Philosophers advance on a list which finds space for more women, while intellectuals from Richard Dawkins to Francis Fukuyama to Steven Pinker lose out
Identifying the thinkers who are "engaging most originally and profoundly with the central questions of the world today" is clearly a horribly tricky task, yet Prospect magazine has chosen to make its public intellectuals poll an annual affair, after previously leaving a five-year gap.
A year ago, judges including Amy Chua, Bernard Henri-Lévy and David Miliband decided on a longlist of 65, and public voting produced rankings headed by an all-male top 10, with Richard Dawkins at No 1. This time an unnamed "panel of writers and editors" picked 50 names which are almost laughably different, with all of the 2013 list's top five left out and only Ha-Joon Chang, Peter Higgs, Elon Musk, Martha Nussbaum, Arundhati Roy, Amartya Sen and Slavoj iek of its top 20 retained. Last year's celebrity panel, and last year's voters, have in effect been given a telling-off by these shadowy selectors.
Published on March 28, 2014 08:03