A Mannheim for all seasons: Bloor, Merton, and the roots of the sociology of scientific knowledge

David Bloor often wrote that Karl Mannheim had "stopped short" in his socio logy of knowledge, lacking the nerve to consider the natural sciences socio logically. While this assessment runs counter to Mannheim's own work, which responded in quite specific ways both to an encroaching "modernity" and a looming fascism, Bloor's depiction becomes clearer when considered in the l ight of his principal introduction to Mannheim's work - a series of essays by Robert Merton. Bloor's reading and appropriation of Mannheim emerged fro m his background in experimental psychology and his attempts to supercede M erton's own structural-functionalist program for the sociology of knowledge . By retracing this extended trail of readings and re-readings, we may begi n to understand the roots of Bloor's curious interpretation of Mannheim's s ociology of knowledge, and inquire in a reflexive way about the present and future directions of science studies.