Kas šajā gadījumā ir 'sabiedrībā atpazīstami cilvēki', nav viennozīmīgi skaidrs, bet es šo gadījumu redzu sakarībā ar zināmu intelektuāļu lomu pildošu cilvēku publisko nostāju.

Te Hičenss izsakās: "One might do worse than to say that an intellectual is someone who does not attempt to soar on the thermals of public opinion. There ought to be a word for those men and women who do their own thinking; who are willing to stand the accusation of “elitism” (or at least to prefer it to the idea of populism); who care for language above all and guess its subtle relationship to truth; and who are willing and able to nail a lie. If such a person should also have a sense of irony and a feeling for history, then, as the French say, tant mieux. An intellectual need not be one who, in a well-known but essentially meaningless phrase, “speaks truth to power.” (Chomsky has dryly reminded us that power often knows the truth well enough.) However, the attitude towards authority should probably be sceptical, as should the attitude towards utopia, let alone to heaven or hell."

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/what-is-a-public-intellectual/