Systematic Sociology. An Introduction to the Study of Society: By Karl Mannheim. Edited by J. S. Erös and W. A. C. Stewart. New York: Philosophical Library, Inc., 1958. 169 pp.

This posthumous publication, based on lectures delivered at the London School of Economics between 1934 and the end of World War II, has been conscientiously edited by two of Mannheim's former students.

Justly renowned for his contributions to the sociology of knowledge, Mannheim concerns himself in the present study with a synthesis of the various sciences of man. In a meaningful if tentative manner, he attempts to correlate the findings of modern psychology with the methods and schools of sociological analysis. His general orientation is epitomized in the following words: 'My view is that analysis of politics without psychology is quite inadequate. But on the other hand, psychology alone is insufficient because psychology has a very important limitation: it tends to cut out the social factors, such as the development of institutions and of the technical apparatus of society and it neglects economic pressures and the needs and influences arising from strategic and military factors to which a society is exposed.'

Viewing behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and Marxism as 'partial analyses', rather than whole systems, Mannheim was 'trying to use the result of the investigations of all three, to obtain a more adequate picture of the working of society'. Whether or not such a heroic synthesis is even possible, Mannheim's prolegomenon to a science of man and society will come as a welcome relief to those who have been surfeited with the statistical compulsion of modern sociology.

Empiricists in the social sciences will find this book rather more eclectic and philosophical ('speculative') than their own techniques of investigation would allow. Nevertheless, an octopoid eclecticism has been avoided, and the results are truly systematic and rewarding.