Explaining Intellectuals: A Proposal

In this paper we assess the potential of positioning theory for explaining intellectual life. Positioning theory pays attention to how intellectuals, like other people, use various rhetorical and dramaturgical devices to position themselves vis-à-vis others.  The positioning of intellectuals affects the extent and nature of their symbolic and institutional recognition, as well as the diffusion of their ideas. We illustrate positioning theory through a number of case-studies, at least one of which will be dealing with the realm of academia and one with the phenomenon of public intellectuals. We demonstrate the advantages of positioning theory compared to rival perspectives in the sociology of intellectuals such as Collins’s network approach and Bourdieu’s field approach, paying particular attention to the different ways in which the issue of agency is dealt with by these theories.