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With this the second volume, we now have in volume form all the shorter papers written by Professor Karl Mannheim. It contains a number of papers published elsewhere, but also four unpublished lectures on 'Planned Society and the Problem of Human Personality', originally given at Oxford. The psycho-analyst will find much to interest him, particularly in these lectures and more generally throughout the volume.
A major aspect of Mannheim's contribution to sociology concerns the sociology of knowledge, the main thesis of which is that ideas emerge and develop in response to, and are determined by, their socio-historical situation. Mannheim stressed that a particular perception of social reality will be determined by the social position from which it is viewed, and will vary with different social and historical settings. Part I of this volume with the important chapter on 'Conservative Thought' illustrates this type of sociological approach.
It is thus relevant to note than Mannheim himself changed after 1933 when he left Frankfurt for England. Like many of the Weimar intellectuals, he had seen himself as part of a 'socially unattached intelligentsia', analysing history but never part of it. His approach was historical, theoretical, and aloof, though the intellectual liberal in him believed he was part of a creative social force for the future. Meanwhile, history was to show that if the intelligentsia are to act as 'night watchmen' as Mannheim wished, and since night watchmen are usually the first to detect the presence of intruders, they must learn to grapple with their assailants until help comes. This situation, once described by Julien Benda as 'La Trahison des clercs', Mannheim experienced to the full and sought later to remedy. England taught him to be more pragmatic, and with this direct experience of social crisis he came to think more in terms of how to influence history. His experience in Germany gave an urgency to his teaching, and since he saw Englan