An intellectual is a person who primarily uses intelligence in either a professional or an individual capacity. As a substantive or adjective, it refers to the work product of such persons, to the so-called "life of the mind" generally, or to an aspect of something where learning, erudition, and informed and critical thinking are the focus, as in "the intellectual level of the discourse on the matter was not high".

The intellectual is a specific variety of the intelligent, which unlike the general property, is strictly associated with reason and thinking. Many everyday roles require the application of intelligence to skills that may have a psychomotor component, for example, in the fields of medicine, sport or the arts, but these do not necessarily involve the practitioner in the "world of ideas". The distinctive quality of the intellectual person is that the mental skills he or she demonstrates are not simply intelligent, they focus on thinking about the abstract, philosophical and esoteric aspects of human inquiry and the value of their thinking. Traditionally, the scholarly and the intellectual classes were closely identified; however, while an intellectual need not necessarily be actively involved in scholarship, he or she may have an academic background and will typically have an association with a profession.

More broadly, any work of the mind may be termed intellectual property, whether or not its content is "intellectual" in the sense covered in this article.

Terminology and endeavours[link]

"Intellectual" can denote three types of people:

An intellectual is a person who uses thought and reason, intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning, in either a professional or a personal capacity and is

1. a person involved in, and with, abstract, erudite ideas and theories;
2. a person whose profession (e.g. philosophy, literary criticism, sociology, law, political analysis, theoretical science, etc.) solely involves the production and dissemination of ideas;^[1]
3. a person of notable cultural and artistic expertise whose knowledge grants him or her intellectual authority in public discourse.

Historical perspectives[link]

In English ‘intellectual’ conveys the general notion of a literate thinker; its earlier usage, such as in The Evolution of an Intellectual (1920), by John Middleton Murry, connotes little in the way of ‘public’ rather than ‘literary’ activity.^[2]

Men of letters[link]

The term ‘Man of Letters’ (‘belletrist’, from the French belles-lettres), has been used in some Western cultures to denote contemporary intellectual men; the term rarely denotes ‘scholars’, and is not synonymous with ‘academic’.^[3][4] Originally, the term implied a distinction, between the literate and the illiterate, which carried great weight when literacy was rare. It also denoted the ‘literati’ (Latin, pl. of literatus), the ‘citizens of the Republic of Letters’ in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, where it evolved into the salon, usually run by women.

Nineteenth-century British usage[link]

In the late eighteenth century, when literacy was relatively common in European countries, such as the United Kingdom, the ‘man of letters’ denotation broadened, to mean ‘specialised’; a man who earned his living writing intellectually, not creatively, about literature — the essayist, the journalist, the critic, et al. In the twentieth century, such an approach was gradually superseded by the academic method, and ‘man of letters’ fell into disuse, replaced by the generic ‘intellectual’, a term comprehending intellectual men and women. Its first common usage occurred at the end of the nineteenth century, to denote the defenders of the falsely accused Artillery Officer Alfred Dreyfus; see below.^[5]

Nineteenth-century European modes of the ‘Intellectual Class’[link]

In the early nineteenth century, Samuel Taylor Coleridge speculated upon the concept of the clerisy — as an intellectual class, not as a type of man or woman — as the secular equivalent of the (Anglican) clergy, whose societal duty is upholding the (national) culture; like-wise, the concept of the intelligentsia also approximately from that time, concretely denotes a status class of ‘mental’ (white-collar) workers. Alister McGrath said that ‘[t]he emergence of a socially alienated, theologically literate, anti-establishment lay intelligentsia is one of the more significant phenomena of the social history of Germany in the 1830s’, and that ‘. . . — three or four theological graduates in ten might hope to find employment’ in a church post.^[6] As such, politically radical thinkers already had participated in the French Revolution (1789–99); Robert Darnton said that they were not societal outsiders, but ‘respectable, domesticated, and assimilated’.^[7]

L'Aurore's front page on 13 January 1898 features Émile Zola's open letter to the French President Félix Faure.

Thenceforth, in Europe and elsewhere, an ‘intellectual class’ variant has proved societally important, especially to self-styled intellectuals, whose degree of participation in their society’s art, politics, journalism, education — of either nationalist, internationalist, or ethnic sentiment — constitute the ‘vocation of the intellectual’. Moreover, some intellectuals were vehemently anti-academic; although universities and their faculties have been synonymous with intellectualism, in other times, centre of gravity of intellectual life has been the academy.

In France, the Dreyfus affair marked the full emergence of the ‘intellectual in public life’, especially Émile Zola, Octave Mirbeau, and Anatole France directly addressing the matter of French anti-semitism to the public; thenceforward, ‘intellectual’ became common, yet occasionally derogatory, usage; its French noun usage is attributed to Georges Clemenceau, in 1898.

Eastern intellectuals[link]

For much of Indian history, Brahmins have been the majority in intellectual occupations such as teaching and writing. However, following India's independence and introduction of reservations for scheduled castes, the proportions have been increasing in favour of other castes. Brahmins have also increasedly taken to non-intellectual professions.

In China, literati denotes the scholar-bureaucrats, government officials integral to the ruling class, of more than two thousand years ago. These intellectuals were a status group of educated laymen, whose employment depended upon their commanding knowledge of writing and literature. After 200 BC, Confucianism influenced the candidate selection system, thus establishing its ethic among the literati. In the Peoples' Republic of China, during the mid-twentieth century, the Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956–57) — ‘Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land’, proved that mobilising the intellectuals did not always have good consequences.

In Joseon Korea (1392–1910), literati designated the Confucian chungin (‘middle people’), a petite bourgeoisie of scholar-bureaucrats (technicians, professionals, scholars) who ensured the Joseon Dynasty’s rule of Korea.

Public intellectual life[link]

Poster of Edward Saïd

Public intellectual is a common term for an intellectual engaged in public rather than (or as well as) academic or other professional discourse.

Regardless of the field of expertise, as a public intellectual, one is addressing and responding to the problems of his or her society and thus such an individual is expected to "rise above the partial preoccupation of one’s own profession . . . and engage with the global issues of truth, judgement, and taste of the time." ^[8][9] According to Edward Saïd however:

[The] . . . real or ‘true’ intellectual is, therefore, always an outsider, living in self-imposed exile, and on the margins of society’.^[10]

An intellectual is often associated with a particular ideology, e.g. the Third Way centrism of Anthony Giddens in the Labour Government of Tony Blair.^[11] Váçlav Havel said that politics and intellectuals can be linked, but that responsibility for their ideas, even when advocated by a politician, remains with the intellectual. Therefore, it's best to avoid utopian intellectuals offering ‘universal insights’ that might, and have, harmed society,^[12] preferring instead that those intellectuals who are mindful of the ties created with their insights, words, and ideas should be ‘. . . listened to with the greatest attention, regardless of whether they work as independent critics, holding up a much-needed mirror to politics and power, or are directly involved in politics’.^[13]

Relationship with academia[link]

In some contexts, especially in journalism, ‘intellectual’ generally denotes academics of the humanities — especially philosophy — who speak about important social and political matters; by definition, the public intellectuals who communicate the theoretic base for resolving public problems; generally, academics remain in their areas of expertise, whereas intellectuals apply academic knowledge and abstraction to public problems.

The sociologist Frank Furedi said that ‘Intellectuals are not defined according to the jobs they do, but [by] the manner in which they act, the way they see themselves, and the values that they uphold’;^[14] they usually arise from the educated élite, although the North American usage of ‘intellectual’ includes them to the ‘academics’.^[15] Convergence with, and participation in, open, contemporary public debate separates intellectuals from academics; by venturing from academic specialism to address the public, the academic becomes a public intellectual.^[16] Generally, ‘intellectual’ is a label more often applied to public debate-participants from the fields of culture, the arts, and the social sciences, including the law, than to the men and women working in the natural sciences, the applied sciences, mathematics, and engineering.

Public policy debate[link]

The role of a public intellectual may be to connect scholarly research with public policy. Michael Burawoy, an exponent of public sociology, criticises ‘professional sociology’ for failing to give sufficient attention to socially important subject matter, blaming academics for losing sight of important public events and issues. Burawoy supports ‘public sociology’ to give the public access to academic research. This process necessitates a dialogue between those in the academic sphere and the public, meant to bridge the gap which still exists between the more homogeneous world of academia and the diverse public sphere. It has been argued that social scientists who are well aware of the various thresholds crossed in passing from academic to public policy adviser are much more effective.^[17] A case study on this passage^[18] shows how intellectuals worked to re-establish democracy within the Pinochet regime in Chile. This transition created new professional opportunities for some social scientists, as politicians and consultants, but entailed a shift toward the pragmatic in their politics, and a step away from the neutrality of academia.

C. Wright Mills, in The Sociological Imagination, argued that academics had become ill-equipped for the task and that, more often than not, journalists are ‘more politically alert and knowledgeable than sociologists, economists, and especially [...] political scientists’.^[19] He went on to criticize the American university system as privatized and bureaucratic, and for failing to teach ‘how to gauge what is going on in the general struggle for power in modern society’.^[19] Richard Rorty was also critical of the ‘civic irresponsibility of intellect, especially academic intellect’.^[20]

Richard Posner concentrates his criticism on "academic public intellectuals"; claiming their declarations to be untidy and biased in ways which would not be tolerated in their academic work. Yet he fears that independent public intellectuals are in decline. Where writing on the academic public intellectual Posner finds that they are only interested in public policy, not with public philosophy, public ethics or public theology, and not with matters of moral and spiritual outrage. Their input has come to be on hard-headed policy questions, rather than values. He also sees a decline in their factual accuracy, linked to a reliance on qualitative and fallible reasoning.

Critics[link]

The American theologian Edwards A. Park said, ‘we do wrong to our own minds when we carry out scientific difficulties down to the arena of popular dissension’.^[21] He wanted ‘to separate the serious technical role of professionals from their responsibility of supplying usable philosophies for the general public’^[21] — the rationale for maintaining the private knowledge–private knowledge dichotomy (reminiscent of the two cultures dichotomy); Bender differentiates between ‘civic culture’ and ‘professional culture’ in describing the different spheres where academics work.^[22] This perspective dates from Socrates, who disliked the Sophist idea of a public ‘market of ideas’, advocating, instead, a knowledge-monopoly; thus, ‘those who sought a more penetrating and rigorous intellectual life rejected, and withdrew from, the general culture of the city in order to embrace a new model of professionalism’.^[21]

Conflicting perspectives about the intellectual established the critical tone about the societal role of the public intellectual. Quite generally, in that perspective, the term ‘intellectual’ has negative connotations in the Netherlands, as having ‘unrealistic visions of the World’; in Hungary, as being ‘too-clever’ and an ‘egg-head’; and in the Czech Republic, as discredited for aloofness from reality; yet Stefan Collini says that this derogatory usage is not fully representative of the term, as in the ‘. . . case of English usage, positive, neutral, and pejorative uses can easily co-exist’, thus Václav Havel as the exemplar who, ‘. . . to many outside observers [became] a favoured instance of the intellectual as national icon’ in the post–Communist Czech Republic.^[23]

The British historian Norman Stone said that, as a social class, intellectuals got things badly wrong, doomed to error and stupidity.^[24] In her memoirs, the politician Margaret Thatcher described the French Revolution (1789–99) as ‘. . . a utopian attempt to overthrow a traditional order . . . in the name of abstract ideas, formulated by vain intellectuals’;^[25] nevertheless, as Prime Minister, Thatcher did call upon academics’ help in resolving Britain’s problems — while retaining the popular view of the intellectual as un-British, seconded by newspapers such as The Spectator , The Sunday Telegraph^[12] and documented by the apparent lack of 'intellectuals' in Britain by Collini.^[26]

According to a paper by Robert Nozick at the Cato Institute, it is more common for intellectuals to have leftist political views than right-wing, arguing that intellectuals were bitter that the skills so rewarded in school were less rewarded in the job market, and so turned against capitalism, even though they enjoyed vastly more enjoyable lives under it than under alternative systems.^[27] An analysis made by economist Fredrich Hayek states that intellectuals disproportionately support socialism or have socialist tendencies,^[28] which is consistent with the fact that many modern intellectuals, such as Albert Einstein, have had socialist beliefs.^[29] In general, most intellectuals in the United States have left-leaning fiscal political viewpoints.^[30]

Intellectuals, liberalism and conservatism

Ernesto Che Guevara reunited with Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, in Cuba. 1960

Jean Paul Sartre pronounced intellectuals to be the moral conscience of their age, their task being to observe the political and social situation of the moment, and to speak out—freely—in accordance with their consciences (Scriven 1993: 119).

Like Sartre and Noam Chomsky, many public intellectuals hold knowledge across a vast array of subjects including: "the international world order, the political and economic organisation of contemporary society, the institutional and legal frameworks that regulate the lives of ordinary citizens, the educational system, and the media networks that control and disseminate information. Sartre systematically refused to keep quiet about what he saw as inequalities and injustices in the world" (Scriven 1999: xii).

Whereas intellectuals, particularly in politics and the social sciences, and social liberals and democratic socialists ordinarily support and engage in democratic principles such as, freedom, equality, justice, human rights, social welfare, the environment and political and social improvement, both domestically and internationally, most conservatives, including Margaret Thatcher, are interested in upholding security and elitism.^{[citation needed]} This opinion can be seen most readily in the idea that UK foreign policy is shaped and managed by a domestic elite that shares the same viewpoint on all major aspects of foreign policy. According to the historian, Mark Curtis in his book: Web of Deceit: Britain's Real Role in the World, this elite spans the influential figures in all the mainstream parties, the civil service and technocrats who implement the policy, and also senior academic and media figures who help shape public opinion. This elite promotes the basic pillars of Britain's role in the world, such as: strong general support (involving consistent apologia) for US foreign policy and maintaining a special relationship; maintaining a powerful interventionist military capability and using it; promotion of 'free trade' and worldwide economic 'liberalisation'; retention of nuclear weapons; promoting military industry and Britain's role as an arms exporter; and strong support for the traditional order in the Middle East, Gulf regimes and other key bilateral allies (Curtis 2003: 286).

This single ideological foreign policy is exemplified by Bernard Ingham (Margaret Thatcher's former press spokesman), who stated: "Bugger the public's right to know. The game is the security of the state - not the public's right to know" (Curtis 2003: 285).

Marxism and intellectuals[link]

Marxists interest themselves in the status of intellectuals in a number of ways: their class position, the way they form a reservoir of ideas, and in the public sphere, their ability to interpret and their potential as leaders. At the same time, intellectuals (from Karl Marx onwards) have taken an interest in Marxism from the most varied angles. A widely held view by Marxists is that intellectuals are alienated and anti-establishment. Although Marx seemed to imply in his reference to intellectuals that they are constantly engaged in an instinctive struggle with established institutions, including the state, 'such a struggle could be carried on within such institutions and in support of established institutions and against change'.

Antonio Gramsci, a theorist on intellectuals, argued that 'intellectuals view themselves as autonomous from the ruling class'. He suggests that this conceptualisation 'originates with intellectuals themselves, not with students of intellectual life'. His standpoint is that every social class needs its own intelligentsia, to shape its ideology, and that intellectuals must choose their social class. The extent to which ideological currents have influenced the twentieth century milieu has caused some observers of intellectual life to make ideology part of the definition of an intellectual. Lewis Feuer expresses this view when he states that 'no scientist or scholar is regarded as an intellectual unless he adheres to or seems to be searching for an ideology'.

Marxists believe intellectuals resemble the proletarian by reason of their social position, making a living by selling their labour and therefore are often exploited by the power of capital. On the other hand, intellectuals perform mental work, often managerial work, and due to their higher income, they live in a manner comparable to that of the bourgeois. Intellectuals have been neutral instruments in the hands of different social forces. However, Marxists believe that ‘all knowledge is existentially based, and that intellectuals who create and preserve knowledge act as spokesmen for different social groups and articulate particular social interests’. Where Gramsci has said that intellectuals offer their knowledge on the market, Marxists suggest that ‘under modern Western capitalism, the intellectuals make commodities of the ideologies they produce and offer themselves for hire to the real social classes whose ideologies they formulate, whose intelligence they will become’. Marx believed that intellectuals aim to universalise their ideologies ‘then turn about and expose the partiality of those ideologies.’

Yet, for Harding,^[31] Marx's theory of the rise of the proletariat was to rely on the intellectuals of that historical period, as stated by Gramsci:

A human mass does not 'distinguish' itself, does not become independent in it's [sic] own right without, in the widest sense, organising itself; and there is no organisation without intellectuals, that is without organisers and leaders, in other words, without ... a group of people 'specialised' in conceptual and philosophical elaboration of ideas."^[32]

In this situation, as with other areas of society, it is the intellectuals, not the proletariat, who are to define the emancipation of the workers. According to Harding (1997), for the creation of any mass consciousness of ideals, intellectuals are essential. Alongside György Lukács, he also considers that, as a privileged class, it is they, not the workers who can interpret 'totality', giving them the right to be considered leaders. Lenin also maintained that the ideology of socialism was beyond the comprehension of the working classes. The intellectual level which was necessary for the development of such ideologies was, he maintained, out of the reach of the average worker.^[33]

Marxists believe that intellectuals talk and communicate in a certain language that is distinctive to other intellectuals and middle-class populations. Alvin Gouldner labels this language 'critical-reflexive discourse'. By this, Gouldner argues that 'intellectuals universally agree that their positions be defended by rational arguments and that the status of the individual making the argument should have no bearing on the outcome'.

Economic liberal and classical liberal views of intellectuals[link]

The economist Milton Friedman had a negative view of intellectuals, believing they were an enemy to capitalism because a majority of them held socialist beliefs:

The two chief enemies of free enterprise are intellectuals on the one hand and businessmen on the other, for opposite reasons. Every intellectual believes in freedom for himself, but he’s opposed to freedom for others... He thinks... there ought to be a central planning board that will establish social priorities.^[34]

Background of public intellectuals[link]

Peter. H. Smith said that ‘people from an identifiable social class, for instance philosopher Steve Fuller said that, because Cultural capital confers power and status, one must be autonomous in order to be a credible intellectual: ‘It is relatively easy to demonstrate autonomy if you come from a wealthy or [an] aristocratic background. You simply need to disown your status and champion the poor and downtrodden.^[35] autonomy is much harder to demonstrate if you come from a poor or proletarian background . . . [thus] calls to join the wealthy in common cause appear to betray one’s class origins’.^[36] The importance of Émile Zola in the Dreyfus Affair derived from his already being a ‘leading French thinker, [that] his letter formed a major turning-point in the affair’. Although he was tried for his political participation in the Dreyfus Affair, he escaped the law by fleeing France, because he was rich.

From the public’s perspective, many of the world’s private and public intellectuals were graduated from élite universities, and, therefore, were educated by the preceding generation of intellectuals, e.g. Noam Chomsky at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens at Oxford University.^[37] None the less, the exceptions exist; Harold Pinter, of a ‘low middle-class background’, was a playwright, screenplay writer, actor, theatre director, poet, and political activist, whose activities as such rendered him a public intellectual.

Bioethics and public intellectualism[link]

Richard Dawkins

Bioethics has intense public interest, despite the fact that it is an academic specialisation. It provokes debate on an array of socially important issues involving medicine, technology, genetic research etc. Examples of scientists who have occupied a unique role in public intellectualism are Richard Dawkins with his work on evolution, and Charles Darwin.

It has been suggested that public intellectuals bridge the gap between the academic elite and the educated public, particularly when concerning issues in the natural sciences like genetics and bioethics. There are distinct differences between academics in the traditional sense and public intellectuals. Academics are typically confined to their academy or university and tend to concentrate on their chosen academic discipline. This is usually specific to western academia, following large scale investment into higher education after the Cold War and growth in the number of academic institutions. This in turn has led to hyperspecialisation within academic life- the specialization of particular disciplines and confining it to the classroom. This has become known as "the academisation of intellectual life". A public intellectual, although often starting out in academia, is not confined to a specific discipline or to traditional boundaries. Public intellectuals should not be confused with experts, who are people who have mastery over one specific field of interest. This development has encouraged a gap between academics and the public. Public intellectuals convey information through multiple mediums, often appearing on television, radio and in popular literature. As Richard Posner states, "a public intellectual expresses himself in a way that is accessible to the public". They synthesize academic ideas and relate them to wider socio- political issues.

There has been a general call for natural scientists and bioethicists to play more of a role in public intellectualism as their disciplines have such relevance to civil society. Scientists and bioethicists already play major roles in review boards, government commissions and ethics committees, it is easy to see how their research can have public relevance. Since academia is hidden away, it has been argued that scientists, and bioethicists in particular should realise their duty to society by assuming the role of a public intellectual. This would mean taking their relevant research and communicating it through mass media to the wider concerns of the public. Increased public interest in bioethics has increased the responsibility for bio ethicists to become more engaged in the public domain- not in an expert role, but as instigators of public discourse.

See also[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Kidder, David S., Oppenheim, Noah D., "The Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class", 2006. ISBN 1-59486-513-2
• Whittington-Egan, Richard (2003-08-01). "The vanishing man of letters: Part one". Contemporary Review. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-107897411.html. Retrieved 2007-03-10. 
• Whittington-Egan, Richard (2003-10-01). "The vanishing man of letters: Part two". Contemporary Review. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-110266770.html. Retrieved 2007-03-10. 

External links[link]

Look up intellectual or literati in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• The Responsibility of Intellectuals By Noam Chomsky, February 23, 1967
• Posner's table of 600+ public intellectualsPDF (105 KB) classified by such variables as sex, professional and disciplinary affiliation, political leaning, media affiliation, Web hits, and scholarly citations.
• Booknotes interview with Richard Posner on Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline, June 2, 2002.
• Where are the great women thinkers? Thinking so much about women has shrunk their minds By Charlotte Allen, February 16, 2005.
• Here's A Few You Missed By Laura Barton, July 2, 2004.
• The New Haven Advocate - Discussion of the public intellectual in the 21st century in "The Optimist's Book Club: The New Haven Review and the making of a new generation of public intellectuals"

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Nouman Ali Khan is a Muslim speaker and the CEO and founder of Bayyinah, an Islamic educational institution in the United States.^[1][2]

His early education in Arabic started under in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and continued in Pakistan. His serious Arabic training began in 1999 in the United States. He has been teaching Modern Standard and Classical Arabic at various venues for several years with over 10,000 students nationwide.^[1] Nouman Ali Khan teaches about the religion of Islam through his video speeches.^[3] He also frequently speaks at Islamic Circle of North America Conventions about Islam, family, and other life topics.^[4]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Detailed Student Notes of Nouman Ali Khan's Lectures

• Nouman Ali Khan lectures

Stephan Kinsella

Norman Stephan Kinsella (born 1965) is an American intellectual property lawyer and libertarian legal theorist. His electronically published works are primarily published on his blog and websites associated with the Ludwig von Mises Institute and anarcho-capitalist organizations.

Education[link]

Born in Prairieville, Louisiana, he attended Louisiana State University where he earned Bachelor of Science (BS) and Master of Science (MS) degrees in electrical engineering, and a Juris Doctor (JD) from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center. He also obtained an LL.M. at the University of London.

Career in law[link]

While Kinsella was general counsel of Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. of Sugar Land, Texas from 2000 to 2012, he is now practicing law with Kinsella Law Group in Houston since Feb. 2012. A practicing intellectual property attorney and former adjunct professor of law at South Texas College of Law, where he taught computer law, Kinsella is actively involved with libertarian legal and political theory, and is an adjunct scholar of the Mises Institute as well as the former Book Review Editor for the Institute's Journal of Libertarian Studies. He is also a contributor to the news and opinion blog at LewRockwell.com and is the creator of Libertarian Papers, a peer-reviewed online journal published under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.^[1]

He writes that, after college, he "began to put more emphasis on Austrian economics and paleolibertarian insights of Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and Rockwell."^[2]

Publications[link]

Kinsella's legal publications include books and articles about patent law, contract law, e-commerce law, international law and other topics. Kinsella has also published and lectured on a variety of libertarian topics, often combining libertarian and legal analysis. Kinsella's views on contract theory, causation and the law, intellectual property, and rights theory (in particular his estoppel theory) are his main contributions to libertarian theory.

In contract theory, he extends Murray Rothbard's^[3] and Williamson Evers's^[4] title transfer theory of contract linking it with inalienability theory while also attempting to clarify that theory.^[5] Kinsella advances a theory of causation that attempts to explain why remote actors can be liable under libertarian theory.^[6] He gives non-utilitarian arguments for intellectual property being incompatible with libertarian property rights principles.^[7] He offers a discourse ethics argument for the justification of individual rights, using an extension of the concept of estoppel.^[8]

Books[link]

• Protecting Foreign Investment Under International Law: Legal Aspects of Political Risk (with Paul E. Comeaux). Oceana Publications, 1997. ISBN 978-0-379-21371-3
• Online Contract Formation (with Andrew Simpson). Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN 978-0-379-21519-9
• International Investment, Political Risk, and Dispute Resolution: A Practitioner's Guide (with Noah Rubins). Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-379-21522-9
• Against Intellectual Property. Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2008. ISBN 978-1-933550-32-9

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• KinsellaLaw, Stephan Kinsella's legal website
• StephanKinsella.com, Stephan Kinsella's libertarian website
• List of publications
• Archive of Kinsella commentary from LewRockwell.com
• Symposium: "Do patents and copyrights undermine private property?" Ilana Mercer, Stephan Kinsella, and James DeLong. Insight on the News. 21 May 2001.
• AGAINST INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY Journal of Libertarian Studies. Volume 15, no. 2 (Spring 2001): 1–53.

v t e Anarcho-capitalism Literature Relationship with anarchism Relationship with minarchism Anarcho-capitalist revolution Symbolism Criticisms Features Aggression insurance Crime insurance Dispute resolution organization Free-market roads Jurisdictional arbitrage Non-aggression principle Polycentric law Private defense agency Private Governance Self-ownership Spontaneous order

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Stefan Basil Molyneux Molyneux speaking at Drexel University Born 24 September 1966 Athlone, Ireland School Voluntaryism Main interests Anarcho-capitalism, Atheism, Austrian Economics, Education, Ethics, Family, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Religion Influenced by Aristotle, Nathaniel Branden, Harry Browne, Hans Hermann Hoppe, Alice Miller, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Socrates Influenced Ian Bernard

Stefan Basil Molyneux (born 24 September 1966) is a blogger, essayist, author, and host of the Freedomain Radio^[1] series of podcasts, living in Mississauga, Canada. He has written numerous articles and smaller essays which have been published on libertarian websites such as LewRockwell.com, antiwar.com and Strike The Root,^[2][3] recorded over 2000 podcasts, produced over 800 videos, and written several books which are self-published except for his first, which was published by Publish America. In 2006 Molyneux quit his previous job in the field of computer software and works full-time on Freedomain Radio, a philosophical community website which is funded through donations. He self-identifies as a full-time parent and philosopher.

Freedomain Radio[link]

Format[link]

Freedomain Radio is primarily an online podcast, however Molyneux also uses essays, videos, books, articles, interviews, and public speaking to deliver his content. The regular content of the show covers topics such as anarcho-capitalism, ethics, Austrian economics, atheism, religion, education, family, philosophy and politics. Each Sunday Molyneux conducts a call-in show where listeners can talk with him about either a set topic of discussion, or their own. Freedomain Radio also has an online community message board for listeners to discuss Molyneux's content as well as related topics.

Books[link]

Molyneux is the author of several non-fiction books. He has written On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion, Universally Preferable Behaviour: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics, Real-Time Relationships: The Logic of Love, Everyday Anarchy, Practical Anarchy, How (Not) To Achieve Freedom, Against the Gods, and most recently The Handbook of Human Ownership: A Manual for New Tax Farmers.^[4][5] Molyneux has also written two fiction books, The God of Atheists and Revolutions.

Interviews[link]

Molyneux has conducted interviews with people such as Max Keiser,^[6][7] Alex Jones,^[8] Peter Schiff,^[9] Jeff Berwick,^[10] Stephan Kinsella,^[11][12] Bill Gairdner,^[13] Mary Ruwart,^[14] Alison Gopnik,^[15] Marc Faber,^[16] David Lindorff,^[17] Dan Carlin,^[18] and several other figures in the fields of education, academia, psychology, politics, and economics.

Public speaking[link]

Molyneux was the closing speaker for the 2009 New Hampshire Liberty Forum on March 8.^[19][20] Molyneux debated with 2004 US Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik at Drexel University on July 5, 2009.^[21][22] Molyneux was the opening speaker for PorcFest 2010 on June 24,^[23][24] the annual liberty festival organized by the Free State Project. Molyneux spoke at the Students For Liberty Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference hosted at Drexel University on October 9, 2010.^{[25][26][dead link][27]} Molyneux spoke at Libertopia^[28][29] on October 14–15, 2010. Molyneux spoke at the Ontario Libertarian Party Annual Liberty Seminar at Toronto on November 6, 2010.^{[30][31][dead link]} Molyneux was a speaker at the 2010 Freedom Summit in Phoenix, Arizona on December 5.^[32]

Television and Radio[link]

Molyneux is a regular guest commentator on Adam vs The Man, with his first appearance airing on RT America on April 11, 2011.^[33] He has also appeared several times on The Keiser Report,^[34] as well as The Alex Jones Show.^[35] On April 11, 2012, Molyneux guest-hosted the Peter Schiff Show.^[36]

Criticisms[link]

Molyneux and Freedomain Radio received media coverage in 2008 after several newspapers published a story about Freedomain Radio which centered around a member's parents, who claimed that Freedomain Radio is a therapeutic cult, after the 18 year old member left home and severed all contact with his family, an action that Freedomain Radio calls "deFOO" (borrowed from academic psychology, "FOO" is an acronym "Family of Origin"). In response Mr. Molyneux estimated about 20 FDR members had "deFOOed" their families, compared to 50,000 regular listeners.^{[37][38][39][40]}

References[link]

External links[link]

• Freedomain Radio official website
• Stefan Molyneux on MisesWiki
• Stefan Molyneux on Facebook
• Stefan Molyneux on Twitter
• Freedomain Radio channel on YouTube

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Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey Albert Tucker is the executive editor of Laissez Faire Books.^[1] He is past editorial vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and past editor for the institute's website, Mises.org. Tucker is also an adjunct scholar with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy^[2] and an Acton University faculty member.^[3]