Editing Intellectual (section)

{{Short description|Person who engages in critical thinking and reasoning}}
{{About|the term for a practician of intellect|the process of developing intellect|intellectualism}}
{{More citations needed|date=March 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2015}}
[[Image:Socrates Louvre.jpg|thumb|right|165px|[[Socrates]] (c. 470 – 399 BC)]]
[[File:Holbein-erasmus.jpg|thumb|200px|[[Erasmus of Rotterdam]] was one of the foremost intellectuals of his time.]]

An '''intellectual''' is a person who engages in [[critical thinking]], [[research]], and [[Human self-reflection|reflection]] about the nature of [[reality]], especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its [[normative]] problems.<ref>''The New Fontana dictionary of Modern Thought'' Third Edition, A. Bullock & S. Trombley, Eds. (1999) p. 433.</ref><ref>Jennings, Jeremy and Kemp-Welch, Tony. "The Century of the Intellectual: From Dreyfus to Salman Rushdie", ''Intellectuals in Politics'', Routledge: New York (1997) p. 1.</ref> Coming from the world of [[culture]], either as a creator or as a mediator, the intellectual participates in politics, either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice, usually by either rejecting, producing or extending an [[ideology]], and by defending a system of [[value theory|values]].<ref>[[Pascal Ory|Ory, Pascal]] and Sirinelli, Jean-François. {{Lang|fr|Les Intellectuels en France. De l’affaire Dreyfus à nos jours}} (''The Intellectuals in France: From the Dreyfus Affair to Our Days''), Paris: Armand Colin, 2002, p. 10.</ref>