We're all familiar with public intellectuals: prominent thinkers who cross over from merely academic research to have an impact on the broader culture through popular books, public debates, influence on government policy, and so on.
Among public intellectuals, some are philosophers; examples might include Peter Singer, Martha Nussbaum, and in previous generations people like Hannah Arendt, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, William James, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
This phenomenon set me to thinking about what it might mean to be a private intellectual or a private philosopher. It seems to me that the opposite of someone who seeks and has a public impact isn't someone who toils silently in academia, but someone who seeks and has a private, personal impact. Because I have no desire to be famous, being a "private philosopher" would have definite appeal - if I could figure out what that phrase means. Here are some ideas:
To my mind, these activities and others seem bound up with a quest for sagacity, but that's a large topic for another day...
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)