David Kettler

Rationalizing the Irrational: Karl Mannheim and the Besetting Sin of German Intellectuals

Sociological theory is ambivalent about the rationalizing processes of which it forms a part. This constitutive difficulty presents itself today in ways that have instructive parallels to the problem constellation confronting the first generation of 20th-century sociological classics. Karl Mannheims Ideologie und Utopie (1929) was extraordinarily successful in Germany at the historical turning point of the Weimar Republic. This marks him as a representative figure among those contemporaries who acknowledged the force of irrationalist criticisms of progressive liberalism but sought to contain the destructive dynamics of such criticisms within a new type of rational framework, both intellectual and political. The article contrasts Mannheims encounters with antirationalist thought in Ideologie un Utopie with the later pragmatist instrumental rationalism of his writings in English exile. In analyzing the shift, special attention is paid to Mannheims involvement in Paul Tillichs religious socialist circle and to confrontations between Mannheim and Georg Lukacs, Oscar jaszi, Eduard Heimann, Max Hrkheimer, and Theodor W. Adorno. Newly discovered letters and transcripts are use to specify these relationships. Mannheims promising theoretical beginnings were disruped by the brute facts of his generations biography. Learning from Mannheim requires retrieval of his achievements, criticism of its distortions, and renewed start in the direction of his work during the 1920s.

Karl Mannheim and Conservatism: The Ancestry of Historical Thinking

The recently discovered full text of Karl Mannheims Habilitationsschrift on conservatism documents the interaction between his empirical and philosophical interests. While his philosophical interests at the time of writing (1925) centered on philosophy of history as ground for substantive social theory, following the methodological lead of Luk6cs, Conservatism is Weberian in its theoretical design. Mannheim employs the empirical approach of the new academic sociology to establish findings which link a politically radical philosophy of history to conservative thought while suspending his own judgment concerning an adequate integration between them. Although he indicates that Hegels conception of theory anticipates the synthesis required, he finds that this conception presupposes metaphysical or sociological premises he cannot accept. He nevertheless also distances himself from the disillusioned realism of Weber, and leaves open the project offinding a functional equivalent for Hegels metaphysics or Lukacs Marxist economist.

THEIR `OWN PECULIAR WAY': KARL MANNHEIM AND THE RISE OF WOMEN

Mannheims published works do not prepare scholars for the importance he attached to the study of women; and his origins in an intellectual milieu attracted to metaphysical dualisms adds interest to his attempted rapprochement with liberal feminism. This study explores a surprising parallel drawn by Karl Mannheim as teacher in the 1930s. Despite vital differences in their social genealogies, women and intellectuals both exemplify groups constitutive of social structure without fitting in the Marxist scheme of social classes. Both groups are in crisis owing to a disproportion between their objective social situations and the conceptions by which they orient themselves. Sociology provides a method, and crisis provides the impulse for both to gain clarity about themselves and their situations. The ensuing group consciousness enables each of them to counter socially oppressive power without abandoning valuable qualities in their distinct social identities for the sake of revolutionary mass mobilisation. Mannheims thesis requires a conception of constitutional negotiation of group divergences, but his sociological legacy of holistic change and organic integration denies him the political resources to realise such a vision. He fascinates gifted students, but both politicised male intellectuals and independent women treat his design as only a point of departure. The three dissertations by women students reviewed here - one of them a novel enquiry into families of a special kind and two of them pioneering works, respectively, in German and English womens studies - document three different bargains with Mannheim, each of them reserving important intellectual and emotional space from his influence.

Sociology as political education

German professors and academic intellectuals are often blamed for passivity or complicity in the National Socialist rise to power. Karl Mannheim was a leading representative of a vital minority of university personalities who devoted themselves to making sociology and higher education contribute to democratization. Sociology as Political Education is both an analytical account of Mannheims efforts as well as an illustration of the application of sociological knowledge to the world of practical action. Together with a second biographical volume by the editors, forthcoming next season, it comprisesa complete record of Karl Mannheim in the university life of the Weimar period. The comparatively new discipline of sociology was looked upon with favor by the Weimar Republics reformers of higher education. In advancing its methods Mannheim had first to contend first with prominent and influential figures who attacked sociology as a mere political device to undermine cultural and national values for the sake of narrow interests and partisanship. He then had to meet the objections of fellow sociologists who were convinced that the discipline could prosper only as an area of specialized study with no claim to educational goals beyond the technical reproduction. Finally, he had to separate himself from proponents of politicized sociology. Sociological thought should be rigorous, critical, and attentive to evidence, but, Mannheim argued, its system had to be open and congruent with the ultimate responsibility of human beings for their acts. Loader and Kettler supplement Mannheims groundbreaking volume with previously untranslated Mannheim texts, among them a transcript of his 1930 sociology course in which Mannheim answered his critics and clarified his intentions. Sociology as Political Education is not only of historical significance, but also shows Mannheims relevance for current discussions of academic integrity and politicization. This volume will be of interest to sociologists, cultural historians, and political scientists.

History and Theory in Ferguson's Essay On the History of Civil Society A Reconsideration

as you have stated the Question, tis not about what was First, or Foremost; but what is Instant, and Now in being.... You go (if I may say so) upon Fact, and would prove that things actually are in such a state and condition, which if they really were, there would indeed by no dispute left. [Shaftesbury, The Moralist]. As for the Performance itself, it is but an Essay. [Edward Ward]

Legal Reconstitution of the Welfare State: A Latent Social Democratic Legacy

The great challenge to contemporary political analysis and theoretical reflection is posed by the much discussed crisis of the welfare state in the wealthy nations of western Europe and North America, by the attendant dramatic reversals of public policy in several of the leading nations, and by the widespread loss of confidence and political initiative among the welfare states dedicated partisans (Dunn, 1984). Although it is historically accurate enough to say that the essence of the welfare state is government protected minimum standards of income, nutrition, health, housing, and education, assured to every citizen as a right, not as a charity (Wilensky, 1975, p. 1), a broader use of the term seems justified by usage in important parts of the literature (Lowi, 1985), as well as by analytical considerations. The new classes of expenditures and guarantees to which the historical definition refers have been everywhere closely intertwined with regulatory and planning measures, as well as with characteristic developments in the organization of government and the constitution of the political process. As Luhmann has pointed out, the welfare state utilizes law as well as money in the attempt to compensate all citizens for disadvantaged interests (Luhmann, 1981: pp. 25 32). Fiscal problems doubtless have fueled the allegations of crisis, but the debate is by no means limited to issues directly affecting the public budget. The contemporary attack is aimed against the whole complex of developments associated with the great thrustin the direction of the welfare state, which Jurgen Habermas correctly identifies as the central political development of the twentieth century in these nations (Habermas, 1981).

The Political Theory Question in Political Science, 1956-1967

Despite the postwar rise of behavioralism in political science, the Review gave surprising prominence to traditional political theory during Harvey C. Mansfields ten-year term as editor (1956–1965), all the more striking for the prominence of Leo Strauss and his students during the first half of this period. This article considers several factors that help explain the surprising recognition given this subfield and its unexpected bargaining power.

The Reconstitution of Political Life: The Contemporary Relevance of Karl Mannheim's Political Project

The deeply interested response to Mannheims work among certain Weimar reformist socialists prompts a reconsideration of his political thought. The affinity between them arises out of similar conceptions of synthesis as a practical, provisional normalization of continuing oppositions rather than as a transcendent reconciliation of contradictions. In this respect, Mannheims sociology of knowledge resembles the constitutional theories of such socialist lawyers as Franz L. Neumann and Ernst Fraenkel. Such theories of imperfect synthesis are again relevant in the contemporary state of critical political theory.

Temporizing with Time Wars Karl Mannheim and Problems of Historical Time

Karl Mannheim’s orientations to time can be plotted between subjectivist and objectivist extremes. The latter corresponds to social engineering, while the former offers the context in which Mannheim uses Hobbes’s primaeval war to imagine the chaotic struggle over time that he hopes to escape. Mannheim’s distinctive achievement is ‘dynamic sociology’, an experimental approach marked by the recognition not only of historicity in social phenomena and concepts but also of the opportunities thereby provided for clarifying meaning on terms congruent with the experiences of contemporary humankind. Mannheim’s initial statement of ‘dynamic sociology’ is refined by his better-known studies of generations, ideologies, and utopias, which specify his awareness of co-existent multiple time worlds. Coordination is left to ad hocmediation. This does not answer Mannheim’s deepest fears and wishes, but he has the discipline to settle for less.

Legal Formalism and Disillusioned Realism in Max Weber

Max Webers thesis of the vital link between formal legal rationality and civilized power rests on considerations of prudence that remain compelling. Yet his resignation to injustice as part of an undifferentiated tragedy of existence goes too far in ignoring issues of social justice and democracy. This article seeks a more adequate approach by first explicating Webers approach through his own discussion of Sancho Panza as exemplar of the hazards of substantive justice and then suggesting how to move beyond Webers conclusions by taking up Judith Shklars suggestions about how a democratic politics of consent and dissent can simultaneously heed injustice and maintain the rule of law.