ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that one distinctive element of the sociology of knowledge is a critical concern with the employment of a positivist philosophy as the basis of scientific cognition when applied to the social rather than natural world. To a very important extent, Max Scheler's sociology of knowledge is rooted in his phenomenological analyses. It attempted to explain 'how the deep-lying ontological and epistemological relationships among men are adapted to the cosmic order', and how these relationships were adapted in terms of their social determination. Scheler's Wissenssoziologie proceeded from his critique of Comtean positivism and embodies important elements of his theory of elites, and indeed his whole elitist preconceptions about social organization. Scheler's elaboration of sociology of knowledge begins with a group of formal 'axioms', which lead to a theory which takes the three modes of cognition as the basic systems of human knowledge in terms of a differentiation of the motivations which underlie them.
