| Chapter 2: | Background |
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Both Mannheim and Husserl agreed that perception and experience are important elements in the cognition process and in the determination of what truth is. However, there is a fundamental difference between Mannheim and Husserl. Husserl, at that time, saw the perception of the perceived thing as given—that is, for Husserl, things that are to be perceived stand alone to the eyes that are perceiving them. He said, in the same lecture, “In perception the perceived thing is believed to be directly given. Before my perceiving eyes stands the thing. I see it, and I grasp it” (as cited in Douglas, 1973, p. 199). Thus, Husserl believed that in perception, the perceived thing is directly given, whereas Mannheim argued that the perceiving eyes are part of the thing to be perceived. However, that is not to say that he disagreed with Husserl’s cognition explanation or denial of sociological interpretation as experiential. Instead, he went a step further by advocating that the social researcher’s self should be considered as part of the perceived truth and the awareness of how social researchers come to make sense of truth.
It is interesting to note that the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy states that Husserl, as the founder of phenomenology, was somewhat Kantian in his early work (Audi, 1995, p. 348). In his 1907 lecture, Husserl said that social research was about using reliable methods of reaching objective reality.