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The Price of Public Intellectuals
This book provides a historically-informed survey critically outlining sociological, psychological, political, and economic approaches to the role of public intellectuals. Sassower suggests how the state might financially support the essential work of public intellectuals so as to critically engage the public and improve public policies.
154 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
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March 1, 2017
The author, Raphael Sassower, is a professor of philosophy in the University of Colorado and writes extensively on culture, postmodernism, knowledge production, science and technology etc. He is quite prolific, but I haven't heard him before reading this book.
The book is about the nature of intellectual activity and the role of intellectuals within the society. If there is a main argument , it would be that "public intellectuals serves to expand our horizon by critical thinking, yet there is no mechanism of compensation for this valuable activity. Therefore, we need to finance public intellectuals collectively through allocations money for intellectual activities from the national budget".
I think this sounds very dull, but before making this conclusion the book discusses great deal about the roles and positions of intellectuals, their relations to truth and power, and various forms of intellectual activity. I said IF there is a main argument, because the book is almost a sort of literature review until almost the last chapter where the author makes that argument. So, this is my first and main criticism about the book: it revisits the existing scholarship on intellectuals but the author does not synthesize them to assert his own position. Until the end of the book he does not make any explicit and strong claim, and his argument in the end is not connected to the parts in which he reviews the literature basically.
The first chapter questions the claim of speaking truth to power, which is usually associated to public intellectuals. There is this notion that intellectual has to know the truth and has to make it acknowledged somehow. In relation to truth and power we have two main archetypes of intellectuals, Socrates as the lone seeker of truth who convicted and executed for he spoke truth to the power; and Plato's ideal philosopher-king who overcome the dichotomy of truth and power we see in the case of Socrates. Since Socrates, certain thinkers try to come up with a formula who combines philosophical life, i.e. intellect, with political power. The author indirectly defines public intellectual as a person who claims truth through thinking, philosophical wisdom or any other intellectual means, and uses this intellect to make intervention in the public sphere which is under the control of political power.
As I said, Sassower closes the chapter without asserting his own theoretical concerns or position regarding these debates. Then he moves on to analyze the labels associated with public intellectuals in the second chapter. There are nine sets of labels and within each set there are two or three related labels juxtaposed regarding their historical precedence. Let me, at least, count them without explanation: 1) prophets and übermenschen; 2) gadflies, martyrs and philosopher-kings; 3) clerks and politically responsible; 4) unattached/witnesses and organic/connected; 5) specialized and universal; 6) jesters, sophists and amateurs; 7) legislators, interpreters and translators; 8) strangers, nomads and spokespersons; and finally 9) reckless celebrities, rappers and bloggers.
The third chapter is a review of sociological, political, psychological and economic approaches in the studies of intellectuals which further complicates the picture. Because, Sassower does not make a conclusion out of these contentions in the literature; and also these contentions are not easy to resolve. There is an almost built-in problem with the existing literature on intellectuals, especially the sociology of intellectuals.
We can say that the major problem is the problem of unit of analysis. For the question, "what is our unit of analysis", the answer might be simple: intellectual. But intellectual is very difficult to define, it is almost impossible to come up with a universally-applied definition of intellectual. As shown in the forth chapter of the book, there are different lists of public intellectuals prepared by scholars, magazines etc. Although they have certain names in common, there are a lot discrepancies. In short, to say that this person or that person is intellectual is mostly arbitrary and somehow based on convention.
Thus there is a problem about the main point which came out in the last chapter, that is: without clarifying the doubts about defining intellectual or determining who intellectuals are, the author suggests a number of things to support public intellectuals financially. Among them are creating a fund for intellectual forums in different localities and providing grants that would be available to those who engage in intellectual activities such as research, publication, public discussions etc. Implicitly, these suggestions are to finance the intellectual activity or the intellectual field, not the intellectual per se.
The book is about the nature of intellectual activity and the role of intellectuals within the society. If there is a main argument , it would be that "public intellectuals serves to expand our horizon by critical thinking, yet there is no mechanism of compensation for this valuable activity. Therefore, we need to finance public intellectuals collectively through allocations money for intellectual activities from the national budget".
I think this sounds very dull, but before making this conclusion the book discusses great deal about the roles and positions of intellectuals, their relations to truth and power, and various forms of intellectual activity. I said IF there is a main argument, because the book is almost a sort of literature review until almost the last chapter where the author makes that argument. So, this is my first and main criticism about the book: it revisits the existing scholarship on intellectuals but the author does not synthesize them to assert his own position. Until the end of the book he does not make any explicit and strong claim, and his argument in the end is not connected to the parts in which he reviews the literature basically.
The first chapter questions the claim of speaking truth to power, which is usually associated to public intellectuals. There is this notion that intellectual has to know the truth and has to make it acknowledged somehow. In relation to truth and power we have two main archetypes of intellectuals, Socrates as the lone seeker of truth who convicted and executed for he spoke truth to the power; and Plato's ideal philosopher-king who overcome the dichotomy of truth and power we see in the case of Socrates. Since Socrates, certain thinkers try to come up with a formula who combines philosophical life, i.e. intellect, with political power. The author indirectly defines public intellectual as a person who claims truth through thinking, philosophical wisdom or any other intellectual means, and uses this intellect to make intervention in the public sphere which is under the control of political power.
As I said, Sassower closes the chapter without asserting his own theoretical concerns or position regarding these debates. Then he moves on to analyze the labels associated with public intellectuals in the second chapter. There are nine sets of labels and within each set there are two or three related labels juxtaposed regarding their historical precedence. Let me, at least, count them without explanation: 1) prophets and übermenschen; 2) gadflies, martyrs and philosopher-kings; 3) clerks and politically responsible; 4) unattached/witnesses and organic/connected; 5) specialized and universal; 6) jesters, sophists and amateurs; 7) legislators, interpreters and translators; 8) strangers, nomads and spokespersons; and finally 9) reckless celebrities, rappers and bloggers.
The third chapter is a review of sociological, political, psychological and economic approaches in the studies of intellectuals which further complicates the picture. Because, Sassower does not make a conclusion out of these contentions in the literature; and also these contentions are not easy to resolve. There is an almost built-in problem with the existing literature on intellectuals, especially the sociology of intellectuals.
We can say that the major problem is the problem of unit of analysis. For the question, "what is our unit of analysis", the answer might be simple: intellectual. But intellectual is very difficult to define, it is almost impossible to come up with a universally-applied definition of intellectual. As shown in the forth chapter of the book, there are different lists of public intellectuals prepared by scholars, magazines etc. Although they have certain names in common, there are a lot discrepancies. In short, to say that this person or that person is intellectual is mostly arbitrary and somehow based on convention.
Thus there is a problem about the main point which came out in the last chapter, that is: without clarifying the doubts about defining intellectual or determining who intellectuals are, the author suggests a number of things to support public intellectuals financially. Among them are creating a fund for intellectual forums in different localities and providing grants that would be available to those who engage in intellectual activities such as research, publication, public discussions etc. Implicitly, these suggestions are to finance the intellectual activity or the intellectual field, not the intellectual per se.
Displaying 1 of 1 review