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Hovering over contemporary debates on the philosophical legacy of the Enlightenment there seems to be suspicion of principle when running up against the representatives of the Aufklärung. What place can be left for notions such as “truth” or “the universal”, when history and sociology are constantly reminding us of the sociohistorically determined nature of these concepts and their content? Using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of knowledge and science, this article seeks to present an epistemological reflection aimed at restoring the emancipatory potential of sociological knowledge, under the aegis of two tutelary figures of the Enlightenment: on the one hand, Kant, through a historicisation of the transcendental; on the other, the Encyclopaedists, acting as models for the constitution of a “collective intellectual”. Within a relational ontology, Bourdieu thus updates Kant’s precept of the Enlightenment, laying the epistemic and institutional foundations of a collective Sapere aude.