Concept reinterpreted during the century: from Durkheim’s individualist intellectual to Bourdieu’s collective intelectual

Abstract

To contribute to the debate about intellectuals, we turn to two sociologists who have nearly a century between their work: Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) and Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002). The first recognized the relationship between a “moral individualist” and the role of the intellectual. This reflection is part of his emphasis on social cohesion and secular morality, which are indispensable for the promotion of progress and order in societies in a growing process of differentiation. Bourdieu, meanwhile, focused on the need to “reinvent a type of collective intellectual following the model of the encyclopedistas”. For Bourdieu, a new challenge was established for the collective intellectual: to mobilize science, and sociology in particular, in the struggle against the abusive uses of science and scientific authority. The ideas of these thinkers offer guides to reading that inspire the development of a historic sociology focused on education in Brazilian social thinking.