It has often been suggested that a resolution of issues generated by the sociological study of ideas might be reached through a synthesis of specific insights to be found in the works of Karl Marx and George Herbert Mead. The present study originated in an investigation of this hypothesis, particularly as it bears on the central issue of sociological relativism.

The author began by delineating the specific problems such a synthesis might resolve, and in the process became aware that the nature and depth of differences separating the sociology of knowledge and its critics...