This is the term I think I like best to describe what I try to do. I don’t like philosopher or intellectual. Those words conjure in my head a person sitting in a corner, watching static images, and trying to connect them in static ways. What is needed is a sense of dynamism, of motion, added to thoughts, such that they are seen as cascades of ever-shifting but approximately organized flows of water.
At one point I considered coining a word where the Greek word for “approximate” was substituted in the middle of philosopher, such that the result meant “lover of approximate truth/wisdom”, but that is ungainly.
It is the case that most large, complex problems require the use of abstraction. This is necessary in our modern society. And it is necessary that we have people who do it well: hence “thought worker”, who is someone who, at the end of the day, can point to bridges built, to concrete plans of action which can then be implemented or modified as needed.