Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

What does it mean to be an intellectual? Who are the intellectuals and what is their function in society? This dissertation aims at providing answers to these questions by elaborating a concept of “intelligence” understood as a specific kind of normative knowledge – which I call intellectual knowledge –, or capacity, to carry out an intellectual intervention. This latter notion denotes an action that makes people act in an autonomous and rational way in a given situation through epistemic (i.e., non-coercive) means by providing trans-contextually valid models or patterns of behavior and thought based on certain values and worldviews. Based on these considerations, and against standard and elitist definitions of intellectuals, I argue that any person, group, or organization who carries such knowledge and thereby assumes an intellectual function must be considered an intellectual. This conception is laid out through a novel interpretation of Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge and sociology of intellectuals (fields of which he is credited to be the founder), which I see as converging into a sociology of intelligence. Against most standard readings of Mannheim’s work on these matters, I contend that the above-stated theses regarding intelligence stem logically from an interpretation of his writings that is capable of recognizing and putting to the fore their reflexive, transdisciplinary and dissenting dimensions. Indeed, Mannheim’s sociology of intelligence, as a dissenting scientific/intellectual movement (disSIM), radically calls into question the then and currently dominant way to conceive the practice of the academic disciplines and the idea of knowledge (a non-intellectual one) that it implicitly vehiculates. By restoring Mannheim to the place he deserves in the history of the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of intellectuals, this dissertation also aims at providing a theoretical frame in which this latter question of the intellectual dimension of academic knowledge can be formulated and discussed in a productive way.

Intellectuals --- Knowledge, Sociology of --- Grammar, Comparative and general--Reflexives --- Intelligence