MANNHEIM, KARL

born March 27, 1893, Budapest died Jan. 9, 1947, London, Eng. sociologist in Germany before the rise of Adolf Hitler and then in Great Britain, remembered for his sociology of knowledge, for his study of science as a social organization having a sociological impact outside itself, and for his work on the problems of leadership and consensus. After teaching at the universities of Heidelberg (192630) and Frankfurt am Main (193033), Mannheim lectured on sociology at the London School of Economics, University of London (193345), and was professor of the philosophy and sociology of education at that university's Institute of Education (194547). In Mannheim's view, social conflict is caused by the diversity of individual ways of thought and personal criteria of truth. He believed these differences are more basic than economic disparity and class consciousness, which Marxist philosophers emphasize. He elaborated these ideas in Ideologie und Utopie (1929; 4th ed., 1965; Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge). He argued in favour of subjective beliefs (which to him were knowledge) at the expense of verifiable facts. In the posthumously published Freedom, Power, and Democratic Planning (1950), Mannheim tried to reconcile his dislike of totalitarianism and his growing belief in the need for social planning.