ABSTRACT
One’s intelligence is not determined by the hard realities of time and labour alone but also, and equally concretely, by the realm of appearances. This chapter looks at the social manifestation of these appearances alongside certain other concepts with structural similarities to intelligence, and then at the historical interplay among them. Intelligence no more resembles a pound coin than a planet. In the universal poker game of self-representation, its only collateral is its own name and the deference this commands. Honour, grace and intelligence are not the only possible “modes” of this type, but in the early modern period there is a dynamic, historically formative interplay between them. The chapter establishes their common structural components. It focuses on the anthropology of Julian Pitt-Rivers, who first noted the structural similarities between honour and grace and who (along with Pierre Bourdieu) also touched, if very half-heartedly, on their resemblance to intelligence.
