[jlos]

So you would not consider someone who has the following CV an intellectual?

- Has published or co-authored over 100+ academic papers in multiple fields

- Has h-index of 41, i10-index of 77, with 21,000 citations [0]

- Taught at Harvard

- Tenured Professor at the largest University in Canada

- 20+ year clinical practice

- Best selling author with over 5 million copies sold

You don't have to like his ideas, but if this doesn't qualify as "intellectual" not sure what else does.

[0]: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wL1F22UAAAAJ

[badpun]

I agree with Chomsky's definition [1]: intellectual is a person who tries to talk intelligently in public about affairs that are relevant to the general public. Being a top scentist or a top sellng author does not neccessarily make you an intellectual.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xf5H00ACws&t=2527s

[Jensson]

> tries to talk intelligently

How would you define this though? People couldn't even agree whether gpt-3 talks intelligently or not.

[AlecSchueler]

Isn't this just an appeal to authority?

[RationalDino]

As other comments said, this is not just an appeal to authority. He really is an authority.

However, having established real authority, he then uses it to convey ideas which are less supported. https://youtu.be/eKwSDqJAum8?si=WKNMLmu8Y8OO7kwn&t=631 calls this a "science sandwich", and it is a good description. So, for instance, he'll have a series of lectures. Some are real science. Such as how the big 5 personality characteristics correlate with political alignment. Others are pseudoscience. Such as using Jungian archetypes to push his politics. He doesn't differentiate, and audiences who have accepted his authority ALSO don't differentiate.

[jmcqk6]

No, it's a listing of demonstrated contributions.

Saying someone is right because they are a police officer is an appeal to authority.

Saying someone is relevant because they have worked and made contributions to a field over the course of many years, and have had those findings integrated with the findings of others is a matter of practical management of complexity.

[raincole]

No. If the parent comment said "because Jorden Peterson has 20 years of experience, his opinion on topic X must be correct" then it's an appeal to authority. They didn't say that.

By the way, abusing terms is another sign for fake intellectuals...

[ck425]

You have to use some metric to define 'intellectual' and those all seem like reasonable ones to me. I don't see why you'd consider most of those as appeals to authority. Teaching at Harvard and tenured Professor perhaps but the rest are appeals to experience.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Not sure that's a fallacy when the question is "is this guy a particular sort of authority". It's more like a validation of said authority.

[whiddershins]

No, it directly addresses the claim. Is X a 'public intellectual'? Here are n facts that indicate X is.

[pchangr]

I’d argue that he has published 100+ academic papers on multiple sub-fields of psychology. Specifically on the “psychology of belief” so basically how believing “something” implies certain actions. The problem is p=>q doesn’t imply ~p => ~q