Public intellectuals: past, present and future

This article addresses the various roles public intellectuals have played along the times and issues surrounding their positions in the past and in democratic societies in the twenty-first century and in the future. The title is intended to highlight that no specific chronological limits are considered for the subject. It also does not offer any new interpretation of the topic or a polemical statement that departs from arguments others have made. Although intellectual culture includes diverse skills and forms of knowledge, it can be reduced to the ability to argue, to reflect, to analyze, to criticize, to formulate and contest ideas. And, as Michael Oakeshott, in his essay “The role of poetry in the conversation of mankind” so originally taught us, it takes a command of intellectual discourse and its generalizing vocabularies to implement them effectively enough to intervene in the conversation of one’s culture, as public intellectuals should do.