What is the true calling of the intellectual? In this provocative new book, Andrew Shanks presents a distinctive fresh answer. The Other Calling is a systematic riposte both to the elitism of philosophy in the heritage of Plato, and to the typical individualism of Plato's philosophic opponents. Here, instead, intellectual integrity is identified with a form of priesthood.

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• Asserts that intellectuals are critical to bringing together the common aspirations of a community
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• Offers a strikingly original approach to the moral and political aspects of theology’s relationship with philosophy, exploring the perspectives of both disciplines
  
• Draws on the work and thought of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Agnostics, and Atheists
  
• Argues for a new, religiously multicultural “priesthood of all thinkers”, considering how once, all intellectuals were as a matter of course also priests
  
• Published in the new and prestigious Illuminations series

Andrew Shanks is the Canon Theologian for Manchester Cathedral. He is also the author of the following books: Hegel's Political Theology (1991), Civil Society, Civil Religion (Blackwell, 1995), God and Modernity (2000), What is Truth? (2001), and Faith in Honesty (2006).