Intelligentsia and intellectuals: meanings, concepts and possibilities to the intelectual history

Abstract

The text discusses different possibilities to the register of the intellectual history based on studies about associated meanings to the words intelligentsia and intellectuals throughout 19th and 20th century. Firstly, it will be analyzed the use of this words in French and Russian political and literary context, and, after that in Social Science and Political Philosophy. Thus, I intend to explore the concept of the intellectual as a mediator of social confl icts present in the work of Karl Mannheim); the idea of the intellectual as a manager and organizer of culture found in the Gramsci’s writings (from prison); and, at last, Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of intellectual as producer of symbolic capital. As a conclusion, the text briefly points the contrasts, similarities, potentialities and limitations of the three analyzed concepts as well as the implications to the Intellectual History resulted of this discussion.