/lit/ - Literature

>>10332212
What do you think?

>>10332212
pseuds are preoccupied with the distinction

Socrates knew he knew nothing and charged nothing for his lessons.

Protagoras believed he was knowledgeable charged fees for his lessons.

>>10332212

Pseuds haven't read the complete works of Aristotle and haven't come to understand them fully by themselves through hard work. They instead just look up wikipedia articles and go into intellectual battle with the equivalent of a butter knife vs. say a 44. revolver.

But above all they either don't realize their own ways or they feel the the desperate need to inflate their ego or posture in the presence of someone more or less educated than them. Despite knowing themselves they aren't smart or clever or understand fully what they even posture about. They play pretend.

>>10332212
Pseuds are unaware they're retards whereas intellectuals are.

I'm an intellectual

You're a pseud

>>10332282
pseud: the post

>>10332581
rekt

>>10332212
He looks like cooked up american professor, I never see him as a french. He is buzzfeed the philosopher.

>>10332614
he is more of a poet than a philosopher

>>10332212
Not posting on message boards.

>>10332630
I must disagree.

>>10332262
No, pseuds were people who think the past has anything to teach us. They've been left behind and everything since is faster, smarter and more meaningful.

>>10332636
Have you read this?

>>10332212
accomplishments

>>10332636
debatable. a lot of what the greeks wrote is deprecated today, but parts are still recycled and part of discourse to this day.

>>10332212

The idea that someone can be an "intellectual" is a pseud concept.

Smart people contribute to society, and hold more important titles than "intellectual" (Engineer, Researcher, Artist, etc.) In fact, Intellectual has replaced the word Philosopher, since people- especially the so-called philosophers themselves- have come to realize that contemporary philosophy is a joke.

The distinction was relevant, however, in an age before universal literacy. So I don't blame people for having used it once upon a time. Today, it's a big, bright, waving pseud-flag for people with zero accomplishments.

>>10332254
>>10332275
Pseuds think stating "I know nothing" and "I'm a retard" makes them humble and therefore intellectual, because they read on the internet that intelligent people usually underestimate their level of intelligence. They think an intelligent person would never acknowledge their competence because they're highly insecure.

>>10332212
A pseud only acquires knowledge to feel, and some may argue become, superior to others and rarely if ever pursue knowledge just for genuine interest.
An intellectual couldn't give less of a fuck about other people directly knowing his intelligence and thus only engages in discussions regarding "intellectual topics" with the aim of expanding his inner world.
Granted outwardly it is difficult to distinguish them since a pseud can be humble and an intellectual boastful but there are signs that let you know what kind of type someone is, i.e. posting photos of them reading, books or just plainly having an instagram ir Twitter account.
Most of the time gut can distinguish them right away but if you genuinely want to know if someone is a pseud or not the only true way is to engage in conversation and activities with them regularly. A pseud can't keep up the façade 24/7. An intellectual doesn't need to since he doesn't even think about it.

a pseud is someone obsessed over whether he is a pseud

>>10332239
>>10332764

>>10332212
>What is the difference between a pseud and an intellectual?
An intellectual knowns how to hide the fact that they are actually a pseud, pseuds aren't able to hide th fact that they are pseuds.

>>10332667
You responded to bait but arguably Socrates was shown to be wrong about Protagoras in the dialogue, the poster didn't clarify what he meant at all.

>>10332903
protagoras is the only character i've found who was not reduced to aporia by Socrates' elenchus

>>10332636
completely wrong, rather a pseud is obsessed with being current & modern. A pseud is also anxious about their level of knowledge (whether it's actually remarkable or their narcissism makes it seem so. More regarding what you said: there's nothing wrong w/reading from the past, that's the basis of all advancements in art. The Greeks & Romans, the Renaissance writers/painters, the Romantics & the Modernists, certainly among the best of them, were fascinated w/ past achievement and always referencing/trying to recover something from it. Ovid, Shelley, Joyce etc would qualify as geniuses by almost any metric.

>>10332720
I would say that being humble prevents someone from being a pseud. If someone has many unfulfilled intellectual interests, and mostly thinks about someday reading/learning about music, then they probably wouldn't be called an intellectual but they wouldn't be a pseud either - what you could best call them I don't know, but being a pseud requires pretension and vanity I would think. If they post pictures of themselves reading etc, then they would hardly be 'humble', only a facade of modesty. But I'm sure there are plenty of people w/o the level of education they would wish, nor the level of discipline or incredible mental faculties they would wish, but they're then just a 'dreamer', maybe, and that's different from being pseud.

ITT: pseuds

>>10332212
The difference between a pseud and an intellectual is the difference between a sophist and Socrates.

Pseuds do it for the status. Intellectuals do it for fun, and to learn.

>>10332212
Intellectuals don't do video essays on youtube

>>10332720
the problem is this: certain ideas are better formed in discussion, so a lover of those types of ideas will actively engage in debate or conversation. this will appear to pseuds as dick measuring, but only a lover of wisdom will see it as such, and not even 100% of the time.

>>10332212
humility most likely

>>10332212
A psuedo is trying to impress people.
An intellectual is just doing it for a hobby.

Think one punch man vs Superman.
Superman needs you to acknowledge his big dick.
One punch man is doing it for fun and wishes he was more famous than he really easy and could wreck Superman.

>>10332212
Pseuds read people like Baudrillard
Intellectuals read people like Leo Strauss.

>>10333202
Put any of these people in a room with a modern 10 year old and they'd bow in embarrassment.

>>10332212
a pseudo-intellectual talks about the Uncertainty Principle and the Hegelian dialectic and uses the word "Kafkaesque"

>>10333647
leave the dialectic out of this

Pseuds aren't honest with themselves

>>10333643
What you're suggesting is the essence of a pseud: that the purpose of learning is to furnish oneself with the correct opinions on things, and almost solely trendy things likely to come up in conversation. Why read for enjoyment? or to see what the great thinkers of the world busied themselves with? Why read Erasmus, Burton, Heraclitus, Shakespeare, Descartes - all of these people have thoughts and ideas now defunct! No, the cogitations of a genius are of no interest unless they give us clever things to say at parties. If you can't appreciate man's gradual workings to what we now consider 'perfection', then do you really appreciate thinking at all? There's more to learn about art in van Eyck, MichelAngelo, Velasquez than in nearly all remaining production; the advances we've made since are of only topical significance - the great work of all time has been in attempt to apprehend the same contortions we aim to today, nothing of substance has changed in man's composure these past millennia.

>>10332636
Unbelievably embarrassing post

>>10332212
pseud: impulsive man who has little to no knowledge and wants to boast it anyways

intellectual: rational man who is humble about what he knows and what he doesn´t know

>>10332212
The ability to speak French

>>10333793
exactly, all pseuds waste their time on French, genuine intellectuals learn Greek or Latin or German

Preuds seriously engage with continental philosophy. Real intellectuals know that it has nothing to offer and that much of it was intentionally written to be nonsensical.

>>10332212
Is this a real quote?

>>10332212
the amount of idiots that have been accrued to mourn our dust

>>10332212

Intellectual honesty and, generally, consistency
An interest in knowledge for its own sake or at least for the sake of some honest end per the person's values
Actually reading what you quote
Usually, letting one's studies determine one's perspective rather than vice versa, which means reading what one disagrees with
Dialogue with and genuine understanding of the positions one doesn't agree with

>>10332212

Most of this thread are psueds because they define intellect as doing exactly what they do

>>10333842
Appreciating nonsense is the mark of genuine intellectual interest, for "as nothing is more trifling than to treat of serious matters with flippancy, so nothing carries more grace than to discourse of trifles as man intended them least"

An intellectual is not afraid to say "I don't know" if he is ignorant about a subject, but he can explain at length, with great insight, those things he does understand.

A pseud is terrified to admit to ignorance because he has no idea which admission will expose him as a fraud and which is acceptable, because he pretends to all the knowledge he claims to have it is all equally mysterious to him.

So, in my experience, look for people who always have to be right and never admit a mistake, and you will find a pseud.

>>10333915
Or maybe defining it by our ideals? That sounds perfectly reasonable: there is a plausible, consistent idea of what it might mean to live, if not as an intellectual at least not as a fraud, and this is surely something we can share, no?

not 100% relevant but there's a great quote by Oscar Wilde about second-rate poets

>“A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets make a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.”

>>10332212

A pseud is a pseud and an intellectual is an intellectual.

>>10332636

thanks for reminding me why I stopped coming to this board

>>10332636
Wat. You don't read anything from the past? Do you read future literature only?

>>10334687
pleb

Believing that anything posted on Reddit is smart, funny, creative or well informed.

Believing that being able to raise a criticism about a position means that the position is untenable until that criticism is met.

Reading more than a few cases of science fiction and fantasy

Being non-judgemental

Thinking that any two differentiated opinions are of equal value or concern

Openly identifying with any political position, especially ones like Marxism

These are all marks of a genuine pseud.

>>10334058
Oscar Wilde himself was an inferior poet. He was probably ripping from his diary t b h

>>10334853
I can't see it as a hat anymore. It is only an afro. Joyce confirmed WE

>>10332667
that’s not what “i know nothing” means you retard

>>10332262
Experts say that engagements within 3 or so meters favor knives because theyre easier to handle in close quarters. So i guess that means you're dead and the pseuds win.

>>10332641
Looks like toilet paper to me

Pseud: Is competent but doesn’t know anything worth publishing and smart people know to stay away or only give performative praise (tons of them on twitter im sure you know who they are)

intellectual: knows things and can do work with them, formulates new ideas, creates art, is published and demonstrates prowess in conversation. usually strays away from quoting people, referencing other people’s though. commands their own body of knowledge, reinvents everything in their image. Is sovereign in conversation and never uncomfortable or intimidated by others knowledge. Knows math (so a lot of you are pseuds huh?)

>>10333654
>hurr durr if you mix blue and red you get purple

Wow, who would have thought.

>>10334477
This whole thread

ITT: pseuds

It's impossible for anyone under 45 to be an intellectual.

>>10333483
only this post is win

Pseuds are French

>>10334058
>>10334901
Nah, he was just a flamboyant faggot.

>>10332212
Pseud enjoys studying. Intellectual knows that there are no other worthier activities and he therefore has no choice in the matter.

Intellectuals manages to hide the fact that they are pseuds, pseuds do not.