Los intelectuales como actores políticos en un marco institucional

Abstract

Intellectuals: political actors in an institutional setting. Proposes a conceptual construction of the notion of intellectual in the particular instance of the role they play in politics based on the opposition Hannah Arendt establishes between active life and contemplative life. In order to conceptualize the role intellectuals have played in the political life of Mexico, the author reviews Max Weber’s and Antonio Gramsci’s perspectives, among those of other authors who have studied the role of intellectuals in politics. The author concludes that the political condition of the intellectual does not emerge from their apparent autonomy, but from the series of institutionalized practices that commit them to knowledge, to society, to state institutions, to other intellectuals and to certain particular interests. It is there, in the territory –and in a given case, on the borders– of public institutions that the political action of the intellectual has an effect on society.