Karl Mannheim Quotes
Karl Mannheim was a Hungarian-born sociologist and philosopher and one of the founders of the sociology of knowledge. After teaching at Heidelberg and Frankfurt, he fled the Nazi regime to England, where he taught at the London School of Economics and the Institute of Education. The quotes below are attributed to Karl Mannheim, organized by topic.
Browse Karl Mannheim by topic
Karl Mannheim on God
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“We are faced with the curiously appalling trend of modern thought, in which the absolute which was once a means of entering into communion with the divine, has now become an instrument used by those who profit from it, to distort, pervert, and conceal the meaning of the present.”
Ideology and Utopia(1929)
Karl Mannheim on Happiness
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“Whereas the particular conception of ideology designates only a part of the opponent's assertions as ideologies — and this only with reference to their content, the total conception calls into question the opponent's total Weltanschauung (including his conceptual apparatus), and attempts to understand these concepts as an outgrowth of the collective life of which he partakes.”
Wikiquote
Karl Mannheim on Justice
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“The general form of the total conception of ideology is being used by the analyst when he has the courage to subject not just the adversary's point of view but all points of view, including his own, to the ideological analysis. At the present stage of our understanding it is hardly possible to avoid this general formulation of the total conception of ideology, according to which the thought of all parties in all epochs is of an ideological character.”
Wikiquote
Karl Mannheim on Knowledge
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Attributed to Karl Mannheim:
“The sociology of knowledge is the theory of the social or existential conditioning of thought.”
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Attributed to Karl Mannheim:
“Thought, even in its most abstract form, is rooted in the conditions of human existence.”
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“As long as one does not call his own position into question but regards it as absolute, while interpreting his opponents' ideas as a mere function of the social positions they occupy, the decisive step forward has not yet been taken.”
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“In attempting to expose the views of another, one is forced to make one's own view appear infallible and absolute, which is a procedure altogether to be avoided if one is making a specifically non-evaluative investigation. The second possible approach is nevertheless to combine such a non-evaluative analysis with a definite epistemology. Viewed from the angle of this second approach there are two separate and distinct solutions to the problem of what constitutes reliable knowledge — the one solution may be termed relationism , and the other relativism .”
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“To-day, there are too many points of view of equal value and prestige, each showing the relativity of the other, to permit us to take any one position and to regard it as impregnable and absolute. Only this socially disorganized intellectual situation makes possible the insight, hidden until now by a generally stable social structure and the practicability of certain traditional norms, that every point of view is particular to a social situation.”
Wikiquote
Karl Mannheim on Life
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“The thought of every group is seen as arising out of its life conditions. Thus, it becomes the task of the sociological history of thought to anlayse without regard for party biases all the factors in the actually existing social situation which may influence thought. This sociologically oriented history of ideas is destined to provide modern men with a revised view of the whole historical process.”
Wikiquote
Karl Mannheim on Mind
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Attributed to Karl Mannheim:
“Genuine self-knowledge requires that we understand the social location of our thought.”
Karl Mannheim on Nature
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“Conflicting intellectual positions may actually come to supplement one another. It is imperative in the present transitional period to make use of the intellectual twilight which dominates our epoch and in which all values and points of view appear in their genuine relativity. We must realize once and for all that the meanings which make up our world are simply an historically determined and continuously developing structure in which man develops, and are in no sense absolute.”
Wikiquote
Karl Mannheim on Politics
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Attributed to Karl Mannheim:
“Ideologies are the ideas which serve a particular interest.”
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Attributed to Karl Mannheim:
“Utopia is the ideology of the rising group.”
Karl Mannheim on Time
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“At this point in history when all things which concern man and the structure and elements of history itself are suddenly revealed to us in a new light, it behooves us in our scientific thinking to become masters of the situation, for it is not inconceivable that sooner than we suspect, as has often been the case before in history, this vision may disappear, the opportunity may be lost, and the world will once again present a static, uniform, and inflexible countenance.”
Wikiquote
Karl Mannheim on Truth
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“Once we recognize that all historical knowledge is relational knowledge, and can only be formulated with reference to the position of the observer, we are faced, once more, with the task of discriminating between what is true and what is false in such knowledge.”
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“It may indeed be true that in order to act we need a certain amount of self-confidence and intellectual self-assurance. It may also be true that the very form of expression, in which we clothe our thoughts, tends to impose upon them an absolute tone.”
Wikiquote
Karl Mannheim on Virtue
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“When the empirical investigator glories in his refusal to go beyond the specialized observation dictated by the traditions of his discipline, be they ever so inclusive, he is making a virtue out of a defense mechanism which insures him against questioning his presuppositions.”
Ideology and Utopia(1929)