Abstract

Designed as a case study of the reception of the work of European sociologists in American sociology, this thesis examines the reception of the 1936 English publication of Karl Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia and the subsequent pursuit through the 1940s and 1950s of Mannheim's approach to the sociology of knowledge. The fate of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge is linked to changes in American philosophy from the mid-1930s through the 1950s, the intellectual and disciplinary transformations of American sociology during this same period, and the international political events--primarily the rise of fascism in Europe, and the Second World War--that impinged on the general intellectual outlook of sociologists and philosophers. ;The relativistic implications of the sociology of knowledge were the most discussed aspect of Ideology and Utopia among both philosophers and sociologists, and the widespread negative response to Mannheim's epistemological position drew support from the repertoire of philosophical arguments that were contemporaneously being used against John Dewey's contextual pragmatism. The turning away from pragmatist philosophical positions meant that a crucial philosophical legitimation for the sociology of knowledge did not materialize. The "substantive sociology of knowledge also failed to appreciably develop in large part because the detailed historical research demands of Mannheim's analysis of styles of thought were at odds with the data requirements and nomothetic aspirations of a would-be scientific sociology. Nonetheless, aspects of Mannheim's work were conjoined with Gunnar Myrdal's search for "hidden valuations" in social research to produce the rudiments of a sociology of sociology research tradition in the late 1940s and 1950s. This form of the sociology of knowledge is contrasted with the stylistic analysis of thought that Mannheim championed in his own empirical research, and the central tenets of Mannheim's "research program" into the sociology of styles of thought are outlined. The strengths and weaknesses of this approach are assessed and comparisons are made between Mannheim's work and approaches to stylistic analysis in art history