If you exclude reading, writing, speaking, and listening (ie use of language, including math or code) as mere table stakes, how would you define “intellectual” in terms of essential non-language behaviors that non-intellectuals typically don’t exhibit?
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It frankly bothers me to ground the definition of "intellectual" primarily in relationships with other people rather than with the universe at large. In my book, it should be possible for Robinson Crusoe on an island to live intellectually (even if it means he doesn't live long)
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The problem with defining “intellectual” in some fashion other than socially or institutionally is that you end up slipping toward a definition like “a tendency toward abstraction/analysis” — which is pretty much the human cognitive condition, so broad that it delimits nothing.
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But doesn’t saying they have “an intellectual orientation” risk becoming tautological?
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Not necessarily. I'm characterizing the orientation in intensional terms via definitional behavioral constituents such as curiosity which others have pointed out. "Intellectuals are curious" like "water is wet". They try things. They forgo immediate reward. etc etc.
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