I cringe every time I see phrases connecting hackers to intellectuals. Most people in software I know are intelligent, but being smart does not make you intellectually curious. There are quite a few people I would consider hackers who have zero interest in a intellectual life beyond technology.
That's not to say they should if they aren't interested. But "intellectual" should mean more than just hacker-esque knowledge. I fear labeling your own in group as always intellectual leads down the path of believing everyone else is not worth listening to.
I think the title quite clearly means hackers that happen to be intellectually curious. If technology and such is too narrow for you, I guess that's a fair point. We might as well go into how "smartness" is narrowly seen as the only metric which programmers are judged by, while we're at it.
That's not to say they should if they aren't interested. But "intellectual" should mean more than just hacker-esque knowledge. I fear labeling your own in group as always intellectual leads down the path of believing everyone else is not worth listening to.