Scholar
Moreover, before the establishment of universities, the term scholar identified and described an intellectual person whose primary occupation was professional research.
[1]A 2011 examination outlined the following attributes commonly accorded to scholars as "described by many writers, with some slight variations in the definition":[2] The common themes are that a scholar is a person who has a high intellectual ability, is an independent thinker and an independent actor, has ideas that stand apart from others, is persistent in her quest for developing knowledge, is systematic, has unconditional integrity, has intellectual honesty, has some convictions, and stands alone to support these convictions.
It is the methods that systemically advance the teaching, research, and practice of a given scholarly or academic field of study through rigorous inquiry.
[3] Scholars have generally been upheld as creditable figures of high social standing, who are engaged in work important to society.
Such civil servants earned academic degrees by means of Imperial examination, and also were skilled calligraphers, and knew Confucian philosophy.
[4]In Joseon Korea (1392–1910), the intellectuals were the literati, who knew how to read and write, and had been designated, as the chungin (the "middle people"), in accordance with the Confucian system.
Socially, they constituted the petite bourgeoisie, composed of scholar-bureaucrats (scholars, professionals, and technicians) who administered the dynastic rule of the Joseon dynasty.
[They]...should combine their energies to bring to view what has eluded the keen vision of those men of noble intellectual stature who have lived and died before them.
[8][9] In the 17th and 18th centuries, the term Belletrist(s) came to be applied to the literati: the French participants in—sometimes referred to as "citizens" of—the Republic of Letters, which evolved into the salon aimed at edification, education, and cultural refinement.
[7] Writer Megan Kate Nelson's article "Stop Calling Me Independent" says the term "marginalizes unaffiliated scholars" and is unfairly seen as an indicator of "professional failure".
