Karl Mannheim's Jewish Question

Bibliographic Data

ID3477436
AuthorsDavid Kettler (Memorial University of Newfoundland, corresponding author), Volker Meja (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
Year2012
Volume3
Issue2
Pages228-250
Publication date2012-04-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel3020228
OpenAlexW2055688784
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited11

In this paper, we explore Karl Mannheim's puzzling failure (or refusal) to address himself in any way to questions arising out of the position of Jews in Germany, either before or after the advent of Nazi rule-and this, notwithstanding the fact, first, that his own ethnic identification as a Jew was never in question and that he shared vivid experiences of anti-Semitism, and consequent exile from both Hungary and Germany, and, second, that his entire sociological method rested upon using one's own most problematic social location-as woman, say, or youth, or intellectual-as the starting point for a reflexive investigation. It was precisely Mannheim's convictions about the integral bond between thought grounded in reflexivity and a mission to engage in a transformative work of Bildung that made it effectively impossible for him to formulate his inquiries in terms of his way of being Jewish. It is through his explorations of the rise and fall of the intellectual as socio-cultural formation that Mannheim investigates his relations to his Jewish origins and confronts the disaster of 1933. The key to our puzzle is to be found in the theory of assimilation put forward in the dissertation of his student, Jacob Katz

Bildung · Epistemology · Ethnic group · German · Judaism · Nazism · Psychoanalysis · Reflexivity · Sociology · Theology · Transformative learning · Anthropology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · German legal, social, and political studies · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious studies

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