How do I become an intellectual?

Question

How do I become an intellectual?

Answer 1

You can decide this without the help of us.

First define what an intellectual is. Secondly decide how it will be to your advantage if you donned the cloak of intellectualism.

Answer 2

Start hanging out with other people who are really smart. So smart, in fact, that they think they're better than everybody else.

Answer 3

you basically just have to read alot-classics and books in different languages such as ancient icelandic and ancient greek. it sounds a bit boring to me but to an intellectual this is the most fun you could ever have. being intelligent probabley helps too.  

Answer 4

Quit worrying about having a title. Educate yourself by reading and reading and reading. Read many and varied titles, not just what you perceive as something that will give you a certain appearance. Someday somebody might tell you that you are "very intellectual" and then you will know. Most of all, learn and practice humility.

Answer 5

Start thinking.

Answer 6

Investigate some subject you are interested in through  book reading,internet research, talking, message boards (or Yahoo answers), etc.  You must be genuine and passionate about whatever it is you study or else you will come off as shallow and pretentious.  I'm not passionate about intellectualism so I'm sure I sound shallow and pretentious right now.  :)

Answer 7

To be an intellectual, in my opinion, requires having knowledge and desiring to know more.

An intellectual is not someone who knows it all but one who is hungry to learn.

The truly wise understand the transitory nature of "knowledge".

Answer 8

You just answered your own question in so many different ways.

Answer 9

Being intelluctual means learning to love humankind . so just by loving all human beings we can become really intelluctual .

Answer 10

Read deeper thinkers and then write about them. But always keep reading. The shallow thoughts of our times is caused by the massive decline in reading.

Here's some books I suggest you could start with:

Plato -- The Republic, The Laws

Aristotle -- Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Metaphysics

Thucydides -- The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians

St.Augustine -- The City of God

Dante -- The Divine Comedy

Maimonides -- the guide of the Perplexed

St. Aquinas -- Summa Theologica

Machiavelli -- The Prince, The Discourses on the First ten books of Titus Livius

Bacon -- New Atlantis, Advancement of Learning

Descartes -- Discourse on Method, Meditations

Hobbes -- Leviathan

Locke -- Two Treatises of government, An essay concerning Human Understanding

Milton -- Paradise Lost

Shakespeare -- Hamlet, King Lear,

Spinoza -- Theologico-Political Treatise

Hume -- Treatise of Human Understanding, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Rousseau -- Social Contract, Discourse on the Sciences and Arts

Smith -- The Wealth of Nations

Burke -- Reflections on the Revolution in France

Kant -- Critique of pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason

Hegel -- Phenomenolgy of the Mind

Marx -- Capital

Nietzsche -- Beyond Good and evil, Thus spoke Zarathustra

Husserl -- Logical Investigations

Heidegger -- Being and Time

Wittgenstein -- Philosophical Investigations

Popper -- The Logic of Scientific Discovery, The open Society and its Enemies

Answer 11

When you hear the "William Tell Overture" and don't think of the Lone Ranger...then you're an intellectual.

Answer 12

Read

Answer 13

You do not "become". You either are or aren't depending on genetics, environment and many other factors. If you want to improve your mental acuity, then I suggest reading a lot of books. But don't just read the words...ponder the words you read. Talk about the books with others that are reading or have read them. Striving to be as intelligent as you can possibly be, is not the true issue. It's whether you have the "desire" to strive....

Answer 14

It's like becoming an athelete.

You must relentlessly pursue the truth.

Never assume you know it all.

And it helps if you've started with good genes.