THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MANNHEIM S SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE AND HUSSERL S PHENOMENOLOGY

The Sociology of Knowledge, firstly presented by Max Scheler and Karl Mannheim during the second decade of 20th century, was rooted in the evolution of the social sciences at the latest years of 19th century and formation of the opposite trends named the functionalism and behaviourism. In the field of philosophy, Edmund Husserl introduced phenomenology as an alternative to the classical distinction between ontology and epistemology, and showed a third way to understand the world based on this argument that the meaning of the phenomena is not separated from its existence. Trying to overcome the duality of subjectivity and objectivity, Husserl, theorizing the concept of life-world as the origin of knowledge, established the philosophical tradition which sociology of knowledge best represented it at the sociological level. But since this part of Husserl’s work has been overly disregarded, many scholars considered phenomenology as transcendental idealism which presumes the priority of subjective knowledge and as a result they understand it in opposition to the sociology in general and sociology of knowledge in partial. However, the works of Mannheim, seeking the relation between thought and social existence, show the continuity of the phenomenological logic in sociology. By interpreting and comparing the works of Husserl and Mannheim, this paper tries to examine the connections between phenomenology and sociology of knowledge. Triple main subjects of this article are firstly the Husserl's approach to the problem of nature and the transition from the duality of the subjectivity and objectivity to the concept of intentionality; secondly, the concepts of life-world and inter-subjectivity, and finally defining the reality as the social and the relational phenomenon.