100 leading intellectuals of the world public

Noam Chomsky

British magazine Prospect recently hosted a poll of 100 leading public intellectuals (Globalpublic intellectuals poll). They produced a list of 100 intellectuals in all fields of politics, society, science, culture and literature.

More than 20,000 people participated in the vote. The first result in the order of votes is:

1. Noam Chomsky (4827)
2. Umberto Eco (2464)
3. Richard Dawkins (2188)
4. Václav Havel (1990)
5. Christopher Hitchens (1844).

Noam Chomsky was born in Philadelphia in 1928, and is a linguist famous for his theory of metabolic grammar. But he is widely known from the publicity of his opposition to the Vietnam War.

Over the past 40 years, he has been the most persistent and most vocal scientist to criticize US domestic and foreign policy. Chomsky has written more than 40 books and is still continuing to teach university in many places.

Speaking of Noam Chomsky 's top spot on this list of the world's top 100 intellectuals, commentator David Herman wrote: " Even if you disagree with his attack on policy. US foreign affairs, there are still two reasons why few people are surprised to see his name at the top of the referendum list. First is his intellectual level, like many others in the top ten, he is famous at Second, and more importantly, Chomsky belongs to Zola's tradition,

Umberto Eco

Russell and Sartre: a great thinker or a great writer, who speaks about the big problems of the public at his time, who oppose the government on conscience issues rather than paper-based policies. " .

Umberto Eco is 73 years old. It is possible to call him a Renaissance man because of his scope of knowledge. His main occupation was professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna, but he was better known, in addition to scientific works, as novels such as the name of rose, the Foucault pendulum, the latter being erected. into a movie in Hollywood with starring Sean Connery.

Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins famous in 1976 with his selfish book Gene, in which he considered the gene as the central unit of natural selection. He is 64 years old, a professor of mass science at Oxford. He was a strong critic of organized religions. He is currently writing a book of documents intended to be named The Origin of All Evil.

Václav Havel

Václav Havel was born in 1936 in Prague, famous for critical realistic plays. From a script writer, Havel was elected President of Czechoslovakia after the upheavals of the late 1980s and early 1990s. When Czechoslovakia split into two countries, he continued to be President of the Czech Republic in 1993 - 2003.

56 year-old Christopher Hitchens is a famous political journalist.

Christopher Hitchens

In this list of 100 intellectuals, there are a number of people, such as Salman Rushdie (1468 votes, ranked 10th), JM Coetzee (548 votes, ranked 44), Julia Kristeva (487 votes, ranked 48), Orhan Pamuk (393 votes, ranked 54), Amos Oz (358 votes, ranked 59), Cao Hanh Kien (277 votes, ranked 69).

As soon as the referendum ended, there was a discussion about the list given by Prospect. Anyway, this is just a way of seeing and evaluating. However, it is also possible to see how much influence the intellectuals have on the modern public.