‘21세기 K-지식인’과 ‘지구 지성’ - 문명 존립에서 ‘지식인’ 실존의 양상에 관한 역사적 탐색과 사회인식론적 개념화를 바탕으로 -

Abstract

Here I critically examine various kinds of discourses on the death or crisis of the intellectuals in the two contexts of the theses of the fault of the intellectuals as the subjective cause of their crisis, on one side, and of the theses of the institutional as well as the social modulations as its objective cause, on another side, watch the modern context of formation of the concepts of ‘the intellectual’ and the ‘intelligence’ and the process of their extended application on civilizations at all, and define from the viewpoint of the social epistemology the intellectuals as a kind of knowledge-managers, ones who demonstrate the intelligence as an ability to grasp comprehensively, analyze critically and assess the truth and the normative state of power elements as well as their real operations which act in the critical situations of the whole life-worlds and civilization raised on the developmental stages of each knowledge-world, declare the resulting insights and practical vision to the public sphere(Öffentlichkeit) and communicate with the fellow citizens thematically. Acording to this view, the intellectuals do not form a specific class or status preexisting in a certain social formation, but are free-floating, in Manheim’s conception, in the knowledge-world in each part of the system of life-worlds there and mobilized to a provisionally activated circle in an autonomous way at the imminence of the whole-civilizational crisis made to an issue on the normative level. As an extension of such ideas, I propose it as the civilizational task of the ‘21st K-intellectuals’ and ‘an earthian intelligence’ to demonstrate ‘the multi-dimensional intelligence with the ability of digital confrontaion’ to percieve the multi-dimensional complexity of power relations and react to the global issues so as to create the earthian-level moral norms which can overcome each social, historical, national problem on the higher level and to communicate in real-time with the related people hyper-linked at home and abroad as ‘fellow earthian citizens’ on the ‘earthian public sphere’ which is founded on the digitalized plattform in the ‘hyper-dilatation world’ defining the ‘21st single global civilization’ which consists of multi-dimensional schisms and fusions of power- and interest-relations.