Critical Approaches to Current Ideas on the Intellectual

Volume 4|Issue 13| Summer 2015 |Articles

Abstract

I have in the past dealt extensively with the subject of the intellectual in my discussion of the issue of the intellectual and revolution. This forced me to return to prevailing conceptions about the intellectual, particularly how intellectuals differ from experts and the educated. This is consistent with the positive conception of the intellectual in the French tradition since Emile Zola’s J’accuse. It deals with the intellectual as an authority of conscience who does not derive legitimacy from social status based only on academic, literary, or other achievements, but also from the adoption of a critical stance towards the practices of the authorities or from prevailing preconceived ideas on the global level. In this way, the concept of the intellectual is necessarily immanent with the normative position in the public sphere.

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General Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (DI). Bishara is a leading Arab researcher and intellectual with numerous books and academic publications on political thought, social theory and philosophy. He was named by Le Nouveau Magazine Littéraire as one of the world's most influential thinkers. His publications in Arabic, some of which have become key references within their respective field, include Civil Society: A Critical Study (1996); From the Jewishness of the State to Sharon (2004); On The Arab Question: An Introduction to an Arab Democratic Manifesto (2007); To Be an Arab in Our Times (2009); On Revolution and Susceptibility to Revolution (2012); Religion and Secularism in Historical Context (in 3 vols., 2013, 2015); The Army and Political Power in the Arab Context: Theoretical Problems (2017); The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Daesh): A General Framework and Critical Contribution to Understanding the Phenomenon (2018); What is Populism? (2019); Democratic Transition and its Problems: Theoretical Lessons from Arab Experiences (2020); and The Question of the State: Philosophy, Theory, and Context (2023) with a second volume titled The Arab State: Beginnings and Evolution (2024).

His latest publication in Arabic titled Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice (2024), is translated from English, originally published in 2022 by Hurst Publishers in London. Bishara's English publications also include On Salafism: Concepts and Contexts (Stanford University Press, 2022); Sectarianism without Sects (Oxford University Press, 2021); and his trilogy on the Arab revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria, published by I.B. Tauris, Understanding Revolutions: Opening Acts in Tunisia (2021); Egypt: Revolution, Failed Transition and Counter-Revolution (2022); and Syria 2011-2013: Revolution and Tyranny before the Mayhem (2023), in which he provides a rich theoretical analysis in addition to a comprehensive and lucid assessment of the revolutions in three Arab countries. 


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