The age-old fallacy: the intellectual politician or the politician-intellectual

Abstract

The article categorically denies the existence of the «political intellectual» or the «intellectual politician» and seeks to demonstrate the contradiction inherent in both expressions. The union of the intellectual and the political constitutes an onto-epistemic antinomy: its components may be juxtaposed or establish a dialectical relationship, but they can never be fully integrated because they retain different characteristics, identities, and properties. Whereas the intellectual attempts to elucidate the Kantian noumenon and expose deception, the politician constructs an a priori truth in the name of an alleged «national interest» and demands an apologetic stance from followers. The author questions whether these onto-axio-epistemological attitudes can coexist in one person. Consequently, accepting either figure entails defending a contra naturam thesis conceivable only in the mythological realm of Apate, the Greek goddess of deceit.