“You Might Be a Public Intellectual If…”: A Checklist for Political Scientists, a Challenge for Political Science

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (04) ◽  
pp. 657-659
Author(s):  
Jacob S. Hacker
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Public Intellectuals ◽  
Amitai Etzioni ◽  
The Right

Amitai Etzioni has written something of a pocket guide for public intellectuals, proffering hard-won lessons from his own time in the trenches. I wish that I had read his primer before I tried to break into the club. And I hope thatPSreaders seeking to be PI players read his guide with the right mix of humor, curiosity, and skepticism about the rules of success that Etzioni evinces.

Ambiguities and Clichés in the Debate about Public Intellectuals

2007 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara A. Misztal
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
New Left ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Public Intellectuals ◽  
The Public ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper's purpose is to exam Turner's (2006a) thesis that Britain neither produced its own public intellectuals nor a distinctive sociology. It aims to outline difficulties with the logic of Turner's argument rather than to discuss any particular public intellectual in Britain. The paper argues that Turner's claim about the comparative insignificance of public intellectuals in Britain reinforces the myth of British exceptionalism and overlooks the significance of the contribution to the public sphere by intellectuals from other disciplines than sociology. It discusses Turner's assumption that intellectual innovation requires massive disruptive and violent change and suggests that such an assertion is not necessarily supported by studies of the conditions of the production of knowledge. Finally, the paper argues that Turner's anguish at the absence of public intellectuals among sociologists in Britain is symptomatic of New Left thinking that models the idea of the intellectual on Gramsci. In conclusion, the paper asserts that Turner's idea of the intellectual fails to note the tension at the heart of the role of public intellectual–the tension between specialist and non-specialist functions.

scholarly journals THE LAST WOLF. THOMAS HOBBES’ PHILOSOPHY OF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-127
Author(s):  
Silvia Alves
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Modern Theory ◽  
Judicial Discretion ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Ex Post Facto ◽  
The Right

This article draws a reconstruction of Thomas Hobbes’ philosophy of crime and punishment. In Leviathan or Philosophical rudiments (De Cive) political science, legal theory and philosophy of crime and punishment compose a coherent unity. This scenario where power and law emerge allows to erect an extraordinarily modern theory that shelters preference for statutory law and suspicion of judicial discretion; consistency and predictability of the legal system; preventism and utilitarianism on punishments; prohibition of ex post facto laws and, in general, defense of strict legality. Boldness and the disconcerting frankness of Hobbes’ thinking coexist with some defiant antinomies. The duty to obey never eclipses the inalienable right to self-preservation. And the theorist of absolute sovereignty can present himself as an unexpected liberal. But perhaps the most disturbing is the permanent reminder that punishment remains brutal violence. The right to punish and the right to resist are the brutal remains of the state of nature.

scholarly journals Evolution of a public intellectual: coral reef biologist Jeremy Jackson

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (01) ◽  
pp. C04
Author(s):  
Randy Olson
Keyword(s):  
Coral Reef ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Public Intellectuals ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media

This commentary is both a case study of the evolution of one public intellectual, and an analysis of how he has broadened his voice beyond the standard academic bubble. His story gives a perspective on the question of, “How do public intellectuals get their start?” They almost certainly begin as “mere” intellectuals — the public part comes later. But how? How does a studious academic go from following the media to being part of the media?

Global Bourdieu

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 565-586
Author(s):  
Niilo Kauppi ◽  
David Swartz
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Social Mechanisms ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Global Circulation ◽  
Multiple Factors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Domination ◽  
The Web

Pierre Bourdieu was a prolific scholar whose multifaceted work inspired research in a wide variety of areas. Beyond sociology we find his influence in anthropology, history, cultural studies, political science, and international relations. Particularly after 1995, when he engaged in a fight against neo-liberalism, he became the pre-eminent public intellectual. Bourdieu clearly stands in the pantheon of the greatest contemporary social scientists. This article explores the social mechanisms that enabled the global circulation of Bourdieu’s oeuvre. Multiple factors in multiple intellectual fields contributed to this process. There are “global Bourdieus.” Throughout his career Bourdieu was a defender of the dominated, and a sharp critic of established powers; his work provides individuals in a variety of central and peripheral fields weapons against social domination whatever its form. This narrative weds together his biography and oeuvre, and forms the web that unites him with the social carriers of his work globally.

Libraries and the Preservation of Public Intellectual Space and Heritage

2020 ◽  
pp. 218-230
Author(s):  
Anil Kumar Nauriya
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Public Intellectuals ◽  
The Public ◽  
Intellectual Heritage ◽  
Epistemic Justice ◽  
Primary Means

There is one aspect of Libraries that needs particularly to be highlighted, namely the role of the public library as a par excellence site that upholds the public intellectual space when contrasted to the more restricted academic space. It is a primary means by which public intellectuals and, through them, civil society, may hold even academia to account when the latter becomes confined by dead habits or restricted by institutional, bureaucratic, elitist or other, structures. It needs to be emphasized that academia and scholarship are not necessarily congruent. The interplay between academia and scholarship is crucial and that is made possible by the public library. Open libraries, especially public libraries, are at least as vital as the academia. The importance of a library or a museum is not necessarily related to its location or its size. “Preservation” and “intellectual heritage” need to be decolonized in order to realize epistemic justice.

Does Public Reason Liberalism Rest on a Mistake? Democracy’s Doxastic and Epistemic Problems

2021 ◽  
pp. 135-155
Author(s):  
Jason Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Political Outcomes ◽  
Public Reason Liberalism ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Beliefs And Attitudes ◽  
Voter Knowledge

Public reason liberalism is a normative theory meant to adjudicate citizens’ conflicting beliefs about the right and the good. However, it rests upon controversial and likely mistaken empirical claims about voter psychology and voter knowledge. In political science, there are two major paradigms—populism and realism—about the relationship between voters’ beliefs and political outcomes. Realism holds that most citizens lack the kinds of beliefs and attitudes which public reason liberals believe are normatively significant. If so, then most citizens lack the kinds of ideological disputes which public reason liberalism is supposed to adjudicate. Worse, most citizens lack the kinds of normatively significantly beliefs upon which public justification must rest.

Reshaping Public Intellectual Life: Frank Moorhouse and His Milieu

2015 ◽  
Vol 156 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-141
Author(s):  
Catharine Lumby
Keyword(s):  
Moral Values ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Public Intellectuals ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Fiction Writer ◽  
The Way

This article uses Frank Moorhouse as a study of the formation of a public intellectual in the 1960s and 1970s. Moorhouse was a key figure in the Sydney Push, a loose Libertarian-anarchist network of artists, writers, intellectuals and party people who rejected the dominant moral values of the 1950s and 1960s. A journalist, Moorhouse later became a well-known fiction writer who was part of a similarly bohemian and activist milieu centred in Sydney's Balmain. Taking Frank Moorhouse as a case study, I will argue that there is something particular about the way public intellectuals have historically been formed and given voice in Australian life, which is characterised by a permeability between art and writing practices and between academic and activist milieux.

Louis Fisher on Congress and the Budget: Institutional Responsibility and Other Taboos

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (03) ◽  
pp. 510-514
Author(s):  
Jasmine Farrier
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Fiscal Policy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Power Balance ◽  
Elected Leaders ◽  
Institutional Responsibility

The serial fiscal policy and budgeting woes of the United States over the last three decades have been compounded by a bipartisan evasion of institutional responsibility by elected leaders. Long before “sequestration” and “fiscal cliffs,” Louis Fisher argued that presidents and members of the House and Senate undermined constitutional power balance and the spirit of budgeting law. A variety of ill-conceived process “reforms” further damaged the separation of powers system. As a scholar, Fisher uses an institutional lens to explore budget concepts that are rare in political science, such ascapacity, accountability, andduty. And as a public intellectual, Fisher's relevance has been secured by his repeatedly broaching these scholarly and political taboos.

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