LECTURE

How to be an Intellectual

Lecture chaired by Victor Suchar

Professor Steve Fuller

University of Warwick

9 March 2005.

Professor Fuller has appeared on Radio 4’s Today, Radio 3’s Nightwaves & Channel 4’s Trial of the 21^st Century. He has written for the Independent, the New Scientist & the New York Times. The following text is adapted from the Introduction of his recent book The Intellectual on which this lecture was based.

The Intellectual is modelled loosely on Machiavelli’s The Prince, the notorious 16^th century book of advice on how to govern. The source of The Prince’s notoriety is the single-mindedness with which Machiavelli pursued his topic: everything - from intimate relations to religious rituals - is judged in terms of its ability to acquire power and maintain power. Machiavelli wrote this way because he wanted the book to serve as a demonstration of his own worth for employment in a princely court. By that standard the book failed abysmally, placing Machiavelli under constant suspicion, and sometimes arrest, for the rest of his days. However, Machiavlli was a successful intellectual and deserves to be honoured as such. He said what everyone knew but refused to acknowledge. He spoke truth to power, when power was not accustomed to be addressed in that fashion. Like most intellectuals, Machiavelli stood for an ideal that had little chance of being realised in his lifetime – in his case, Roman civic republicanism. However, like all intellectuals, he developed his viewpoint in terms of the politics of his day, which centred on volatile city-states ruled by ambitious dynasties. This odd juxtaposition of the ideal and the real has led to no end of confusion about the ‘spirit’ in which Machiavelli’s advice was supposed to be taken: again, a fate shared by many intellectuals.I write as an intellectual in academia, which increasingly looks like a state in exile from the intellectual world. Historically the university has been the breeding ground of intellectuals. In particular, the introduction of tenured professorships in the 19^th century provided aspiring intellectuals with the opportunity – too bad not the obligation – to pursue lines of enquiry with impunity, challenging the received wisdom in one’s chosen field. At the dawn of the 21^st century, this aspect of academic life seems to be in terminal decline. Unfortunately, there is little sense of what is being lost in the process. The Intellectual aims to provide a vivid sense of the virtue that is ‘intellectual autonomy’ and a justification of its preservation and encouragement by whatever institutional means are available.The Intellectual has a tripartite structure, which is designed to get at many of the same themes from somewhat different angles. The first part consists of four essays that define some key characteristics of the intellectual, drawing on bothhistorical and contemporary examples. Since the intellectual is a somewhat elusive figure, all too often seen through the eyes of opponents, much of the text is devoted to distinguishing the intellectual from such related characters as the ideologue, the entrepreneur, the marketer, the journalist, the lawyer, the academic and the scientist. But clearly, the intellectual’s closest and most troublesome kin is the philosopher. Thus, the second part is an extended dialogue between an intellectual and a philosopher. The third and final part consists of a set of frequently asked questions about intellectuals. The book concludes with a brief list of works that figured in the composition of my argument.Based on my own experience, I would offer five pieces of advice that will reappear with greater elaboration and justification in the text. First, learn to see things from multiple viewpoints without losing your ability to evaluate them. Always imagine that at some point you will need to make a decision about what to believe of these different perspectives. Second, be willing and able to convey any thought in any medium. There would be little point in being an intellectual if you did not believe that ideas, in some sense, always transcend their mode of communication. Third, never regard a point of view as completely false or beneath contempt. There is plenty of truth and error to go around, and you can never really be sure which is which. Forth, always see your opinion as counter-balancing, rather that reinforcing someone else’s opinion. Fifth, in public debate fight for the truth tenaciously but concede error graciously.I would like to offer a word of advice to academics: even if you have personally lost the urge to be an intellectual, you are nevertheless seeding the next generation of intellectuals. Resist the temptation to quash the free-ranging and often reckless spirit that marks the first flowering of the critical intellect. It is too easy to invoke rules and standards that you know – and in other contexts would admit – are arbitrarily imposed for the sake of administrative convenience. If you cannot honestly justify academic strictures on intellectual grounds, then be open as possible about the power relations that compel you to restrict or censure the student’s mode of expression. It is natural for students to be confused about many things, but they should never leave your office confused on this matter. Academics are of course entitled to believe that the sort of intellectual defended in the text is unsustainable. Indeed, such a belief may help you rationalise your own career. But it is merely a belief, not a proof. In the end, the concept of academic freedom to teach is twofold: it upholds not only the freedom to teach but also to learn. Intellectuals are bred when the student’s academic freedom is treated with respect.

Research and teaching across different disciplines provides ideal academic training for the intellectual. My own career, centred on developing the research programme of ‘social epistemology’ is very much of this character. Social epistemology is concerned with how knowledge should be produced, in light of what is known about how it has been produced. In effect, it is a kind of abstract science policy. Each discipline has much to contribute to this project, though these contributions are likely to be valued more highly outside than inside a given discipline. This is because insights about the social character of knowledge often betray the secrets of cross-disciplinarily power struggles that both the stronger and weaker parties, for complementary reason, would rather leave concealed. In that respect, the social epistemologist is a trainee intellectual who speaks truth to power in the localised setting of the university. The university does not constitute the entire universe of public discourse – but it provides a good platform to go further.

Also on the topic of location, it is worth saying that although the British like to portray themselves as ‘anti-intellectual’, the UK is very likely the most intellectual nation in the English-speaking world, judged in terms of the quantity and quality of its academic and mass intellectual media. (I write as a US citizen who has been resident in the UK for the past ten years.)... In recent years, I have also benefited from speaking at some distinguished public forums in this county, including the Cafe Scientific and the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution. I want to thank Duncan Dallus and Victor Suchar (Philosophy convenor for BRLSI) for helping to maintain a live public intellectual culture. Over the past decade I have been able to participate in debated sponsored by the Times Higher Education Supplement, the New Scientist and the Independent. In addition I would like to draw attention to an intriguing experiment in the creation of a global public intellectual culture to which I have had the privilege to contribute, the Prague-based ‘Project Syndicate’ (www.project-syndicate.org). In all these settings, alongside the more that 500 public lectures I have delivered around the world over the past two decades, I have learned that, yes, any idea worth thinking can be conveyed at any length to any audience. Never confuse the laziness or impatience of elites with the depth of their ideas.

Extract from the Introduction of:Steve Fuller. The Intellectual (Cambridge: Icon Book, 2005).

Some other publications by Steve Fuller: