The Sociology of Knowledge and Diagnosis of Time with Max Scheler and Karl Mannheim

When Earle Edward Eubank visited European sociologists in the summer of 1934, he held conversations with Hans Freyer, Franz Oppenheimer, Werner Sombart, Ferdinand Tönnies, Alfred Vierkandt, Alfred Weber and Leopold von Wiese in Germany and with Othmar Spann and Erich Voegelin in Austria. They were asked to appraise and define their attitude to a number of German speaking sociologists and also, primarily, to name those authors who, for them, were the most significant. Including the nine taking part in the conversations with Eubank, the talk turned to some 36 sociologists from German-speaking countries. From today’s point of view, one of the remarkable outcomes of this lay in the fact that Max Scheler and Karl Mannheim were each mentioned only once during the talks: Max Scheler by Alfred Vierkandt, who gave Scheler’s work and influence a positive rating, and Karl Mannheim by Leopold von Wiese, who assessed him very affirmatively.1