The Sociology of Intellectuals

Abstract

The sociology of intellectuals has adopted three fundamentally distinct approaches to its subject. The Dreyfusards, Julien Benda, “new class” theorists, and Pierre Bourdieu treated intellectuals as potentially a class-in-themselves, that is, as having interests that distinguish them from other groups in society. Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault, and theorists of “authenticity” treated intellectuals as primarily class-bound, that is, representatives of their group of origin. Karl Mannheim, Edward Shils, and Randall Collins treated intellectuals as relatively class-less, that is, able to transcend their group of origin to pursue their own ideals. These approaches divided the field at its founding in the 1920s, during its mid-century peak, and in its late-century revival.