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If money is power, anyone with wealth is influential. In a militarized society, soldiers influence.

I shouldn't say intellectuals are never in charge. They are in a theocracy. When else?

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The mark of a great intellectual is to have the wit to woo.

So I think we agree that influence over the wider world (beyond the Magi Tribe itself) is not what we consider when we name great intellectuals.

Was the first person who thought of irrigating crops an intellectual?

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The thread originated with a conflict between myself and BitterCrank over whether the people who invented crop irrigation should be called intellectuals. We didn't argue about whether the invention of the solar calendar was an intellectual achievement or not. I assume we agreed that it was.

The obvious answer is that one should look to context to find meaning. :)

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I think the mark of an intellectual is to be well-acquainted with your own ignorance, and to always be striving to deepen one's understanding. A "true" intellectual cares little about their reputation as an intellectual, and views inquiry as open-ended, anarchistic and collaboratory. The solitary thinker is as impotent as they are arrogant.

Well, if context determines meaning, then everything is context-based and thereby relative - or whatever you want it to be. — tim wood

One should look to context to discover the meaning of an utterance. That's pretty obvious, isn't it?

The interest I was expressing by the OP is in the first question: What do you think of when you hear that a person is an intellectual? What about them makes them intellectual? I'm not asking for guidance from you. I'm asking you what you think of.

For example: Teddy Roosevelt is considered to be one of the very few intellectual presidents the US has ever had. Carter was another. One of the funny stories associated with Teddy is that he loved to recite the entire Song of Roland (in archaic French if I'm remembering correctly) to his visitors. If they demonstrated appreciation, he would do it again. That struck someone as a sign that Teddy was an intellectual.

I think the mark of an intellectual is to be well-acquainted with your own ignorance, and to always be striving to deepen one's understanding. A "true" intellectual cares little about their reputation as an intellectual, and views inquiry as an open-ended, anarchistic and collaboratory. The solitary thinker is as impotent as they are arrogant. — darthbarracuda

Nice.

The mark of a great intellectual is a great intellect :)

What do you think of when you hear that a person is an intellectual? Have there always been intellectuals among humanity? Or is this a more recent development (1500 years is fairly recent)?

To what extent is any great intellectual a product of his/her times? Are intellectuals influential? Or do they merely formulate and reflect? I tend to lean toward reflect. The influence of intellectuals is always very limited. — frank

Aye, there have always been intellectuals, though environmental circumstance certainly has a lot to say about how frequently they might emerge.

Some have limited influence, many have none, and the few take their lions share of influence, glory, and greatness (as they do with many things).

But what are the marks of a great intellect?

Is it the charisma to be popular? The scruples to be humble?

Is it a capacity for learning or the drive to do so?

Is it the present or future value or utility of their ideas and ideals?

Does "greatness" merely equate with "influence"?

To the aphid the ant is great, and to the ant, the spider. While masquerading as an antellectual I've encountered many-legged-foes greater than myself, some magnanimous and some cantankerous.

Here forced to define greatness of intellect, I lean toward the precise definition of magnanimity:

Magnanimity (derived from the Latin roots magna, great, and animus, mind) is the virtue of being great of mind and heart. It encompasses, usually, a refusal to be petty, a willingness to face danger, and actions for noble purposes. Its antithesis is pusillanimity. Magnanimity is a latinization of the Greek word μεγαλοψυχία, megalopsychia which means greatness of soul and was identified by Aristotle as "the crowning virtue". — Wikipedia

I see. I once saw a huge Chinese watercolor painting with goldfish swooping down from the upper left corner. Boldness met grace. It was the work of a master. When that happens in the medium of mind, that's a great intellectual. Shakespeare.

Shakespeare came to mind when I was parsing a mental list of people I consider to be great intellectuals.

His prose was dense and bold, but graceful and rich in meaning. And his influence is utter mainstay.

If half of the fanciful depictions of the upstart crow can be half-believed, and if my take on
Shake's work is accurate, he was embroiled in a war of wits with his detractors, his patrons, himself, and the world.Trading gilded barbs with feathered friends seems petty from some perspectives, but for someone so immersed in the craft it would seem a display of respect to be worthy of public satire in the high style of the day.

We know his plays are great, but what did that greatness take? What was he like?

Clever. He was definitely clever. And perceptive (is that the same thing?). Also seemingly obsessive.

Why did he write 126 love sonnets for "a lovely boy"? Why are there so many double meanings in his writings which may have been cryptic even in their time?

I wonder how greatness in production corresponds to qualities in the individual. The qualities that enable people to produce great works might not be the same set of qualities that produces great people. Surely greatness in different areas demands different qualities. Beyond the boldness of taking risks toward worthy and noble goals, and a refusal to be dragged down by the petty and mundane, the qualities of greatness, including greatness of intellect, seems to extend in all directions.

I wonder how greatness in production corresponds to qualities in the individual. — VagabondSpectre

My mind went straight to a challenge I set for myself: come to recognize the ways I'm related to Adolph Hitler.

Why didn't I ever accept the challenge if seeing how Shakespeare is my brother? If our great ones are totally unlike us, we'll never understand them. If they are like us, do we all have latent greatness?

Influential figures make their own precursors.

In the critics' vocabulary, the word "precursor" is indispensable, but it should be cleansed of all connotation of polemics or rivalry. The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future. — Borges, Kafka and his Precursors

I would say influence, creativity, and accuracy are some of the most important standards that should apply in judging the greatness of any intellectual.

I think thought process reflects intelligence. I think a lot of people are split between left vs right brain. This can be observed in children. A creative child will have an imagenary freind and want to be a pirate. A logical child will question why he is born and process things like an adult.

Being Marx.
Being Marx is the best mark of being a great intellectual.
:nerd:

Accuracy? Or usefulness?

Which do you think is more important in intellectual greatness: left or right brain?

Being Marx.
Being Marx is the best mark of being a great intellectual.
:nerd: — Akanthinos

But what can we do with his remarx?

Left brain is more useful but often not as creative or spontaneous. Left brain is also more likely to be really harsh. So right is good for ideas while left is good for nuts and bolts.

An intellectual is a member of that endangered cohort of men and women who exercise independent use of the intellect. Usage of said faculty that is independent of; cultural, religious, social and instinctual bias and dogmatism.

One who is relatively free of that which Freud referred to as 'mass psychogenic delusion'. To be an intellectual is to be a pariah, the greater the independent use of the faculty of intellect, the greater the social isolation of the intellectual.

The greatest intellectuals therefore, are the greatest unknowns.

M

I definitely agree that reflection is an essential trait that an intellectual should have. Being able to reflect means to actively engage with the world instead of receiving external influences passively.

But speaking of intellectuals, I also wonder why intellectuals in Europe receive more attention than those in the U.S.? As part of my college class discussion, we mention the difference between aristocratic Europe and democratic America play a role here - intellectual elites are seen as a threat where the dominant value is equality. So what determines the popularity of intellectuals in a society? Is it true that anti-intellectualism is prevalent today?

I like this question a lot as I like to describe myself, when pressed, as a wannabe intellectual.

Thinking about this now I guess I’ve never really attempted to articulate what I mean by this before. So ... to me it means to be able to offer various perspectives, pull from several seemingly unrelated fields of study, to hold a mirror up to each other, and to explore and readily engage with difficult and often immeidately unsolvable problems.

The best intellectuals are those that manage to inspire people to learn more and to make people feel capable of understanding complex ideas - I’m terrible at this sadly!

Different personalities will give different weight to a problem. People like Feynman can inspire at all levels; he was combative with people in his field and also able to explicate complex ideas to the layman with charm making the listener feel wiser for listening to them.

I guess that is hte key point. A great intellectual makes one feel wiser and one want to be wiser still. Different personalities do this by rousing the listener out of a lazy slumber by charming inspiring them, and/or rebruking them. Some people thrive of combative discussion whilst other shy away from them. One person’s “intellectual” is another’s antagonist. I’ve been inspired by both types with the later being the toughest to get through. A taste of each is likely necessary, but I don’t think either is more effective than another and the weight of the intellectual in question is generally measured by the will to learn on the part of the listener (with both humility and confidence.)

What do you think of when you hear that a person is an intellectual? — frank

Honestly? If I hear someone say that about someone else that I'm not familiar with, my first thought is typically along the lines of, "The person in question probably says a lot of stupid shit, probably in a humorless way, that impresses the easily gullible person telling me this (or that the person telling me this doesn't understand/feels is above their head)."

I don't always think of "intellectual" negatively, though. Sometimes I think of it simply as referring to someone whose vocation is focused on theorizing, where I don't see the term as making a commitment to the merit of their particular theorizing.

What are the marks of a great intellectual?

It's very much like the mark of a great, as distinct from a mediocre 'sexual': fruitful intercourse as opposed to masturbation, either mutual or solitary.

^ It will be good if you define your definition of "Intellectual" so that I can give you the mark of the concept you speak of. Because my concept is "Intellectual is a person who are knowable in academia" . That mean the mark of "Great Intellectual" are, their theory/Stories/Works is use through out the ages.