| Full name | José Guilherme Merquior |
|---|---|
| Born | April 22, 1941 |
| Died | January 7, 1991 (aged 49) |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western Philosophy |
| School | Liberalism |
| Main interests | Literary criticism, History of ideas, Aesthetics, Politics, Sociology, International relations |
José Guilherme Merquior (Rio de Janeiro, April 22, 1941 — Rio de Janeiro, January 7, 1991) was a Brazilian diplomat, academic, writer, literary critic and philosopher.
He was a prolific writer, and member of the Academia Brasileira de Letras (the Brazilian Academy of Letters). He had a doctorate in sociology from the London School of Economics, which was directed by Ernest Gellner. Merquior also studied under Lévi-Strauss (whose ideas Merquior would largely repudiate in From Prague to Paris), and took guidance from the likes of Raymond Aron, Harry Levin, and Arnaldo Momigliano. He published books written directly in French, English, Italian, and his native Portuguese.
Merquior divided his published works in two segments. In one the bulk was criticism per se; in the other the emphasis was the history of ideas, or more specific investigations like the highly-esteemed study of Rousseau and Weber. Two of Merquior's books, a history of Western Marxism and an often scathing critique of Michel Foucault for the Fontana Modern Masters series, were described as "minor classics" by scholar Gregory R. Johnson.[1] Merquor's Foucault was also an important reference for Camille Paglia's lengthy essay "Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf,"[2] wherein Paglia describes what she sees as serious problems in the academic humanities.
Merquior was a major supporter of the Fernando Collor de Mello government and wrote many of Collor's public speeches.