An «Enacted Sociology» of the Intellectuals: the Struggles of Karl Kraus

Abstract

The position Karl Kraus occupied in the Austrian intellectual field is unique in the history of the intellectuals. Rather than reconstructing Kraus’s theoretical thinking, it is possible to approach him as a revelator of the the rules of the game which characterize the intellectual field. His writings invite a re-reading in terms of an «enacted sociology » which uses techniques of provocation tending to expose the mechanisms set up to disguise the relationship between intellectuals and power. By analysing Kraus’s interventions it is possible to relate his struggles to phenomena of crisis in the intellectual field. Kraus’s role was that of denouncing the implications of a process of rationalization of intellectual activities. This process is defined initially by the substitution of anintellectualmarket for a System of patronage, and later by the extension and structuring of the market in response to increasingly precise social demands.