Politics and Method in Mannheim's `Ideology and Utopia'

Abstract

Previous interpretations of Mannheim, as relativist, as co-founder of the sociology of knowledge, or as hermeneutic thinker, fail to identify one of his basic intentions, namely the defence of Enlightenment notions such as `reason' and `rationality' against what he identifies as the dislocating effects of modernity. Contrary to the interpretation of Mannheim as a relativist, we argue, on the basis of a detailed discussion of Ideology and Utopia, that relativism is not the conclusion of his sociology of knowledge but its starting point. Mannheim wants to save the project of epistemology - the reconstruction of a unifying world order - in the light of historical developments which render an absolute solution no longer feasible. He attempts this ambitious project not through the dissolution of epistemology, but rather through a sociological reconstruction of its basic categories. This leads him to an essentially methodological solution to the problems of modernity, the political and sociological implications of which are identified as the elevation of the sociologist to the role of cultural arbitrator and the consequent reduction of differences of interest and value to questions of planning.