Introduction: Key Issues in the Sociology of Intellectuals

This chapter offers some preliminary reflections on Simon Susen and Patrick Baert’s The Sociology of Intellectuals: After ‘The Existentialist Moment’ (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). The chapter emphasizes three principal objectives of this book: first, to explore a new set of conceptual and methodological tools for the sociology of intellectuals (theoretical level); second, to assess how the phenomenon of the public intellectual has altered since the beginning of the twentieth century (historical level); and, third, to examine the extent to which intellectuals can play a constructive role in influencing social and political developments in the modern era (normative level). The chapter goes on to give a brief overview of both the structure and the contents of the book. Finally, the chapter explains why, in light of recent social and political transformations, the challenge of providing a theoretical framework for the sociological study of intellectuals has become particularly pressing.