The Role of Philosophers in History

I wrote previously about the role of ideas in history; now I'll turn to the role of philosophers.  Within the Objectivist community, there seems to be some confusion about the difference between the role of ideas and the role of philosophers. I believe the confusion comes from this passage by Ayn Rand from For the New Intellectual:

[Two] key figures act as the twin-motors of progress, the integrators of the entire system, the transmission belts that carry the achievements of the best minds to every level of society: the intellectual and the businessman.

The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher.  The intellectual carries the application of philosophical principles to every field of human endeavor. He sets a society's course by transmitting ideas from the "ivory tower" of the philosopher to the university professor--to the writer--to the artist--to the newspaperman--to the politician--to the movie maker--to the night-club singer--to the man in the street.

This passage appears to promote a top-down approach to the study of history--to identify the causes in history, we need only to look at the ideas of the philosophers from the previous period. However, I believe the passage above is Ayn Rand's view on how philosophers have influenced history in the modern era--after the introduction of capitalism--and not a general view.  The quote above is preceded by the following:

Capitalism wiped out slavery in matter and in spirit.  It replaced Attila [rulers of force] and the Witch Doctor [rulers of spirit], the looter of wealth and the purveyor of revelations, with two new types of man: the producer of wealth and the purveyor of knowledge--the businessman and the intellectual.

With this context, we can see that Ayn Rand is speaking only of the time after the invention of capitalism.  Even though philosophers existed in ancient Greek times, businessmen did not, and so they could not be the "twin-motors of progress."

Thus, I believe Tracinski's observation on the role of ideas in ancient Greece and in the middle ages is consistent with Ayn Rand's writings.  Tracinski points out that philosophers were not responsible for most of the achievements of ancient Greece:

In ancient Greece, for example, virtually all of the arts and sciences were established and reached a high level of development well before a philosopher came along—Aristotle—who could identify, defend, and transmit the essence of the Greek achievement in explicit philosophical terms. It was the "Golden Age" of Greek history that came first and the philosophical ideas that followed.

So a key difference between the role of ideas and the role of philosophers in history is that philosophers only play a key role in our modern era where we have a professional class of philosophers who can influence the other university professors, the journalists, the movie makers, etc. However, saying that the philosopher's ideas determine the fate of nations does not mean that we can predict with certainty what will happen to America or any other country simply by looking at what the top universities are teaching in their Philosophy departments (even though this appears to be the basis of Peikoff's The Ominous Parallels).  One problem is that the Philosophy departments throughout the U.S. and the world are not united in a consistent message--many ideas are taught, and very few professors teach with any strong convictions.  A second problem with the theory, at least in America, is that the American public has stopped listening to the intellectuals, as discussed in this previous post.  Finally, a third problem is that the theory underestimates the other twin-motor of progress: the businessman.  I believe the hard-work and ingenuity of businessmen, scientists and engineers have kept this country strong enough to withstand the horrible policies of the politicians (from both parties). I will expand on these ideas in future posts.