The magic triangle

in defense of a general sociology of knowledge

Nico Stehr

pp. 135-140

in: Marian T. Adolf (ed), Nico Stehr, Berlin, Springer, 2018

Abstract

Karl Mannheim's at times rather tentative and at times most ambivalent commitment to a programme of merging philosophical (especially epistemological), sociological and moral discourse could only emerge after he severed strong dependence on a Hegelian philosophy of history. For it was on the basis of such a philosophy that Mannheim, for many years, remained convinced that most if not all intellectual and social divisions in society were mere transitory phenomena, soon be to transcended by the logic of history. Mannheim's commitment to joining separate, narrow and unequal modes of discourse, however, is also tentative and ambivalent because such a programme strongly violates contemporary prohibitions and taboos against mixing, for example, sociological and moral issues. It would not violate the same set of norms, however, if one were to view sociological discourse as dependent and subsequent to epistemological discourse. It is my contention that a non-restrictive and self-reflexive sociology of knowledge requires a set of arguments which are based on the assumption that moral, sociological and epistemological modes of discourse are interdependent.

Cited authors

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich

Mannheim Karl