Summary of Thomas Sowell's Intellectuals and Society

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 Intelligence is the capacity to grasp and manipulate complex ideas. It is not enough to define intellect, as intelligence alone does not encompass intelligence in combination with judgment and care in selecting relevant explanatory factors. Wisdom is the rarest of all qualities: the ability to combine intellect, knowledge, experience, and judgment in a way that produces a coherent understanding.

#2 The term intellectual refers to an occupational category of people who primarily deal with ideas. The core of the notion of an intellectual is the dealer in ideas, not the personal application of ideas.

#3 The impact of an intellectual, or of intellectuals in general, does not depend on their being public intellectuals who directly address the population at large. Books with some of the biggest impacts on the twentieth century were written by Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud in the nineteenth century, and seldom read by the general public.

#4 The intelligentsia is made up of producers and disseminators of ideas, including teachers, journalists, social activists, and political aides. Those who are not producers or disseminators of ideas, but who are interested in remaining up to date with those ideas, are part of the intelligentsia.

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