Karl Mannheim’s work, particularly his book Ideology and Utopia, has considerable relevance to current concerns about the public role of sociology. However, this is not widely recognised, and key aspects of his thought have frequently been neglected or disparaged. In this article the background to Mannheim’s work is outlined, and a summary provided of the central argument of Ideology and Utopia, comparing this with the positions taken by Max Weber and Georg Lukács, both of whom were important influences on Mannheim. The major criticisms of, and problems with, Mannheim’s argument are then addressed. While he was by no means completely successful in putting forward a convincing conception of sociology’s public role, there is a great deal to be learned from his work, and from the manner in which he pursued it.

卡尔·曼海姆（Karl Mannheim）的工作，尤其是他的《意识形态和乌托邦》（Ideology and Utopia），与当前对社会学在公共角色中的作用的关注有很大关联。但是，这尚未得到广泛认可，他的思想的关键方面经常被忽视或贬低。本文概述了曼海姆工作的背景，并概述了意识形态和乌托邦的中心论点。，并将其与马克斯·韦伯（Max Weber）和乔治·卢卡奇（GeorgLukács）的职位进行比较，这两个因素对曼海姆产生了重要影响。然后讨论了对曼海姆论点的主要批评和问题。尽管他在提出令人信服的社会学公共角色概念上并没有取得完全成功，但从他的工作以及他的追求方式中可以学到很多东西。