Abstract

LARIGUET, Guillermo. Socrates, Typologies of Intellectuals, and Politics: Some References to the Case of Argentina. Lit. teor. hist. crit. [online]. 2018, vol.20, n.2, pp.185-220. ISSN 0123-5931.  https://doi.org/10.15446/lthc.v20n2.70816.

In this essay, I argue that Socrates represents a basic type of intellectual. My argument takes into account a philosophical rather than an existential Socrates, and it is more normative than semantic. I examine six deviant forms of the intellectual, following the distinction between intellectual and moral faults. This is not an exhaustive distinction and it allows for some combinations. Subsequently, I discuss Argentinean politics between 2003 and 2018, a period that involves "Kirchnerism" and "Macrism". In this political context, I defend the intellectual characterized by "civic engagement", a type of virtuous intellectual that, in my view, is in better conditions to carry out a critique of governments. In contrast with this intellectual, I provide some examples of how a certain type of Argentinean intellectualism has deviated or distanced itself from the Socratic type. This distancing could be part of the tragedy of Argentinean culture.

Keywords : Socrates; intellectuals; politics; intellectual faults; moral faults.

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