowledge.

Such an assumption on Mannheim’spart is puzzling and ironic when it is con-sidered in the historical context of “socialexistence,” often to his own acknowledg-ment (though very briefly reviewed at theconcluding section of his book), of othercompeting scholarly approaches to the rela-tionship of thought and society as adoptedby many of his predecessors or contempo-raries. The “historical materialist” ap-proach to the relationship between thoughtand society, upon which Mannheim gener-ally based his whole argument, was onlyone among several competing approachesto what later became canonized by him un-der the rubric “sociology of knowledge.”Certainly, the idealist approach of Dilthey,

1

to which Mannheim himself referred usingthe label “pragmatist,” was known to Man-nheim when writing his book. So were the“psychological” approaches of Nietzsche,the “co-determinist” approach of Scheler,

and the Weberian approach of tracing theorigins of capitalism to the Protestant ethic.These remotely equalled the strictly materi-alist approach to which Mannheim tracedthe origins of the sociology of knowledge inthe brief historical sketch at the end of hisbook.

The question here is not why Man-nheim preferred the materialist approachto the sociology of knowledge vis-á-vis oth-er approaches. In other words, to be faithfulto his argument in the book, being scientificdoes not necessarily mean one cannot be“evaluative” in one’s thinking and takesides on matters of research or socio-politi-cal thinking. In Mannheim’s view the prob-lem arises when one is

not aware

of one’sbiases, of the social rootedness of one’s ownthinking. Mannheim’s approach to build-ing the new discipline revolving aroundthe fundamental thesis of the “determina-tion of thought by society” was hardly a re-sult of explicated demonstration on thepart of Mannheim of an awareness of theone-sidedness of his thesis, hardly a resultof argumentation against other competingviewpoints and approaches in order todemonstrate the advantage of his own“materialist” approach. It is for this reasonthat in the course of development of his ar-gument in the book, we never encounter aneffort on his part to actually synthesize var-ious existing approaches to the relationshipof thought and society comparable to theeffort he exerted in analyzing and synthe-sizing various ideological and utopianmental structures.

In constructing his typology of ideolog-ical and utopian mentalities, Mannheim infact used the very taken-for-granted thesisof his sociology of knowledge to constructhis ideal types. In other words, it is the so-cial positioning of various Chiliastic, con-servative, bourgeois-liberal, Marxist, orFascist political forces in society that deter-mines their ideological and/or utopian ap-proaches and thinking styles in social life.The very thesis of “social determination of

1.Dilthey has been characterized as “proba-bly the key figure in the ‘idealist’ tradition inmodern social thought” (Bullock and Woodings182).

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knowledge” was not under question, butwas taken for granted as the truth withwhich Mannheim constructed his idealtypes and against which he judged varioussocial trends on the political scene. Suchavoidance of competing perspectives onthe relationship of thought and society(other than the Marxist approach) certainlydid not fulfill the requirement of the stan-dard Mannheim himself set for the “unat-tached intellectuals” regarding the need tosynthesize various perspectives on issuesat stake.

To make matters worse, Mannheim infact tended to move away from the effortsneeded for a synthesis of perspectives onthe relationship of thought and society. Forinstance, having identified the epistemo-logical and psychological approaches to thestudy of ideology in the first chapter, he de-cided that the “particular” conception ofideology did not fall within the scope ofwhat he considered to be the subject matterof his sociology of knowledge. Conse-quently he banished the analysis of ideo-logical mentality at the particular level ofindividual thought patterns as being irrele-vant to his “sociological” approach to theproblem. Was Mannheim’s own academicposition as a “sociologist” an invisiblecause of his lack of interest in the study ofthe “particular” conception of ideology?This seems to be a plausible, though proba-bly partial, explanation of why Mannheimseemed eager to restrict his “sociology ofknowledge” to the field in whose develop-ment and occupation he himself had an ob-viously vested interest. Instead of makingefforts to critically synthesize various epis-temological and psychological approachesto the theory of knowledge with his own“sociological” approach, in other words,Mannheim opted to dismiss them, or atbest allow them only so far as they servedthe purpose of further substantiating thetruthfulness of his own thinking. This onceagain seems to be far from the requirementof intellectual synthesis which Mannheim

expected “unattached intellectuals” to per-form in the modern academic life.

Mannheim’s insistence on the thesis of“social determination of thought” as thefundamental premise of the sociology ofknowledge indicates an ideological bias inhis thinking. It is so not because Mannheimwas consciously taking sides in his argu-ment but the opposite, because he seemedto be unaware of such one-sidedness in hisown thinking. He simply took the thesis forgranted as an uncontroversial, universallyaccepted, “absolute truth.”

Science or Utopia?

Another puzzling aspect of Man-nheim’s argument in the book is his dou-ble-standard in treating the utopiandistortions of thought.

On one hand, Mannheim equated uto-pian mentality on par with the ideologicaldistortions of reality, suggesting that “thequest to transcend the ideological and uto-pian biases in thinking is the quest for real-ity” (1936:98). He of course had generallyset aside from the subject matter of his anal-ysis in the book what he called the “abso-lute utopian” mentalities which aretranshistorical and do not aim at realizationin concrete reality. Therefore, such utopianmentalities could not have been thosesources of mental distortions which Man-nheim was particularly interested in eradi-cating. He was interested in the “relativeutopian” thoughts which have historicallyaimed at shattering existing reality. Theseconstituted the subject matter of his book sofar as the utopian distortions of thoughtwere concerned—and he constructed anhistorical typology of such utopian mental-ities when he analyzed the Chiliastic, con-servative, liberal-bourgeois, and Marxistvarieties of utopian thought.

But, on the other hand, Mannheimhimself concluded his book (part V, section4) with a particularly explicit appeal to the

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reader, and to the “unattached intellectu-als,” to keep the utopian thought alive andactive, lamenting the end of utopias in thecontemporary socio-historical situationwhen most of the previously oppositionalforces with utopian aspirations havegained political ascendancy in social life. Adetailed and careful reading of Man-nheim’s text does not provide an adequateexplanation as to why he applied in hisquest for a “science of politics” such a dou-ble-standard when it came to the utopiandistortions of thought. Even the organiza-tion of his book seems to reinforce the senseof puzzlement in the mind of the reader re-garding his double-standard. For example,the second chapter of the book is titled“Ideology and Utopia;” however, otherthan few references in the first few para-graphs of the first section, there is hardlyany discussion about “utopian” mentalityin this chapter of the book. What referenceMannheim did make to utopianism in thispart of the book essentially conveys to thereader the meaning that ideology and uto-pia both involve distortions of reality, andthat their transcendence is equally neces-sary in any successful quest for a “scienceof politics.” But the discussion on the utopi-an mentality was postponed only after thethird chapter of the book in which Man-nheim developed his notion of “optimaldynamic relational” method as opposed tothe traditional notion of “objectivity” in sci-ence in order to build the foundations of ascience of politics. In other words, such adiscussion was rendered prior to and inde-pendent of his analysis of utopian mentali-ty in the following chapter of the bookwhich was specifically devoted to the anal-ysis of varieties of utopian thought. Thisconveys to the reader the sense that per-haps Mannheim did not mean after all toequate the utopian mentality as a form ofideological distortion. This manner of orga-nizing the book gives the reader a sensethat Mannheim was not sure whether ornot utopian mentality is a form of ideologi-

cal distortion. Mannheim’s handling of the utopian

mentality as part of his total project of es-tablishing the sociology of knowledge as anew discipline was at best a result of care-lessness, and at worst due to bias. And thisutopian bias, as in the case of his ideologi-cal bias, was left unexplicated and unex-plained, and seems to have beenunconscious. Mannheim seemed to be sim-ply unaware of these biases in his thinkingwhile developing his argument.

The above ideological and utopian un-conscious biases in Mannheim’s thinkingcan hardly be dismissed as being irrelevantto his main argument in the book. Theyconstituted the core, the very essence andfoundation of his efforts at building a newfield of scientific inquiry. As reflected in thevery title of his book, and in his own text,the quest for transcendence of ideologicaland utopian biases through increasedawareness of social rootedness of knowl-edge constitutes the very essence of thequest for a science of politics, the quest forreality. One may even use Mannheim’sown theory of the distinction between ide-ology (as expressing the mentality of thosein dominant positions in society) and uto-pian mentality (as expressing the interestsof the dominated strata) to shed some lighton Mannheim’s own diverging ideologicaland utopian biases in his argument in thebook. One aimed at the establishment of hisown school of thought within the academiccircles, the other was directed at the outsidedominant social powers against whomMannheim’s “unattached intellectuals”had to wage intellectual and/or politicalbattles.

Eurocentricity, and other Biases

Other than his ideological and utopianbiases indicated above, Mannheim’s textinvolved other subtler forms of bias as well.

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One was directed towards religion—mysti-cism in particular. For instance, he includeda strongly worded section in his textagainst what he considered to be the mysti-cal attitude to social life (part II, section 8).When he

did

take a religious mysticalmovement to explore (Chiliasm, for in-stance) it was not because of any inherentvalue in the content of the doctrine inspir-ing the movement, but because of how thisparticular movement departed from tradi-tional religion, displaying an historical il-lustration for his social analysis.

1

While hefound traditional western science problem-atic in terms of its “objectivist” biases, andthereby searched for a “relational” methodthat would take into consideration the in-fluence of the subject on the cognitive pro-cess, Mannheim still projected his efforts asa quest for science. However, his notion ofscience seemed to be too monolithic to in-clude any contributions from non-westernor “non-scientific” literature and scholar-ship.

This points to another related bias inMannheim’s text which is that for him the“world” was the west. What took place out-side the west was not worthy of his effortsat development of a “science of politics.”The social existence for Mannheim, in otherwords, was that found in the west, and notconstituted globally. He did not see a needfor developing a “synthesis” of scientificand religious viewpoints across westernand non-western traditions, since for himthe latter was the very force that opposedthe emergence of the former.

The problem is not that Mannheim hadhis own positions with regards to religion,the spatiotemporal coordinates of his socialanalysis, the professional “sociological”implications of his research work, the mate-rialist bent on his thinking, or the utopian

aspirations of his career, etc. If there wasone thing that Mannheim made clear in hisbook, it was that scientific study and evalu-ative thinking are not mutually incompati-ble as the traditional objectivist sciencewould make us believe, but that it is possi-ble and perhaps inevitable that our own bi-ases, and the social rootedness of our ownthinking, will influence the process and re-sults of scientific investigation. What wasproblematic in Mannheim’s efforts in thebook was that contrary to his own insis-tence that only through conscious aware-ness of the social rootedness of one’sthinking one can transcend its distortiveideological and utopian influences on one’sthought, he left behind many of the mostcentral and fundamental aspects of his ownargument in the book in the shadow of un-conscious awareness.

Of course, Mannheim did make someefforts to catch his own ideological/utopi-an biases in his work; in fact, he caught andattempted to transcend one when dealingwith the transition from the “non-evalua-tive” to the “evaluative” conceptions ofideology. But his attempt seemed to be-come merely a staging ground for further-ance of his argument than a genuineacknowledgment of the degree of serious-ness of his own potential faults; he simplyrelegated the matter to a long footnotewhere he acknowledged but immediatelydismissed the possibility of serious impli-cations emanating from distortions in hisown thought (Mannheim 88). In the veryattempt Mannheim made to move beyondideologies and utopias to arrive at a sociol-ogy of knowledge, he displayed uncon-scious ideological and utopian biases.

Mannheim’s attempt in

Ideology andUtopia

did not seem to be itself an histori-cally “unattached” attempt at building anew scientific discipline. His sociology ofknowledge was attached. It was an histori-cally specific formulation by a member ofan historically and geographically ground-ed western, secular, materialist, academic,

1.The dismissive attitude by Mannheim to-wards religion is also echoed in Kettler and Me-ja’s observation that “The social uses of religionare more urgent for [Mannheim] than the prob-lems religion poses” (Kettler and Meja 273).

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intellectual, and sociological movement.Mannheim seemed to be unaware of suchunconscious biases and social grounded-ness of his own thinking.

But even if he had such unconscious bi-ases, Mannheim may have argued that theydid not necessarily contradict his argu-ment. He may have stressed that these bias-es should not be traced to his socialposition, because his objectively “unat-tached” intellectual position would eventu-ally neutralize his tendency to have suchunconscious biases. To give Mannheim thebenefit of a doubt, let us say that he mayhave argued that such biases are to be ex-pected in his new discipline in formation.He himself acknowledged after all (Man-nheim 88-90) that at the very time one is re-vealing some biases, one mayunconsciously be committing new ones.Such biases, he may have argued, should betraced to the subconscious mind (or the“collective unconscious” mind as Man-nheim referred to it), left over from thescholar’s pre-intellectual conditions of life,biases which can be eradicated throughself-conscious efforts and intellectual re-search and debate among the “unattached”intellectuals.

Mannheim may have argued, in otherwords, that the problem was simply a mat-ter of insufficient application and executionof an otherwise sound theoretical frame-work that he had built. For this reason, it isimportant to examine the theoretical core ofMannheim’s argument.

T

HEORETICAL

R

OOTS

Many scholars

who have taken issueswith Mannheim’s theoretical scheme in

Ide-ology and Utopia

regarding the problem ofrelativism vs. relationality of knowledge onone hand, and the issue of “unattached in-tellectuals” on the other hand, have never-theless taken for granted the “social originof knowledge” as the theoretical thesis

which Mannheim had raised to the statusof a fundamental premise of his sociologyof knowledge. The three issues seem to beinter-related, however, since both the prob-lem of relativism vs. relationality and theproblem of “unattached intellectuals” ema-nate from the application of the “social de-termination of knowledge” thesis. Let usexplore more the inter-relatedness of thesethree issues.

Mannheim’s attempt at distinguishing“relationality” from “relativism” was an ef-fort on his part to argue that a sociology ofknowledge built upon the theoreticalpremise of social determination of knowl-edge does not necessarily imply that truthis not attainable in scientific research. Hisrelational method merely insisted that allknowledge, especially that held by the in-vestigator herself or himself, is sociallyrooted. The sociology of knowledge, ac-cording to Mannheim, does not say any-thing about, and is not concerned with thetruthfulness of, that knowledge as such. Infact, Mannheim explicitly stated that the in-vestigation of social rootedness of knowl-edge does not necessarily have to involvean investigation of the truthfulness of theknowledge under investigation. The studyof social origins of religious thinking, he ar-gued for example, does not have to relyupon the investigation of truth in the claimsmade regarding the existence of god(s).

However, by suggesting that socialrootedness of knowledge is in fact the basisof ideological and/or utopian distortionsof reality, Mannheim’s insistence on rela-tionalism inevitably implied a relativisticattitude towards scientific investigation.The whole purpose of Mannheim’s searchin the book seeking a “science of politics,”after all, was to find a way of transcendingthe distortive influences of social positionand interest on the social scientific investi-gation (of knowledge and politics). It washere that Mannheim found it necessary toborrow from Alfred Weber the notion of the“unattached intelligentsia,” which provid-

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ed Mannheim with a way of transcendingthe contradiction which was created whenthe “social determination of knowledge”thesis was raised to the status of a theoreti-cal premise for the sociology of knowledgeas a whole—for without the “unattachedintellectuals” Mannheim’s sociology ofknowledge would be a recipe for failureand an admission of futility of social (if notall) science, including his sociology ofknowledge.

Issues of “relativism vs. relationality”on one hand and “unattached intellectuals”on the other hand, therefore, were both in-tricately bound up with Mannheim’s em-ployment of “social determination ofknowledge” as the fundamental thesis ofhis sociology of knowledge. In order to crit-ically evaluate the theoretical core of Man-nheim’ argument in the book, we need tofurther explore the innerconnections ofthese three aspects of Mannheim’s concep-tual framework.

Throughout the book, there was a con-tinuing tension between Mannheim’sadoption of the theory of “social determi-nation of knowledge” as the central thesisof his sociology of knowledge on one hand,and his efforts to develop a “science of pol-itics” on the other hand. Mannheim sug-gested that through increasing awarenessof the relational nature of our thought, ofthe social rootedness of our thinking, andof how our knowledge is socially deter-mined, we can gradually gain mastery andcontrol over such determination. This is theway Mannheim tried to reconcile the neces-sary implications of his central thesis withthe possibility of a “science of politics.” Ofcourse, for Mannheim, it was the “detachedintellectual” who could best achieve suchan awareness and control over the socialdeterminateness of thought; her or his so-cial existence allowed such a possibility tobe realized.

Let us assume that Mannheim’s exclu-sive consideration of the modern “de-tached intellectuals” as being the only

social strata capable of transcendence of so-cial determination of knowledge is correct.Also let us assume that Mannheim’s “socialorigin of knowledge” thesis is a universallyvalid truth applicable to all human beings.Let us also assume that Mannheim’s insis-tence on relationality of knowledge doesnot mean that knowledge is always relativeand that truth is unattainable, and does notpreclude the possibility of attainment oftruth on the part of human beings, despitethe fact that their knowledge is sociallyconditioned and rooted. In other words, letus assume that all the three elements ofMannheim's theoretical framework is val-id.

Now, the central purpose of Man-nheim’s sociology of knowledge was totranscend the socially rooted ideologicaland/or utopian distortions in thought sothat a “true” science of politics may be at-tained. For Mannheim, a fundamental re-quirement of such transcendence was theincreasingly conscious awareness by (pri-marily) the “unattached intellectuals” ofthe social rootedness of the “collective un-conscious” biases inherent in their knowl-edge. Mannheim argued that through suchawareness it is in fact possible to becomefree of such determinations, and reverse theprocess of social determinations of ourthinking, thereby creating new social con-ditions (of a “planned society” perhaps) inwhich human beings can consciously de-termine the course of evolution of their so-cial existence. Let us assume, again, thatMannheim’s projection of the utility of hissociology of knowledge is correct, and infact more and more human beings (prima-rily, or initially at least, “detached intellec-tuals”) become aware of the blind forcesdetermining their thought and therebyfrom being the slaves of social determina-tion become the masters of social circum-stances. In other words, increasingly wehave a society in which thought determinessocial existence (through social praxis),rather than the opposite—thanks to Man-

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nheim’s sociology of knowledge. However,to the degree the ultimate purpose of Man-nheim’s sociology of knowledge is realized,to the same degree the central thesis of hisdoctrine is undermined, for increasinglysociety is constituted consciously of and bypeople who are not slaves to the social cir-cumstances but are its social planners andarchitects. At the very least, we have amixed hybrid form of social reality inwhich social existence determines and isdetermined by human conscious praxis.The success of Mannheim’s sociology ofknowledge, in other words, underminesthe very “social origin of knowledge” the-sis built as a universal law into the theoret-ical core of his sociology of knowledge.Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge thusproves to be, as it is constructed by him in

Ideology and Utopia

, a self-defeating enter-prise.

Besides, one thing that is not clear ishow Mannheim’s argument regarding the“detached intellectuals” could lead tobringing about a more democratic and“free” society. No matter how liberatedthese intellectuals become, they still live inthe midst of a society in which the divisionof labor deprives many of specialized intel-lectual activity. In order to avoid the ideol-ogization or utopianization of theirthinking, therefore, such intellectualswould need to remain organizationally in-dependent of the rest of social strata sinceotherwise this would begin to “attach”their organization to socially determinedforces. In other words, all other “subcon-scious” biases aside, one bias would be en-demic and ever present to suchorganizations of “unattached” intellectu-als, the bias towards non-intellectuals—to-wards the so-called (by Mannheim)“simple man on the street.”

Mannheim would have perhaps dis-agreed, arguing that intellectuals’ knowl-edge can in fact be able to transcend suchbiases as may originate from intellectuals’specific social position vs. non-intellectu-

als. But, one may also counterpoise the ar-gument that the scientific knowledgeproduced by “unattached” intellectualscannot remain so when transmitted to non-intellectuals—using Mannheim’s own ar-gument. In other words, the scientific prod-ucts of Mannheim’s sociology ofknowledge are bound to become sociallydetermined (i.e., ideological and/or utopi-an) as soon as their ideas or trained cadresleave the new academia to enter the “at-tached” world. Either all human beings canand should then become intellectuals in or-der to preserve the scientific nature ofknowledge thus transmitted—in whichcase the universal law of social existencedetermining consciousness would be inop-erative and null due to the application of anexceptional rule to all, thus defeating Man-nheim’s argument, or that such science willhave to remain the exclusive property of in-tellectuals; only

they

would be fit to devel-op and implement science.

But this means intellectuals wouldhave to both intellectualize

and

to performall other social functions for the rest of hu-manity all by themselves—which then, ofcourse, would end their

intellectual

careers.The middle way, that of maintaining a per-manent intellectual vs. non-intellectual

so-cial

division of labor, two sizable dividedcamps, one ruling over the other, moreover,would hardly be possible by purely “intel-lectual” means. This would, according toMannheim’s own logic, lead to the unscien-tific reproduction of utopian (today: if intel-lectuals are in opposition) and/orideological (tomorrow: if intellectuals arein power) mentalities—and render the newdiscipline of sociology of knowledge, asformed by Mannheim, at best self-defeat-ing, and at worst scientifically and demo-cratically regressive.

This reveals the limited nature of appli-cability of Mannheim’s theoretical thesis of“social determination of knowledge” for itis only a theory of a special case, of the stateof society in which individuals, especially

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the “detached intellectuals,” have not yetbecome consciously aware of and have notyet developed mastery over the social cir-cumstances which shape their thoughtsand actions. Mannheim’s proposed theoret-ical thesis of “social determination ofthought,” presumably traceable to Marx,can therefore hardly sustain the claimedliberating implications of his own intellec-tual efforts.

Partially perhaps, but Mannheim’s the-oretical inconsistency should not be totallyblamed on Marx, however. Mannheim’sentire argument in

Ideology and Utopia

waspresumably based on the proposed modelof determinism—borrowed from Marx—regarding social existence determining hu-man consciousness. But Mannheim bor-rowed from Marx only half-way; and that iswhere his inconsistency began. Marx hadbeen more consistent in his theory of “so-cial determination of consciousness” andhis views on the relationality of knowledgeand on who in society was subject to such a“universal law.” Marx had not recognizedthe existence of “unattached” intellectu-als—the determinism applied to all indi-viduals and social groups; the scienticity,and truthfulness, of social groups’ knowl-edge were determined by the degree towhich they arose from or aligned them-selves with the revolutionary productiveforces and classes of an historical era. Thiswas a more consistent, though not for otherreasons flawless, theoretical formulation.Mannheim wanted on one hand to remaina “materialist” (i.e., social existence deter-mining consciousness, etc.) but to find ajustification, or legitimation, for the scien-ticity of his intellectual project apart from(especially Marxist) “political parties,” par-ties who in Mannheim’s judgment seemedto be failing in their missions, and wereproducing only “ideologies” or “utopias,”not “science.” So entered the theory of “ex-ceptional” position of intellectuals into hisargument. It is true that Marx did believe

certain individuals or groups, includingbut not only intellectuals (i.e., in the case of“Bonapartism”), may subjectively riseabove their class and social interests. But heimmediately explained such exceptions bymeans of revealing the operation (or morecorrectly the misoperation) of the generalrule (class struggle) within historically con-crete conditions due to concrete balanceand dynamics of class forces. Mannheim’stheory of exceptional position of intellectu-als, however, disproved the rule, since theexception and the rule were expected to beoperative for the same phenomena at thesame time and place: i.e., a social groupwhose consciousness is and is not deter-mined by its social origin. The fundamentalmistake Mannheim made when he bor-rowed the theory of “detached intellectu-als” was that he applied a double-standardto the meaning of this “detachment.” Thefact that the intellectuals are detached fromclasses, which are socio-economicallygrounded social strata, does not necessarilymean that they are detached from statusand general division of labor stratificationsin social organization—divisions which ob-viously implicate and influence the socialinterests (including economic ones) of in-tellectuals as a distinct social strata.

Mannheim’s attempt to build a newdiscipline based on his own unconsciousmisrepresentations of Marx, not only onceagain proves the degree to which the fun-damental thesis of the sociology of knowl-edge was itself historically grounded, butalso, and more importantly, it demonstrateshow biographically grounded and subjec-tive social scientific activity itself can be. Ascholar’s particular perspectives couldhave implications for the works carried outby several generations of scholars. The dis-tinction between the individual and the“collective” unconscious, in other words, ismuch more important and consequentialthan the degree to which Mannheim waswilling to admit it is.

In order to illustrate the theoretical bias

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inherent in Mannheim’s sociology ofknowledge consider the social existenceand knowledge as two nodes of a relation-ship that is dialectically interlinkedthrough human praxis (see Figure I at theend of this article). The knowledge domainitself may be subdivided into consciousand unconscious domains. Human praxiscould operate at two conscious and uncon-scious loop cycles. The problem is how hu-man praxis can fall increasingly on theconscious loop, rather than being blindlyoperative along the unconscious loop.Mannheim’s biased thesis leads him to em-phasize social existence as the determiningnode in the whole process, whereas onemay argue that at various stages of devel-opment of the relationship one or anothernode may become the determining factor.Blindly operating, the unconscious and ha-bituated structures of social existence de-termine the process, but onceconsciousness is gained of the dynamics ofthe process, the conscious awareness maythen be regarded as the determining nodein the process. Moreover, it would bewrong to lose sight of the centrality and thedetermining role of human practice in boththe blind and conscious cycles of operationof the dialectic. It is therefore possible to de-velop a theoretical model for the sociologyof knowledge which is dialectical, and non-reductive, a thesis that takes into accountthe rational side of arguments of variousscholars in the field. This would have beena much more fruitful and integrative ave-nue for the sociology of knowledge to pur-sue, than relying on Mannheim’s reductive“social determination of knowledge” the-sis. In fact, Mannheim’s own goal of inte-grating various positions would have beenmuch more fruitfully served through thiskind of approach, rather than how he actu-ally conducted the building of his own ar-gument in

Ideology and Utopia

.The key point to observe in the dia-

gram is the conception of the relationshipbetween mind (conscious or unconscious)

and social existence in terms of the relation-ship between part and whole. If mind istreated as a part of social existence, thequestion of “social origins of knowledge”would be rendered mute and nonsensical,for it would be recognized that knowledge,conscious or not, is in fact a part and parcelof social existence and not dualisticallyposed as being apart from it. If knowledgeis treated as a part of social existence, thenit is itself one of the factors that can deter-mine historical transformation.

The intention here is not to replaceMannheim’s deterministic or reductivistthesis with another deterministic or reduc-tivist thesis centering on the role of humanmind or practice in social life. At this pointin analysis the purpose is not to offer an al-ternative thesis for the sociology of knowl-edge. The purpose is simply to indicate,while hinting at other possible alternativetheoretical routes, that Mannheim’s theo-retical thesis lacked the necessary degree ofbreadth and inclusiveness that his own pre-scriptions for the sociology of knowledgeimplied for others. The point is to demon-strate the one-sidedness built into the verytheoretical thesis of Mannheim’s sociologyof knowledge, a bias which inevitably ledto the invention of quasi-solutions such asthe “unattached intellectuals” or to unnec-essary complications arising from the rela-tivism inherent in the “social determinationof knowledge” thesis.

Here it is important to examine themethodological grounds on which such atheoretical problem on the part of Man-nheim could arise in the first place.

M

ETHODOLOGICAL

G

ROUNDS

The ideological and utopian biases andtheoretical inconsistencies in Mannheim’sown thinking as explicated above are toofundamental to be dismissed off-hand asinevitable by-products of intellectualizing.What epistemological elements in Man-

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nheim’s conceptual framework preventedhim from becoming aware of such biaseswhile constructing the very intellectual dis-cipline which aimed at making us scientifi-cally aware of our socially rooteddistortions in thought?

In the one case in which Mannheimcaught (and dismissed in a footnote) hisown bias regarding the transition fromnon-evaluative to evaluative thinking, hewas rather fatalistic about the possibilitythat one can catch and correct one’s own in-dividual biases. This attitude seems to em-anate from the “social origins ofknowledge” logic built into his paradigmas far as the “inevitable” social rootednessof one’s own knowledge is concerned.However, one may argue that several otherelements in Mannheim’s epistemologicalapparatus also contributed to such buffersagainst individual self-analysis.

In Mannheim’s sociology of knowl-edge it is the social group that is a legiti-mate unit of analysis of human knowledge.Very early in his text, Mannheim tried tocarve out his niche in the academic debatesby distinguishing his “sociological” ap-proach from the previous philosophicaland psychological approaches to the prob-lem of knowledge and ideology. Conse-quently, he decided to avoid the individuallevel of analysis traditionally taken up inphilosophy and psychology by excluding“particular conceptions of ideology” fromhis sociology of knowledge. Mannheim’snotion of “society” (and thereby “social or-igins”) was overly

inter

personal, not treat-ing the inner subjective reality of theindividual’s life itself as a social process—i.e., as a relatively autonomous ensemble ofinter/intrapersonal social relationsamongst multiple self-identities construct-ed in the course of the individual’s lifetime.Such an overly

inter

personal, and not also

intra

personal, conception of society and ofsocial origins did not allow Mannheim toconstruct a dialectical notion of the rela-tionship between society and knowledge—

not as mutually exclusive and externalizedentities, but as entities which stand to oneanother in terms of the relationship be-tween whole and part. As stated above, thethesis of “social origins of knowledge”would become meaningless and tautologi-cal if knowledge is itself conceptualized asa part of the whole that is society and “so-cial existence.”

1

In

Ideology and Utopia

, Mannheim wasrightly critical of the notion of “objectivity”borrowed from natural sciences, and justifi-ably stressed the role played by the subjectin the cognitive and research process. Buthis notion of the “subject” was consistentlyand overly collectivized. Individual biaseswere taken into consideration only if andwhen they reflected socially conditionedtrends in the world-outlooks of like-mind-ed individuals attached to particular social

groups

. Besides, his notion of the “subject”was also overly intellectualized. He oftenassociated the human subjective cognitionwith the theoretical activity alone. This ledhim, on one hand, to believe that the intel-lectual’s “unconscious” biases may beeradicated merely through theoretical criti-cism or awareness alone, disregarding theiremotional and physical groundings in thebeing of the total person, and on the otherhand to view human practice only in its po-litical, “planning,” form from above, disre-garding the potential transformative socialforce of all human cognitive and practicalactivity—not just of intellectuals but alsothat of the “simple man in the street.” It istrue that in contrast to Marx, Mannheimpositively took account of the need for self-knowledge and self-consciousness of theobserver, but this “self” was for him still atheoretically collective self standing over

1.The definition offered by Robert Merton(217) in his essay for the sociology of knowledgeas being “primarily concerned with relations be-tween knowledge and

other

existential factors insociety or culture” (emphasis added) hints at theimportance of recognizing knowledge as beingitself a part of social existence.

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and above individuals full of deep-seatedemotional impulses in everyday life, menor women “on the street” whose lives areessentially practical.

Mannheim’s emphasis on social exist-ence as a primary determinant in his sociol-ogy of knowledge structurally ties theindividual to forces “objectively” beyondher or his control. It reinforced a scholarlyfield that tended to study only the failingexperiences of human life, and not thosecases in which human effort, through self-critical and practical activity, succeeds inrising above blind social determinisms toshape the course of intellectual and socialdevelopment. The new sociologies ofknowledge cannot lose sight of the signifi-cant role played by individuals in produc-ing new knowledges and new socialrelations in everyday life, relations whichthen—it is true—often react back on humanintellectual and practical efforts and “deter-mine” their lives so far as individuals re-main subconsciously passive and enslavedto their historical and biographical unfold-ing.

The role played individually by Man-nheim’s unconscious biases in the formula-tion of the theoretical thesis and of theproblems historically gripping the sociolo-gy of knowledge as a subdiscipline illus-trates the degree to which knowledge andsociety, and self and society, in fact dialecti-cally interact, and reveals the extent towhich individual selves can and should belegitimate units of analysis of the sociologyof knowledge.

T

OWARDS

THE

S

OCIOLOGY

OF

S

ELF

-K

NOWLEDGE

The sociology of knowledge wasmarked in its early history by a ten-dency to set up grandiose hypotheticalschemes. These contributed a numberof extremely suggestive leads. Recent-ly its practitioners have tended to

withdraw from such ambitious under-takings and to restrict themselves tosomewhat more manageable investiga-tions. Although this tendency has beenan antidote to earlier types of prema-ture generalizations, it also carrieswith it the danger of trivialization.Perhaps the sociology of knowledge ofthe future will return to the more dar-ing concerns of its founders, thusbuilding upon the accumulation ofcareful and detailed investigation bypreceding generations of researchers.

(Coser 433)

In order to overcome the shortcomingsin Mannheim’s efforts towards establishingthe frameworks of a discipline dedicated tothe study of the relationship betweenknowledge and society, we need researchstrategies which pay particular attention tothe following three methodological, theo-retical, and historical sets of issues.

Methodologically, the sociology ofknowledge cannot in an

a priori

fashion as-sume that social existence is the ultimateroot of human knowledge since social exist-ence is itself also an historical product ofhuman individual and collective praxis.Moreover, it is not very fruitful to assumein an

a priori

fashion that a certain theoreti-cal model of determination universally ex-plains the complex reality of a concreteobject of historical investigation. For thisreason, in contrast to predeterministicmodels, it may perhaps be more fruitful toadopt a “postdeterminist” dialectical re-search strategy which insists that the spe-cific nature of causality between thoughtand society in concrete historio-biographi-cal investigations can be determined onlyas a

result

of concrete analysis, treating inthe process various causal modalities hith-erto developed by various sociologists ofknowledge as equally plausible and wor-thy of consideration. Needed, in otherwords, is not a predeterministic sociology

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of knowledge but a

postdeterminist dialecti-cal sociology of knowledge.

Theoretically, we need a sociology ofknowledge which can effectively help usscientifically overcome the social rooted-ness and biases of our own individualknowledges about the world and about ourown selves personally. What we need is asociology of knowledge that recognizes theability of not only the intellectuals, but ofanyone, to transcend the social rootednessand biases of their knowledge. What isneeded is a sociology of knowledge whichrecognizes that social existence can be asmuch a product of human knowledges andpractices as it is their determinant. The newsociology of knowledge thus conceivedmust not shy away from incorporating theparticular everyday life of the individualinto its conceptual framework and musttake seriously the interaction of the individ-ual and society, especially focusing on theproblem of how one can scientifically studyand reconstruct one’s own socially con-structed selves. We in fact need to developtheoretical apparatuses which can help theindividual scientifically study her or hisown selves from a world-historical per-spective, approaching the interconnectionsof the knowledges of the self and of theworld in a dialectical fashion.

Ideological and utopian biases in ourknowledges do not exist in a non-existent“group mind,” but are articulated in oftenvery specific, personal, and unique waysinto our world-views as definite individu-als. From this fact, in contrast to Man-nheim, we may conclude that humanindividuals can and should be our legiti-mate units of analysis (among others).What is important to note is that every indi-vidual has the most organic access to her orhis own individual biography and knowl-edge and therefore he or she is mostequipped potentially to tackle the deep-rooted biases of her or his own knowledge.Social discourse and external assistance

through education and training by otherscan only help so far as there is direct andself-critical cooperation and willingness byus individually to take up the task of deal-ing with our personally articulated biases.The ultimate decisive problem in any socialscientific attempt at dealing with ideologi-cal and utopian biases in knowledge, there-fore, has to be tackled at the level of eachindividual’s selves. Needed, in otherwords, is not a “sociology of knowledge” ingeneral but a “sociology of self knowl-edge,” a research strategy which systemati-cally aids us in recognizing andovercoming socially rooted biases in ourown personal thoughts, feelings, and ac-tions. This necessitates an approach whichhelps us to simultaneously pay attention tothe dialectical linkage between our knowl-edge of our individual selves and ourknowledge of society at large.

A science which aims to rid humanknowledge of socially rooted biases cannotbe itself based on biased rejections of othercultural traditions (such as mysticism)which have seriously tackled the study andtransformation of the self into the core oftheir often religiously wrapped doctrines.Mannheim’s academic ambition at build-ing a “sociological” approach in distinctionfrom other disciplines did not allow him toorganically incorporate the psychologicaland humanist points of view into his sociol-ogy of knowledge. We need to counter thisbias by consciously and critically incorpo-rating studies of self-knowledge across var-ious disciplines and cultural movements.

The historical research strategy of thenew sociology of self-knowledge can hope-fully go beyond the important study of so-cial origins of human knowledge andpractice, to the equally important study ofthe human origins of knowledge and society. Insuch intellectual efforts, the sociology ofself-knowledge may not need to restrict it-self to a particular intellectual or socialmovement, but can adopt a synthetic strat-

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egy of critically assimilating various world-historically produced perspectives pertain-ing to the problem at hand.

The historical investigations emanat-ing from Mannheim’s sociology of knowl-edge tended to focus on explaining howvarious theories and world-views of certainindividuals in/and groups were deter-mined by their social positions and inter-ests. Naturally, such an approach is biasedagainst the study of those cases in whichdefinite individuals (and groups) have infact transcended their social and historicalorigins and overcome the resulting subcon-scious biases inherited in their thinking.The new sociology of self-knowledge,therefore, adopts a reverse historical socio-logical research strategy, and studies theworld-history with the hypothetical lensethat human individuals can, regardless oftheir “intellectual” status, in fact rise abovetheir socially rooted interests and biasesand consciously determine the course oftheir own lives. The sociology of self-knowledge especially seeks to explore thedialectical interplay of biographical andworld-historical structures in the everydaylives of those individuals, groups, andmovements in history who have resistedthe status quos while building alternativeintra/interpersonal realities in favor of thegood life. The sociology of self-knowledgewill seek to study those cases from whichsignificant lessons may be drawn as to howthe determinateness of social interests andbiases can be overcome and experiences ofliberation from the blind forces of socio-his-torical inheritance partially or whollyachieved.

An important scholarly interest result-ing from the proposed sociology of self-knowledge will therefore be the study oflives of those individuals, groups, andmovements who have been the progenitorsof new practices, new social structures, andnew knowledges in world history. In suchstudies, we will focus on the study of defi-nite individuals in these movements, espe-

cially exploring the dialectical interplaybetween their knowledges of their ownselves and their knowledges of the socialworld-systems to which they belonged.1

CONCLUSION

In Ideology and Utopia Mannheim intro-duced a new distinction into the previousconceptions of ideology which Berger andLuckmann (9) considered to be Man-nheim’s own unique contribution to thetheory of ideology. As soon as ideologicalanalysis of adversary’s total ideology be-comes a weapon used by all parties againstone another, Mannheim argued, a newstage in the development of the concept ofideology is reached where “a matter of dif-ference in degree becom[es] a matter of dif-ference in kind.” The decisive turning pointin this process of generalization appearswhen we begin to analyze not only our op-ponents’ ideologies, but also that of ourown. Here, according to Mannheim, a newdistinction between special vs. general ide-ologies emerges—where “the decisivequestion is whether the thought of allgroups (including our own) or only that ofour adversaries is recognized as sociallydetermined.” With the “general formula-tion of the total conception of ideology, thesimple theory of ideology develops into thesociology of knowledge. What was oncethe intellectual armament of a party istransformed into a method of research insocial and intellectual history generally”(Mannheim 77-78).

The greatest merit of Mannheim’s soci-ology of knowledge was its intended em-phasis, through the introduction of the“general conception of ideology,” on turn-ing the gaze of the researcher back onto

1.For further arguments regarding the lim-its of modern “antisystemic” movements and infavor of critical reconsiderations of alternativeapproaches as found in the world’s utopian,mystical, and academic traditions see Tamdgidi(2001).

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herself or himself—even though this wasdone using a collective sense of the self.This element of self-reflexivity in Man-nheim’s sociology of knowledge, evasive asit was regarding individual self-knowledge,was and still is what distinguishes his ap-proach from the previous and even manysubsequent scholarship in the field.

In our reconstructions of what is valu-able in Mannheim, however, we need notabide completely by his earlier formula-tions of the sociology of knowledge. Justbecause Mannheim’s adversaries havethemselves fallen on hard times does notmake his arguments valid. Our knowledg-es do not have to be bound by the social ex-istence of the conceptual structuresinherited from Mannheim. They can betranscended.

In Ideology and Utopia, Mannheim aban-doned the particular conception of ideolo-gy, sought after the total conception, andarrived at the general conception of ideolo-gy—stressing that not just our adversaries’viewpoints, but our own as well are ideo-logical. The critique of Mannheim’s argu-ment as presented in this article, however,has revealed the inadequacies of such ageneral and collectivist conception of ideol-ogy apart from the particular and uniquecircumstances of the individual’s life andthinking. The particular and the generalcannot be mechanically separated; they aredialectically interlinked and interpenetrate.They stand to one another as part andwhole. They exist through one another.Any attempt by the investigator to searchfor generally constructed ideological orutopian mental structures over and abovethe unique reality of her or his own person-al conceptions and knowledges would be aself-defeating endeavor.

Mannheim’s sociological imaginationneeds to be dialectically stretched in two di-rections. We need to bring into dialecticalinteraction with one another our personalself-knowledge and our knowledge of theworld-historical structures which have for

millennia constituted the social existence ofour lives. In both of these the assumed sin-gularity of the “individual” self processesand the assumed multiplicities of theworld-historical structures need to be ques-tioned and challenged. The dichotomies ofknowledge/existence, self/society, andtheory/practice must be reconceptualizedon a dialectical basis, their relationship be-ing freed from the conceptual and practicalbondages of reductive methodological rea-soning. Research in the sociology of self-knowledge will aim to contribute to the re-alization of such a world-historically self-conscious pedagogical and social praxis.

The critique of Mannheim’s argumentabove has revealed a new conception ofideology which synthesizes the general andthe particular conceptions of ideology pre-viously separated in Mannheim’s thinking.We may begin to call this new conception,the concrete conception of ideology. Ultimate-ly, it is the self-critical transcendence of ourworld-historically constructed ideologicaland utopian biases at the concrete level ofour own unique selves that can begin to lib-erate us from the invisible shackles of ourinner slaveries and help build a truly de-alienated and just global society.

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Bordo, Susan (1987). The Flight to Objectivity:Essays on Cartesianism and Culture.Albany: Staten University of New YorkPress.

Bullock, Alan and R. B. Woodings, eds. (1983).Twentieth-Century Culture. New York:Harper & Row Publishers.

Coser, Lewis (1968). “Knowledge, Sociologyof,” in The International Encyclopedia of theSocial Sciences, edited by D. L. Sills. NewYork: Macmillan Company, 428-435.

Curtis, James E. and John Petras eds. (1970). The

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139

SOCIALEXISTENCE

Unconscious

Unconscious

Conscious

Practices Loop (Routines)

Conscious Practices Loop (Conducts)

Indicates the determining pole in the

relationship between knowledge and social existence

Figure 1: Unconscious and Conscious Loops

in the Dialectics of Knowledge and Social Existence

Note that knowledge is conceptualized

as being a part of social existence as a whole

(hence the broken lines).

KNOWLEDGE