Free floating intelligence

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The free-floating intelligence is a term of the sociology of knowledge that was used by the sociologist and philosopher Karl Mannheim in 1929, but was originally coined by the sociologist Alfred Weber . It includes the members of the “intelligentsia” (see intelligentsia ), whose relative independence as a socially undefined class allows them to detach themselves from the normative thinking of their environment and to act independently of social class conditions : the intelligence, i. H. the intellectual floats (relatively) freely over things and tasks and is therefore less ideologically bound than other people. He related this to the political as well as the economic and cultural area. According to Mannheim, the socially free-floating intelligence is unbound, critical and sensitive. She is able to represent pluralistic views and have a positive effect on social conditions.

Mannheim was looking for a way out of the dilemma that the human mind moves in contemplation, argumentation and knowledge within social ties and prejudices, but on the other hand wants to find unadulterated truths and, as it believes, can.

Critics deny that it is possible for a certain group in society to transcend historical, social, cultural and psychological determinants .

literature

  • Dirk Hoeges : Controversy on the brink. Ernst Robert Curtius and Karl Mannheim. Intellectual and “free-floating intelligence” in the Weimar Republic. Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3596109671 .
  • Eckardt Huke-Didier: The sociology of knowledge Karl Mannheims in the interpretation by the critical theory: criticism of a criticism. P. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1985.
  • Kurt Lenk : The concept of ideology and the concept of Marx in the German sociology of knowledge. 1961.
  • Kurt Lenk: ideology. Criticism of ideology and sociology of knowledge. Campus, 1984.
  • Karl Mannheim: ideology and utopia. (1929) 8th edition. Klostermann, 1995, ISBN 3465028228 .
  • Arnhelm Neusüss : Utopian awareness and free-floating intelligence. On the sociology of knowledge of Karl Mannheim. (Marburg treatises on political science 10) Meisenheim am Glan 1968.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Gertraude Mikl-Horke : Sociology. 5th edition. Oldenbourg-Verlag, Munich 2001, p. 105, footnote. ISBN 3486256602 [1] .