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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. |
