Public intellectuals today must be understood in relation to the concept of ‘viral modernity’, characterised by viral and open media and technologies of post-truth that reveal the dramatic transformations of the ‘public’, its forms and its future possibilities. The history, status and role of the public intellectual are constituted by both the network of law in liberal society and above all the primacy of the concept of freedom of expression. The task of public intellectuals was to define, analyse and protect (...) these rights by speaking truth to power. Both Wittgenstein and Foucault as exemplary intellectuals distinguished themselves by problematising truth and showing that truth-telling is an aspect of self-transformation and the intellectual form of life. (shrink)