Max Scheler: From the Sociology of Culture to the Sociology of Knowledge

Max Scheler was the principal founder of the sociology of knowledge in Germany. His early articles in this sphere — in which he spoke of an ‘Erkenntnissoziologie’ and a ‘Soziologie des Wissens’ — were published in 1921 and 1922. ¹ Despite Wilhelm Jerusalem’s claim to have been the first to have discussed this area of sociology in an article in 1909, ² it is clear that he did not develop these ideas in any detail. This Scheler did, in his edited collection Versuche zu einer Soziologie des Wissens, published in 1924, ³ as well as in his two-volume collection of essays Schriften zur Soziologie und Weltanschauungslehre, published in 1923 and 1924. ⁴ In 1924, Scheler presented a paper on ‘Science and Social Structure’s to the Fourth German Sociology Congress, which was published the year after. ⁵ This was followed, in 1926, by the publication of his major work on the sociology of knowledge, Die Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft. ⁶