Essays Soc & Social Psych V 6

Karl Mannheim

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415136761
• eBook ISBN: 9781136178702
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

This is Volume VI of a collection of works by Karl Mannheim. Originally published in 1953, this book holds essays that completes the re-edition of the shorter scientific papers, which Karl Mannheim wrote during the last twenty-five years of his life.

PART ONE

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STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS IN SOCIOLOGY

CHAPTER I

Structural Analysis of Epistemology¹

SECTION 1
Of the Logic of Philosophical Systematization

1. CONCEPT OF A LOGIC OF SYSTEMATIZATIONS

THE object of this inquiry is to analyse the structure of a branch of philosophy, i.e. epistemology, with a view to contributing towards a logic of philosophy and so towards an all-embracing theory of systematizations in general.

Since the questions with which we are going to deal can only be understood properly in relation to this wider field, it seems advisable to preface the analysis of our specific topic, epistemology, with a few remarks about these more comprehensive subjects.

Ever since Lask² first postulated the need for a logic of philosophy and sketched it in broad outlines, interest in contemporary philosophical circles has centred on this problem, but nobody has ever attempted to provide a solution in concreto. The inevitability of this demand from quite a different aspect has also been pointed out with much force by Croce in the opening paragraphs of his book on Hegel. ‘Strange is the aversion’, he says, ‘to this conception of a logic of philosophy (for it is really very simple and should be accepted as irresistibly evident). It is the idea, in other words, that philosophy proceeds by a method peculiar to itself, the theory of which should be sought and formulated. No one doubts that mathematics has a method of its own, which is studied in the logic of mathematics; that the natural sciences have their method, from which arises the logic of observation, of experiment, of abstraction; that historiography has its method, and that therefore there is a logic of the historical method; that poetry and art in general give us the logic of poetry and art, i.e. aesthetic; that in economic activity is inherent a method, which is afterwards reflected in economic science; and that finally the moral activity has its method, which is reflected in ethic (or logic of the will, as it has sometimes been called). But when we come to philosophy, very many recoil from this conclusion: that it, too, from the moment of its inception, must have a method of its own, which must be determined. Conversely, very few are surprised at the fact that treatises on logic, while giving much space to the consideration of the disciplines of the mathematical and natural sciences, as a rule give no special attention to the discipline of philosophy, and often pass it over altogether in silence.’¹

Whether or not ethics should be conceived as nothing but a ‘logic of the will’ (as the passage quoted above would have it), economics as simply a logic of economic activities, and so on, may be left undecided; but we unreservedly accept the fundamental idea expressed by Croce, namely, that every mental intellectual or cultural field has a structure of its own, so that it will always be legitimate to ask for a thorough-going structural analysis from which we may deduce the structural peculiarities of the various individual fields—whether they belong to the sphere of theory, of practice, or of poiesis.

Actual inquiries into the logic of philosophy have not been forthcoming, although the problem is there for all to see, and this omission may be due, for the greater part, to the present-day schism in logic, which has so far prevented any agreement on how to set about such an undertaking, or where to bring the weight of logical analysis to bear for the purpose.

Croce, judging by the above remarks, looks on the logic of philosophy as a problem of methodology. Lask takes its proper sphere to be in the main the development of a theory of philosophical categories, while others again would confine themselves to an exploration of the nature of philosophical concept-formation.

This should be enough to show that we cannot so much as begin with the logical analysis of any particular field until we have made up our minds about what we are to think of the systematic connection among the different branches of logic itself; whether we are to say, for example, that the method of a discipline determines the formation of its concepts, or whether, on the contrary, the conceptualization explains the method; in short, which of the relevant logical forms is to be regarded as central to the logical examination.

To state our main contention right away: in our view, primacy among logical forms belongs to systematization. The simpler forms can be understood, in our opinion, only in terms of this ‘highest’, ‘all-embracing’ form.

That is not to say, however, that this form is to be examined in isolation from the others; quite the reverse: it is in fact essential to a comprehensive structural analysis of any field that it should if possible cover all the different logical elements; but the inquiry should be guided throughout by the systematization of the field in question. The specific concepts, problems and methods characterizing a field can be understood only from its peculiar ‘impulse to systematization’ (if we may use this subjectivist term for the time being).

If it is already odd that no positive logic of philosophy has ever been worked out, it is even more surprising that the common textbooks on logic have nothing at all, or nothing of real significance, to say about the most fundamental logical form, i.e., systematization.¹ All the same, our attempt to treat systematization as the central concept of logic does not seem to be out of tune with contemporary trends in philosophy.

There can in fact be no mistaking that the trend which is becoming predominant today, at least in the cultural sciences, runs counter to the precept once given by Descartes to proceed, as it were, in atomizing fashion and explain more complex structures in terms of simpler ones; the present trend is, on the contrary, to explain simpler structures in terms of more complex ones.

It may already be a sign of this new spirit in research that Sigwart, Windelband, Rickert and a host of others place the emphasis in logic no longer upon the theory of concepts, as was customary before them, but upon the theory of judgment; i.e. that they seek to understand the simpler forms in terms of the more comprehensive ones. Admittedly, this greater emphasis upon judgment in many contemporary scholars largely stems from a psychologistic bias which inevitably seeks to stress the genetic factor; nevertheless, the fact cannot be overlooked that they place the more complex, the ‘higher’ forms above the simpler ones.

Systematization must above all receive pride of place in a logic which puts

, rather than

, at the head. Some further explanation is in order, however, if we go all the way in this direction, and confer priority upon that sector of logic which appears as its final culmination rather than as its starting point. To maintain the priority of systematization over the concept and the judgment is not to say, quite obviously, that the thinker as an existent person must be in possession of a clear-cut philosophical system to begin with, in order to be able to form a concept at all; that, of course, would be sheer nonsense. What it does mean is this: each concept implies, as its tacit presuppositions which for the most part do not become the object of conscious reflection, certain connections, certain configurations reaching beyond the seemingly isolated concept. Conscious reflection turns towards these presuppositions as a rule only if, for reasons into which we need not go here, a doubt arises as to the content comprised by a concept, when it becomes necessary to elucidate its signification with the help of other concepts, by bringing the whole context to bear on the problem. The meaning of an individual concept is rooted in its whole context, and this can further be demonstrated from quite a different approach.

Take the formation of a new concept in science—or, for that matter, in everyday life. This can be shown always to involve three things. What is pertinent in the first place is the—as yet indeterminate—matter concerned, which is always before us as a matrix differentiating a new meaning. In the second place we pay attention to the concepts we already have and which have a bearing on the concept to be formed. And finally we somehow take into account the systematization as a whole which, quite un-reflectedly as a rule, is constantly with us whenever we form a new concept, as the general pattern of the entire context. The outcome of this process (considered, for the time being, from a genetic point of view) is that all concepts are more or less closely correlated with others, that any one concept implies others as having already been posited. This correlatedness is most clearly evidenced by what we know as complementary concepts like form and content, or mountain and valley, where it is perfectly obvious that the one has meaning only in respect of the other. And something of this complementariness inheres in concepts of every kind. The mutual interdependence of concepts in this sense constitutes a continuum, but not the one represented by the Aristotelian scale of forms (where concepts are ordered according to the different degrees of universality, and where the locus in the pyramid of concepts is adequately determined by giving the genus proximum together with its differentia specified). It is to be understood, rather, as a chain-sequence which (as we have seen in the case of complementary terms) leads on from one link to the next, and which seems to suggest an infinite progression.

However isolated it may seem, a concept still has systematic presuppositions. Let us assume for argument's sake what is never in fact the case, that concepts are simply proper names of concrete things; it can be shown of even such completely a-systematic concepts that they involve a systematization. If a concept were nothing but a proper name of a ‘This here’—something like pointing at the thing with a finger—and if it contained nothing beyond this osten-sive reference, then it would be a concept in a truly minimal sense. But it will be shown that even this rudiment of a concept involves an implicit systematization. It would be possible, under certain circumstances, to develop a sign language corresponding to concepts reduced to the mere pointing out of things ‘here and now’— for instance, by assigning a particular letter of the alphabet as a proper name to an individual object we meet. This table in front of me would be called a, this chair b, and so on. No letter could be used twice over in this game—another table, for instance, could not be called a—or else we should be going beyond the hypothetical minimal conceptualization. If we applied a symbol to several objects, it would no longer be a mere proper name; by proceeding in this way, we should introduce into our concept formation the tacit assumption that there are real objects of the same kind which can occur more than once. Furthermore, if our conceptual scheme is to be devoid of any systematizing presuppositions, it must under no circumstances be thought of as ordered in a series like numbers or the letters of the alphabet, because this would mean adding a systematizing element to mere naming as such—that is, in the case of numbers, the law governing the series of the natural numbers, and in that of the alphabet, the notion that every letter (and consequently the object denoted by it) has its proper place in a series in which, despite the absence of a law underlying the series, the position of each term is fixed with reference to its neighbours. Supposing, then, that we eliminate all these factors of systematization, and merely retain isolated, and therefore isolating, proper names, which could thus cover the infinite number of things by infinitely many symbols—symbols which show no order like the alphabet; even if our conceptual system is thus reduced to a minimum, some systematizing presupposition will still have crept in unawares; that is, naming itself in fact proceeds on the assumption that the initially indefinite variety of the things which can be named can be transformed, by the act of naming, into a collection of discretely identifiable individualities.

This example goes to show that even a minimal conceptual system, the ‘system of proper names’, presupposes some kind of systematization, that even a rudimentary concept cannot come into being without implying some systematizing presuppositions, however unreflected. The same example also serves to lay down what is to be understood by a tacit assumption, an implicit presupposition. It is not an antecedent line of thought which the individual must have gone through before he can understand or form a concept; it is a set of implications he has to accept, acknowledge, take for granted, whenever he uses a theoretical concept significantly or turns his attention to it.

That the concepts with which we actually have to do in the sphere of theoretical thought are not ‘minimal concepts’ in this sense, i.e. that they are more than such ‘proper names’, hardly needs detailed proof. If, however, even such rudiments of concepts already involve systematic presuppositions, we shall expect these to be present to an even higher degree in the concepts of common sense, let alone of science. We must begin, therefore, by working out some of the systematic presuppositions which are involved by any theoretical concept whatever.

The ‘minimum of theoretical systematisation’ which must already be assumed for the genesis of conceptual proper names might be formulated as the principle of ‘delimiting the individual elements as isolatable from one another’. This is in sharp contrast to the systematic presupposition underlying our nonrudimentary, fully developed concepts, which holds that they form a continuum of closely interrelated elements. And if, as modern logic would have it, judgments are nothing but the locus where concepts originate, concepts in turn being condensed and stored judgments, then our principle, applied to the theory of judgments, will assume the following form: in the theoretical sphere, one has to presuppose a closed chain of continuously connected propositions. Something of this nature was Bolzano's view when he taught that every truth is correlated with all other truths in the sphere of validity. Yet this ‘principle of continuity’, the systematizing assumption in the theoretical sphere, does not apply to the aesthetic sphere, where indeed a contrary principle appears to hold (as G. Lukács maintains among others). In primary experience a work of art is taken to be an isolated monad. One truth always implies another truth, and for that reason a new insight can do away with former knowledge, show it up as a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• The Sociology of Karl Mannheim
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• EDITORIAL NOTE
• INTRODUCTION
• PART ONE STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS IN SOCIOLOGY
• PART TWO GERMAN AND WESTERN SOCIOLOGY
• PART THREE SOCIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
• PART FOUR PLANNED SOCIETY AND THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN PERSONALITY: A SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
• INDEX