The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose
commander-in-chief is the philosopher. The intellectual carries the
application of philosophical principles to every field of human endeavor. He
sets a society’s course by transmitting ideas from the “ivory tower” of the
philosopher to the university professor—to the writer—to the artist—to the
newspaperman—to the politician—to the movie maker—to the night-club
singer—to the man in the street. The intellectual’s specific professions are
in the field of the sciences that study man, the so-called “humanities,” but
for that very reason his influence extends to all other professions. Those who
deal with the sciences studying nature have to rely on the intellectual for
philosophical guidance and information: for moral values, for social theories,
for political premises, for psychological tenets and, above all, for the
principles of epistemology, that crucial branch of philosophy which studies
man’s means of knowledge and makes all other sciences possible. The
intellectual is the eyes, ears and voice of a free society: it is his job to
observe the events of the world, to evaluate their meaning and to inform the
men in all the other fields.