ancient cities

396 Intellectuals
The concept of intellectuals, therefore, usually
includes philosophers and writers inspired by the
archetypal model of the classical philosopher
exemplified by the life and especially the death of
Socrates. The inclusion of scientists, academics,
and professionals is regarded as more problematic.
It is important to note that although the term intellectual
is used for convenience here, it was not
employed as a noun until the late nineteenth century,
by which time the concept of intellectuals as
omnivorous polymaths was being seriously challenged
by the specialization, institutionalization,
and commensurate fragmentation of scholarly
endeavor.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, designations
such as man of letters, philosophe, philosopher,
savant, and scholar were used to denote
some of the characteristics we now associate with
the noun intellectual. Intellectuals are sometimes
combined together as a social class or grouping
known as intelligentsia and held to comprise professionals
such as teachers, artists, and academics,
especially in France, Russia, and Central and
Eastern Europe, where they have played a public
role as political commentators. However, the concept
of intelligentsia and the label intellectual are
regarded much less favorably in Britain, the United
States, and the English-speaking world, especially
by right-wing commentators.
In the present context, we are primarily interested
in public intellectuals as a social group rather
than lone private figures as, in this form, intellectuals
have had the greatest impact on urban society
and urban studies. At least since the Enlightenment,
intellectuals and intellectual communities have
become primarily regarded as an urban-centered
phenomenon, although this has not precluded, of
course, residence in—nor inspiration from—the
countryside. In fact it is ironic that many intellectuals,
including William Wordsworth, Mathew
Arnold, and John Ruskin, while making considerable
use of urban networks, audiences, and experiences,
made strong criticisms of modern urban
society. In the rich and dense cultural interstices of
urban-centered living, intellectuals have had a
major impact in the modern world.
Some modern commentators have argued variously
that there has been a decline in the quality of
intellectual life, the number of intellectuals, or the
opportunities for intellectuals to thrive in modern
institutions such as universities. Developments in
information technology have, to some extent, severed
the link between intellectuals and urbanity,
and it is now possible for remote or roving thinkers
to remain part of a virtual global intellectual
community with the aid of the World Wide Web.
It has been argued that government institutions
and other bodies can intervene to nurture the
development of intellectual or creative communities
in urban areas to further economic regeneration.
This has encouraged renewed analysis of the
cultural geography and urban contexts in which
intellectual communities have thrived in the past.
This entry begins with a look at history, then
examines current issues.
The Enlightenment Intellectual
Although a period of striking modernity, the
Enlightenment was steeped in reverence for antiquity,
and the principal model for the intellectual in society
was the classical philosopher. The Enlightenment has
traditionally been associated with French philosophes
and autocratic rulers, but recent work has
tended to emphasize the differences between
Enlightenment cultures. Although some intellectuals
such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau remained suspicious
of urban living, the city was idealized in the
Enlightenment as a polite, refined, cultural, and
intellectual center that embodied rationality in its
ordered neoclassical buildings, squares, circuses,
public walks, and piazzas, where a lively public
intellectual culture thrived.
Enlightenment citizens were idealized for their
urbanity, civic humanism, and rationality, whereas
the intellectual was idealized as a trenchant, independent-minded,
public—usually male—philosopher
such as Francois Voltaire, Rousseau, David Hume,
Benjamin Franklin, Erasmus Darwin, and Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe. Enlightenment ideas were
generated and experienced in a variety of public
and semipublic places including coffeehouses, public
houses, salons, Masonic lodges, theaters, clubs,
and knowledge-based societies as part of a broad
urban civility that offered opportunities for women
as well as men.
In England, for example, the Royal Society
tended to be superseded by metropolitan coffeehouse
clubs and provincial intellectual associations
such as the Lunar Society of Birmingham,