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Anintellectual is a person who engages incritical thinking,research, andreflection about the nature ofreality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for itsnormative problems.[1][2] Coming from the world ofculture, either as a creator or as a mediator, the intellectual participates in politics, either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice, usually by either rejecting, producing or extending anideology, and by defending a system ofvalues.[3]
The term "man of letters" derives from the French termbelletrist orhomme de lettres but is not synonymous with "an academic".[4][5] A "man of letters" was a literate man, able to read and write, and thus highly valued in the upper strata of society in a time whenliteracy was rare. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the termBelletrist(s) came to be applied to theliterati: the French participants in—sometimes referred to as "citizens" of—theRepublic of Letters, which evolved into thesalon, a social institution, usually run by a hostess, meant for the edification, education, and cultural refinement of the participants.
In the late 19th century, when literacy was relatively common in European countries such as theUnited Kingdom, the "Man of Letters" (littérateur)[6] denotation broadened to mean "specialized", a man who earned his living writing intellectually (not creatively) about literature: theessayist, thejournalist, thecritic, et al. Examples includeSamuel Johnson,Walter Scott andThomas Carlyle. In the 20th century, such an approach was gradually superseded by the academic method, and the term "Man of Letters" became disused, replaced by the generic term "intellectual", describing the intellectual person. The archaic term is the basis of the names of several academic institutions which call themselvesColleges of Letters and Science.
The earliest record of the English noun "intellectual" is found in the 19th century, where in 1813,Byron reports that 'I wish I may be well enough to listen to these intellectuals'.[7]: 18 Over the course of the 19th century, other variants of the already established adjective 'intellectual' as a noun appeared in English and in French, where in the 1890s the noun (intellectuels) formed from the adjectiveintellectuel appeared with higher frequency in the literature.[7]: 20 Collini writes about this time that "[a]mong this cluster of linguistic experiments there occurred ... the occasional usage of 'intellectuals' as a plural noun to refer, usually with a figurative or ironic intent, to a collection of people who might be identified in terms of their intellectual inclinations or pretensions."[7]: 20
In early 19th-century Britain,Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the termclerisy, the intellectual class responsible for upholding and maintaining the national culture, the secular equivalent of the Anglican clergy. Likewise, inTsarist Russia, there arose theintelligentsia (1860s–1870s), who were thestatus class ofwhite-collar workers. For Germany, the theologianAlister McGrath said that "the emergence of a socially alienated,theologically literate, antiestablishment lay intelligentsia is one of the more significant phenomena of the social history ofGermany in the 1830s".[8]: 53 An intellectual class in Europe was socially important, especially to self-styled intellectuals, whose participation in society's arts, politics, journalism, and education—of eithernationalist,internationalist, or ethnic sentiment—constitute "vocation of the intellectual". Moreover, some intellectuals were anti-academic, despite universities (the academy) being synonymous withintellectualism.[citation needed]
In France, theDreyfus affair (1894–1906), an identity crisis ofantisemitic nationalism for theFrench Third Republic (1870–1940), marked the full emergence of the "intellectual in public life", especiallyÉmile Zola,Octave Mirbeau andAnatole France directly addressing the matter of Frenchantisemitism to the public; thenceforward, "intellectual" became common, yet initially derogatory, usage; its French noun usage is attributed toGeorges Clemenceau in 1898. Nevertheless, by 1930 the term "intellectual" passed from its earlier pejorative associations and restricted usages to a widely accepted term and it was because of the Dreyfus Affair that the term also acquired generally accepted use in English.[7]: 21
In the 20th century, the term intellectual acquired positive connotations ofsocial prestige, derived from possessingintellect andintelligence, especially when the intellectual's activities exerted positive consequences in thepublic sphere and so increased the intellectual understanding of the public, by means ofmoral responsibility,altruism, andsolidarity, without resorting to themanipulations ofdemagoguery,paternalism andincivility (condescension).[9]: 169 The sociologistFrank Furedi said that "Intellectuals are not defined according to the jobs they do, but [by] the manner in which they act, the way they see themselves, and the [social and political] values that they uphold.[10][page needed]
According toThomas Sowell, as a descriptive term of person, personality, and profession, the wordintellectual identifies three traits:
InLatin, at least starting from theCarolingian Empire, intellectuals could be calledlitterati, a term which is sometimes applied today.[citation needed]
The word intellectual is found in Indian scriptureMahabharata in the Bachelorette meeting (Swayamvara Sava) ofDraupadi. Immediately afterArjuna and Raja-Maharaja (kings-emperors) came to the meeting,Nipuna Buddhijibina (perfect intellectuals) appeared at the meeting.[citation needed]
InImperial China in the period from 206 BC until AD 1912, the intellectuals were theScholar-officials ("Scholar-gentlemen"), who were civil servants appointed by theEmperor of China to perform the tasks of daily governance. Such civil servants earned academic degrees by means ofimperial examination, and were often also skilledcalligraphers orConfucian philosophers. Historian Wing-Tsit Chan concludes that:
Generally speaking, the record of these scholar-gentlemen has been a worthy one. It was good enough to be praised and imitated in 18th century Europe. Nevertheless, it has given China a tremendous handicap in their transition from government by men to government by law, and personal considerations in Chinese government have been a curse.[12]: 22
InJoseon Korea (1392–1910), the intellectuals were theliterati, who knew how to read and write, and had been designated, as thechungin (the "middle people"), in accordance with the Confucian system. Socially, they constituted thepetite bourgeoisie, composed of scholar-bureaucrats (scholars, professionals, and technicians) who administered the dynastic rule of the Joseon dynasty.[13]: 73–4
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 "Role of Intellectuals in Public Life", panel featuring Michael Ignatieff, Russell Jacoby, Roger Kimball, Susie Linfield, Alex Star, Ellen Willis and Alan Wolfe, March 1, 2001,C-SPAN |
The termpublic intellectual describes the intellectual participating in the public-affairsdiscourse of society, in addition to an academic career.[14] Regardless of theiracademic fields orprofessional expertise, public intellectuals address and respond to thenormative problems of society, and, as such, are expected to be impartial critics who can "rise above the partial preoccupation of one's own profession—and engage with the global issues oftruth, judgment, andtaste of the time".[15][10]: 32 InRepresentations of the Intellectual (1994),Edward Saïd said that the "true intellectual is, therefore, always an outsider, living in self-imposed exile, and on the margins of society".[16]: 1–2 Public intellectuals usually arise from the educated élite of a society, although the North American usage of the termintellectual includes the university academics.[17] The difference betweenintellectual andacademic is participation in the realm of public affairs.[18]
Jürgen Habermas'Structural Transformation of Public Sphere (1963) made significant contribution to the notion of public intellectual by historically and conceptually delineating the idea of private and public. Controversial, in the same year, wasRalf Dahrendorf's definition: "As the court-jesters of modern society, all intellectuals have the duty to doubt everything that is obvious, to make relative all authority, to ask all those questions that no one else dares to ask".[19]: 51
An intellectual usually is associated with anideology or with aphilosophy.[20][page needed] The Czech intellectualVáclav Havel said that politics and intellectuals can be linked, but that moral responsibility for the intellectual's ideas, even when advocated by a politician, remains with the intellectual. Therefore, it is best to avoidutopian intellectuals who offer 'universal insights' to resolve the problems ofpolitical economy withpublic policies that might harm and that have harmed civil society; that intellectuals be mindful of the social and cultural ties created with their words, insights and ideas; and should be heard as social critics ofpolitics andpower.[16]: 13
The determining factor for a "thinker" (historian, philosopher, scientist, writer, artist) to be considered a public intellectual is the degree to which the individual isimplicated andengaged with the vital reality of the contemporary world, i.e. participation in the public affairs of society. Consequently, being designated as a public intellectual is determined by the degree of influence of the designator'smotivations, opinions, and options of action (social, political, ideological), and by affinity with the given thinker.[citation needed]
After the failure of the large-scaleMay 68 movement in France, intellectuals within the country were often maligned for having specific areas of expertise while discussing general subjects like democracy. Intellectuals increasingly claimed to be within marginalized groups rather than their spokespeople, and centered their activism on the social problems relevant to their areas of expertise (such as gender relations in the case of psychologists). A similar shift occurred in China after theTiananmen Square Massacre from the "universal intellectual" (who plans better futures from within academia) tominjian ("grassroots") intellectuals, the latter group represented by such figures asWang Xiaobo, social scientistYu Jianrong, andYanhuang Chunqiu editor Ding Dong (丁東).[21]
In the matters ofpublic policy, the public intellectual connects scholarly research to the practical matters of solving societal problems. The British sociologistMichael Burawoy, an exponent ofpublic sociology, said that professional sociology has failed by giving insufficient attention to resolving social problems, and that a dialogue between the academic and the layman would bridge the gap.[22][page needed] An example is howChilean intellectuals worked to reestablishdemocracy within theright-wing,neoliberal governments of themilitary dictatorship of 1973–1990, the Pinochet régime allowed professional opportunities for some liberal and left-wing social scientists to work as politicians and as consultants in effort to realize the theoretical economics of theChicago Boys, but their access topower was contingent upon politicalpragmatism, abandoning the political neutrality of the academic intellectual.[23]
InThe Sociological Imagination (1959),C. Wright Mills said that academics had become ill-equipped for participating in public discourse, and that journalists usually are "more politically alert and knowledgeable than sociologists, economists, and especially ... political scientists".[24]: 99 That, because the universities of the U.S. are bureaucratic, private businesses, they "do not teachcritical reasoning to the student", who then does not know "how to gauge what is going on in the general struggle for power in modern society".[24][page needed] Likewise,Richard Rorty criticized the quality of participation of intellectuals in public discourse as an example of the "civic irresponsibility ofintellect, especially academic intellect".[25]: 142
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| Booknotes interview with Posner onPublic Intellectuals: A Study of Decline, June 2, 2002,C-SPAN |
The American legal scholarRichard Posner said that the participation of academic public intellectuals in the public life of society is characterized by logically untidy and politically biased statements of the kind that would be unacceptable to academia. He concluded that there are few ideologically and politically independent public intellectuals, and disapproved public intellectuals who limit themselves to practical matters of public policy, and not withvalues orpublic philosophy, or publicethics, orpublic theology, nor with matters of moral and spiritual outrage.
Socially, intellectuals constitute theintelligentsia, astatus class organised either byideology (e.g.,conservatism,fascism,socialism,liberalism,reactionary,revolutionary,democratic,communism), or by nationality (American intellectuals, French intellectuals, Ibero–American intellectuals,et al.). The termintelligentsiya originated fromTsarist Russia (c. 1860s–1870s), where it denotes thesocial stratum of those possessing intellectual formation (schooling, education), and who were Russian society's counterpart to the GermanBildungsbürgertum and to the Frenchbourgeoisie éclairée, theenlightened middle classes of those realms.[9]: 169–71
InMarxist philosophy, thesocial class function of the intellectuals (theintelligentsia) is to be the source of progressive ideas for the transformation of society: providing advice and counsel to the political leaders, interpreting the country's politics to the mass of the population (urban workers and peasants). In the pamphletWhat Is to Be Done? (1902),Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said thatvanguard-party revolution required the participation of the intellectuals to explain the complexities ofsocialist ideology to the uneducatedproletariat and the urban industrial workers in order to integrate them to the revolution because "the history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop onlytrade-union consciousness" and will settle for the limited, socio-economic gains so achieved. In Russia as inContinental Europe, socialist theory was the product of the "educated representatives of the propertied classes", of "revolutionary socialist intellectuals", such as were Karl Marx andFriedrich Engels.[26]: 31, 137–8
The Hungarian Marxist philosopherGyörgy Lukács (1885–1971) identified the intelligentsia as the privileged social class who provide revolutionary leadership. By means of intelligible and accessible interpretation, the intellectuals explain to the workers and peasants the "Who?", the "How?" and the "Why?" of the social, economic and politicalstatus quo—the ideological totality of society—and its practical, revolutionary application to the transformation of their society.
The Italian communist theoreticianAntonio Gramsci (1891–1937) developedKarl Marx's conception of the intelligentsia to include political leadership in the public sphere. That because "all knowledge isexistentially-based", the intellectuals, who create and preserve knowledge, are "spokesmen for different social groups, and articulate particular social interests". That intellectuals occur in each social class and throughout theright-wing, thecentre and theleft-wing of thepolitical spectrum and that as a social class the "intellectuals view themselves as autonomous from theruling class" of their society.
Addressing their role as a social class,Jean-Paul Sartre said that intellectuals are the moral conscience of their age; that their moral and ethical responsibilities are to observe the socio-political moment, and to freely speak to their society, in accordance with their consciences.[27]: 119
The British historianNorman Stone said that the intellectualsocial class misunderstand the reality of society and so are doomed to the errors oflogical fallacy, ideological stupidity, and poor planning hampered by ideology.[16] In her memoirs, theConservative politicianMargaret Thatcher wrote that the anti-monarchicalFrench Revolution (1789–1799) was "autopian attempt to overthrow a traditional order [...] in the name ofabstract ideas, formulated by vain intellectuals".[28]: 753
The American academicPeter H. Smith describes the intellectuals of Latin America as people from an identifiable social class, who have been conditioned by that common experience and thus are inclined to share a set ofcommon assumptions (values and ethics); that ninety-four per cent of intellectuals come either from themiddle class or from theupper class and that only six per cent come from theworking class.[29]
PhilosopherSteven Fuller said that becausecultural capital conferspower and social status as a status group they must be autonomous in order to be credible as intellectuals:
It is relatively easy to demonstrate autonomy, if you come from a wealthy or [an]aristocratic background. You simply need to disown yourstatus and champion the poor and [the] downtrodden [...]. [A]utonomy is much harder to demonstrate if you come from a poor orproletarian background [...], [thus] calls to join the wealthy in common cause appear to betray one's class origins.[30]: 113–4
The 19th-century U.S.Congregational theologianEdwards Amasa Park said: "We do wrong to our own minds, when we carry out scientific difficulties down to the arena of popular dissension".[25]: 12 In his view, it was necessary for the sake of social, economic and political stability "to separate the serious,technical role of professionals from their responsibility [for] supplyingusable philosophies for the general public". This expresses a dichotomy, derived from Plato, between public knowledge and private knowledge, "civic culture" and "professional culture", theintellectual sphere of life and the life of ordinary people in society.[25]: 12
In the United States, members of the intellectual status class have beendemographically characterized as people who holdliberal-to-leftist political perspectives aboutguns-or-butterfiscal policy.[31]
In "The Intellectuals and Socialism" (1949),Friedrich Hayek wrote that "journalists, teachers, ministers, lecturers, publicists, radio commentators, writers of fiction, cartoonists, and artists" form an intellectual social class whose function is to communicate the complex and specialized knowledge of thescientist to the general public. He argued that intellectuals were attracted tosocialism orsocial democracy because the socialists offered "broad visions; the spacious comprehension of the social order, as a whole, which aplanned system promises" and that such broad-vision philosophies "succeeded in inspiring the imagination of the intellectuals" to change and improve their societies.[32] According to Hayek, intellectuals disproportionately support socialism for idealistic and utopian reasons that cannot be realized in practice.[33]
The French philosopherJean-Paul Sartre noted that "the Intellectual is someone who meddles in what does not concern them" (L'intellectuel est quelqu'un qui se mêle de ce qui ne le regarde pas).[34]: 588–9
Noam Chomsky expressed the view that "intellectuals are specialists indefamation, they are basicallypolitical commissars, they are the ideological administrators, the most threatened bydissidence."[35] In his 1967 article "The Responsibility of Intellectuals", Chomsky analyzes the intellectual culture in the U.S., and argues that it is largely subservient topower. He is particularly critical ofsocial scientists and technocrats, who provide apseudo-scientific justification for thecrimes of the state.
In "An Interview with Milton Friedman" (1974), the American economistMilton Friedman said thatbusinessmen and intellectuals are enemies ofcapitalism: most intellectuals believed in socialism while businessmen expected economic privileges. In his essay "Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?" (1998), the Americanlibertarian philosopherRobert Nozick of theCato Institute argued that intellectuals become embittered leftists because their superior intellectual work, much rewarded at school and at university, are undervalued and underpaid in the capitalistmarket economy. Thus, intellectuals turn against capitalism despite enjoying more socioeconomic status than the average person.[36]
Theconservative economistThomas Sowell wrote in his bookIntellectuals and Society (2010) that intellectuals, who are producers of knowledge, not material goods, tend to speak outside their own areas of expertise, and yet expect social and professional benefits from thehalo effect derived from possessing professional expertise. In relation to other professions, public intellectuals are socially detached from the negative andunintended consequences ofpublic policy derived from their ideas. Sowell gives the example ofBertrand Russell (1872–1970), who advised the British government against national rearmament in the years before theSecond World War.[37]: 218–276
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