This book, first published in 1983, with a second edition in 1992, investigates the emergence of the sociology of knowledge in Germany in the critical period from 1918 to 1933. These years witnessed the development of distinctive paradigms centred on the works of Max Scheler, Georg Lukács and Karl Mannheim. Each theorist sought to confront the base-superstructure models of the relationship between knowledge and society, which originated in Orthodox Marxism. David Frisbsy illustrates how these and other themes in the sociology of knowledge were contested through a detailed account of the cen.;Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; Original Title Page; Original Copyright Page; Table of Contents; Acknowledgements; Preface; 1 The Sociology of Knowledge in Weimar Germany: Its Background and Context; 2 Max Scheler: From the Sociology of Culture to the Sociology of Knowledge; 3 Georg Lukács: From Reification to the Critique of Ideology; 4 Karl Mannheim: From the Critique of Ideology to the Sociology of Knowledge; 5 The Contemporary Controversy Surrounding the Sociology of Knowledge: 1918-33; Conclusion; Afterword to the Second Edition; References and Notes; Bibliography.