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Intellect
Intellect is the ability of the human mind to reach correct conclusions about what is true and what is false in reality; it is associated with capacities such as reasoning, conceiving, judging, and relating.[1] Intellect is related to the similar concept intelligence. In philosophical Latin both intellect intellectus and intelligence (intellegentia) refer to the ability to discern, understand or perceive with the mind intelligere. In philosophy this Latin terminology was in turn used to translate Ancient Greek philosophical concept of nous which was the ability to think (noein).
The discussion of intellect can be divided into two areas that concern the relation between intelligence and intellect.[2]
- In classical philosophy and in medieval philosophy the intellect (nous) is the subject of the question: How do people know things? In Late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, the intellect was the conceptual means of reconciling religious monotheism with philosophical or scientific study of Nature. This reconciliation made the intellect the conduit between the individual human soul, and the divine intellect of the cosmos. Aristotle first developed this with his distinction between the passive intellect and active intellect.[3]
- In psychology and in neuroscience, the controversial Theory of Multiple Intelligences applies the terms intelligence (emotion) and intellect (mind) to describe how people understand the world and reality.[4]
- ^ Corsini, Raymond J (2016). The Dictionary of Psychology. London: Routledge. p. 494. ISBN 9781317705710.
- ^ Colman, Andrew M. (2008). A Dictionary of Psychology (3rd ed.). Oxford [etc.]: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191726828.
- ^ Davidson, Herbert (1992), Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, on Intellect, Oxford University Press page 6.
- ^ "Intellect and Intelligence". Psychology Today.
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