SOURCE: "Social and Political Thought and the Problem of Ideology," in Knowledge and Belief in Politics: The Problem of Ideology, Robert Benewick, R. N. Berki, Bhikhu Parekh, eds., George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1973, pp. 57-87.

In the following essay, Parekh provides an outline of the place of rationalism in the history of philosophy and examines Mannheim's approach to the "crisis of rationality" that is often identified with the modern era.

The most influential conception of rationality in Western thought, a conception that is prima facie highly plausible and has a good deal of attraction for intellectuals, goes back to the pre-Socratics and finds its noblest expression in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. On this, what for convenience I shall call the traditional view of rationality, thinking was essentially a contemplative activity in which the human mind soared above the contingencies of human existence and comprehended its subject matter...