O intelectual público, a ética republicana e a fratura do éthos da ciência

Abstract

This article focuses on the emergence of the public intellectual throughout modernity, taking as its locus France and utilizing, as a prototype, the humanistic thinker (hommes de lettres, cited by Tocqueville, who was also one of my sources). Following this analysis, the public intellectual's association with republican ethics (affaire Zola: the intellectual as a citizen of the world) and their coextension into scientific activities, where they shaped the ethics of science, will be examined in accordance with the typology formulated by Robert K. Merton. The article also focuses on the disappearance of the public intellectual and on the current fracture of the ethos of science, as demonstrated by John Michael Ziman who highlights the appearance of the 'boss' and the role of business in contemporary science. Finally, the alternatives and the possibility of re-launching republican ethics, of bonding the ethos of science and of reinventing the public intellectual will be discussed: the condition will be the extension of the public space beyond the political and the state sphere. Its insertion will thus be located between the public and the private domain of traditional republican ethics, the largest zone of which is constituted by culture and society. In this context, Brazil is analyzed and the state of the Brazilian intelligentsia is discussed.