Abstract: Karl Mannheim's theory of the sociology of knowledge which claimed that knowledge is shaped by social positions made him one of the founding fathers of the branch, but his contribution was also criticized by American academia for relativism， and was therefore excluded from the mainstream of sociology. This paper presents an overview of the discussions and criticisms from the period， distinguishing between specific and general forms of relativism and their countervailing responses in Mannheim's theory. On the first level， specific relativism holds that since the sociology of knowledge believes that all human knowledge is affected by the social position of its creator， the scientific nature of this argument itself is also affected by the position of its proposer. In this regard， Mannheim's point of view is that the understanding of this influence will eventually lead to a higher level of liberation， so the criticism of special relativism does not constitute a substantial deconstruction of Mannheim's theory. On the second level， general relativism accuses Mannheim's theory of threatening the overall legitimacy of social scientific knowledge. Mannheim's response to this criticism is a new type of epistemology that abandons all forms of transcendental truth. By analyzing the German hermeneutics tradition， the impact of interpretivism， and the social dissolutions and people's self-consciousness in Weimar Germany that gave rise to the sociology of knowledge， this paper shows the affinity between the society's anomie status and the vigor of the sociology of knowledge. By comparing the classic sociology of knowledge and its American counterpart， this paper argues that the purpose of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge is to understand dissolution and self-consciousness at the societal level， rather than the production of middle-range causal explanations. Therefore， the insights of Mannheim's epistemology and his new concept of relationism are still of irreplaceable importance to understand today's ideological landscape.

Key words: Karl Mannheim, Sociology of Knowledge, epistemology, relativism, relationism