The faculty of thought. As understood in Catholic philosophical literature it
signifies the higher, spiritual, cognitive power of the soul. It is in this
view awakened to action by sense, but transcends the latter in range. Amongst
its functions are attention, conception, judgment, reasoning, reflection, and
self-consciousness. All these modes of activity exhibit a distinctly
suprasensuous element, and reveal a cognitive faculty of a higher order than is
required for mere sense-cognitions. In harmony, therefore, with Catholic usage,
we reserve the terms intellect, intelligence, and intellectual to this higher
power and its operations, although many modern psychologists are wont, with
much resulting confusion, to extend the application of these terms so as to
include sensuous forms of the cognitive process. By thus restricting the use of
these terms, the inaccuracy of such phrases as "animal intelligence"
is avoided. Before such language may be legitimately employed, it should be
shown that the loweranimals are endowed with genuinely rational faculties,
fundamentally one in kind with those of man. Catholic philosophers, however
they differ on minor points, as a general body have held that intellect is a
spiritual faculty depending extrinsically, but not intrinsically, on the bodily
organism. The importance of a right theory of intellect is twofold: on account
of its bearing on epistemology, or the doctrine of knowledge; and because of
its connexion with the question of the spirituality of the soul.
History.
The
view that the cognitive powers of the mind, or faculties of knowledge, are of a
double order — the one lower, grosser, more intimately depending on bodily
organs, the other higher and of a more refined andspiritual nature — appeared
very early, though at first confusedly, in Greek thought. It was in connexion
with cosmological, rather than psychological, theories that the difference
between sensuous and rational knowledge was first emphasized. On the one hand
there seems to be constant change, and, on the other hand, permanence in the
world that isrevealed to us. The question: How is the apparent conflict to be
reconciled? or, Which is the true representation? forced itself on the
speculative mind. Heraclitus insists on the reality of the changeable. All things
are in a perpetual flux. Parmenides, Zeno, and the Eleatics argued that only
the unchangeable being truly is. Aisthesis, "sense", is the faculty
by which changing phenomena are apprehended; nous, "thought",
"reason", "intellect", presents to us permanent, abiding
being. The Sophists, with a skill unsurpassed by modern Agnosticism, urged the
sceptical consequences of the apparent contradiction between the one and the
many, the permanent and the changing, and emphasized the part contributed by
themind in knowledge. For Protagoras, "Man is the measure of all
things", whilst with Gorgias the conclusion is: "Nothing is; nothing
can be known; nothing can be expressed in speech". Socrates held that
truth was innate in the mind antecedent to sensuous experience, but his chief
contribution to the theory of knowledge was his insistence on the importance of
the general concept or definition.
It was
Plato, however, who first realized the full significance of the problem and the
necessity for coordinating the data of sense with the data of the intellect, he
also first explained the origin of the problem. The universe of being, as
reported by reason, is one, eternal, immutable; as revealed by sense, it is a
series of multiple changing phenomena. Which is the truly real? For Plato there
are in a sense two worlds, that of the intellect (noeton) and that of sense
(horaton). Sense can give only an imperfect knowledge of its object, which he
calls belief (pistis) or conjecture (eikasia). The faculties by which we apprehend
the noeton, "the intelligible world" are two: nous, "intuitive
reason", which reaches the ideas (see IDEA); and logos, "discursive
reason", which by its proper process, viz. episteme
"demonstration", attains only to dianoia "conception".
Plato thus sets up two distinct intellectual faculties attaining to different
sets of objects. But the world of ideas is for Plato the real world, that of
sense is only a poor shadowy imitation. Aristotle's doctrine on the intellect
in its main outline is clear. The soul is possessed of two orders of cognitive
faculty, to aisthetikon, "sensuous cognition", and to dianoetikon
"rational cognition" . The sensuous faculty includes aisthesis,
sensuous perception", phantasia, "imagination", and mneme,
memory". The faculty of rational cognition includes nous and dianoia.
These, however, are not so much two faculties as two functions of the same
power. They roughly correspond to intellect and ratiocinative reason. For
intellect to operate, previous sense perception is required. The function of
the intellect is to divest the object presented by sense of its material and
individualizing conditions, and apprehend the universal and intelligible form
embodied in the concrete physical reality. The outcome of the process is the
generalization in the intellect of an intellectual form or representation of
the intelligible being of the object (eidos, noeton). This act constitutes the
intellect cognizant of the object in its universal nature. In this process
intellect appears in a double character. On the one hand it exhibits itself as
an active agent, in that it operates on the object presented by the sensuous
faculty rendering it intelligible. On the other hand, as subject of
theintellectual representation evolved, it manifests passivity, modifiability,
and susceptibility to the reception of different forms. There is thus revealed
in Aristotle's theory of intellectual cognition an active intellect (nous
poietikos) and a passive intellect (nous pathetikos). But how these are to be
conceived, and what precisely is the nature of the distinction and relation
between them, is one of the most irritatingly obscure points in the whole of
Aristotle's works. The locus classicus is his "De Anima", III, v,
where the subject is briefly dealt with. As the active intellect actuates the
passive, it bears to it a relation similar to that of form to matter in
physical bodies. The active intellect "illuminates" the object of
sense, rendering it intelligible somewhat as light renders colours visible. It
is pure energy without anypotentiality, and its activity is continuous. It is
separate, immortal, and eternal. The passive intellect, on the other hand,
receives the forms abstracted by the active intellect and ideally becomes the
object. The whole passage is so obscure that commentators from the beginning
are hopelessly divided as to Aristotle's own view on the nature of the nous
poietikos. Theophrastus, who succeeded Aristotle as scholiarch of the Lyceum,
accepted the twofold intellect, but was unable to explain it. The great
commentator, Alexander of Aphrodisias, interprets the nous poietikos as the
activity of the Divine intelligence. This view was adopted by many of the
Arabian philosophers of the Middle Ages, who conceived it in a pantheistic
sense. For many of them the active intellect is one universal reason
illuminating all men. With Avicenna the passive intellect alone is individual.
Averrhoës conceives both intellectus agens and intellectus possibilis as
separate from the individual soul and as one in all men.
The
Schoolmen generally controverted the Arabian theories. Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas interpret
intellectus agens and possibilis as merely distinct faculties or powers of the
individual soul. St. Thomas
understands "separate" (choristos) and "pure" or
"unmixed" (amiges) to signify that the intellect is distinct from
matter and incorporeal. Interpreting Aristotle thus benevolently, and
developing his doctrine Aquinas teaches that the function of the active
intellect is an abstractive operation on the data supplied by the sensuous
faculties to form the species intelligibiles in the intellectus possibilis. The
intellectus possibilis thus actuated cognizes what is intelligible in the
object. The act of cognition is the concept, or verbum mentale, by which is
apprehended the universal nature or essence of the object prescinded from its
individualizing conditions. The main features of the Aristotelean doctrine of
intellect, and of its essential distinction from the faculty of sensuous
cognition, were adhered to by the general body of the Schoolmen.
By the
time we reach modern philosophy, especially in England, the radical distinction
between the two orders of faculties begins to be lost sight of. Descartes,
defending the spirituality of the soul; naturally supposes the intellect to be
a spiritual faculty. Leibniz insists on both the spirituality and innate
efficiency of the intellect. Whilst admitting the axiom, "Nihil est in
intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu", he adds with much force, "nisi
intellectus ipse", and urges spontaneity and innate activity as
characteristics of the monad. From the break with Scholasticism, however,
English philosophy drifted towards Sensationism and Materialism, subsequently
influencing France
and other countries in the same direction, as a consequence, the old conception
of intellect as a spiritual faculty of the soul, and as a cognitive activity by
which the universal, necessary, and immutable elements in knowledge are
apprehended, was almost entirely lost. For Hobbes the mind is material, and all
knowledge is ultimately sensuous. Locke's attack on innate ideas and intuitive
knowledge, his reduction of various forms of intellectual cognition to complex
amalgams of so called simple ideas originating in sense perception, and his
representation of the mind as a passive tabula rasa, in spite of his allotting
certain work to reflection and the discursive reason, paved the way for all
modern Sensationism and Phenomenalism. Condillac, omitting Locke's
"reflection", resolved all intellectual knowledge into Sensationism
pure and simple. Hume, analysing all mental Products into sensuous impressions,
vivid or faint, plus association due to custom, developed the sceptical
consequences involved in Locke's defective treatment of the intellectual
faculty, and carried philosophy back to the old conclusions of the Greek
Sensationists and Sophists, but reinforced by a more subtile and acute
psychology. All the main features of Hume's psychology have been adopted by the
whole Associationist school in England,
by Positivists abroad, and by materialistic scientists in so far as they have
any philosophy or psychology at all. The essential distinction between
intellect, or rational activity, and sense has in fact been completely lost
sight of, and Scepticism and Agnosticism have logically followed. Kant
recognized a distinction between sensation and the higher mental element, but,
conceiving the latter in a different way from the old Aristotelean view, and
looking on it as purely subjective, his system was developed into an idealism
and scepticism differing in kind from that of Hume, but not very much more
satisfactory. Still, the neo-Kantian and Hegelian movement, which developed in
Great Britain during the last quarter of the nineteenth century has contributed
much towards the reawakening of the recognition of theintellectual, or
rational, element in all knowledge.
The
common doctrine
The
teaching of Aristotle on intellect, as developed by Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas, has become,
as we have said, in its main features the common doctrine of Catholic
philosophers. We shall state it in brief outline.
(1)
Intellect is a cognitive faculty essentially different from sense and of a
supra-organic order; that is, it is not exerted by, or intrinsically dependent
on, a bodily organ, as sensation is. This proposition is proved by
psychological analysis and study of the chief functions of intellect. These are
conception, judgment, reasoning, reflection, and self-consciousness. All these
activities involve elements essentially different from sensuous consciousness.
In conception the mind forms universal ideas. These are different in kind from
sensations and sensuous images. These latter are concrete and individual, truly
representative of only one object, whilst the universal idea will apply with
equal truth to any object of the class. The universal idea possesses a fixity
and invariableness of nature, whilst the sensuous image changes from moment to
moment. Thus the concept or universal idea of "gold", or "triangle",
will with equal justice stand for any specimen, but the image represents truly
only one individual. The sensuous faculty can be awakened to activity only by a
stimulus which whatever it be, exists in a concrete, individualized form. In judgment
the mind perceives the identity or discordance of two concepts. In reasoning it
apprehends the logical nexus between conclusion and premises. In reflection and
self-consciousness it turns back on itself in such a manner that there
isperfect identity between the knowing subject and the object known. But all
these forms of consciousness are incompatible with the notion of a sensuous
faculty, or one exerted by means of a bodily organ. The Sensationist
psychologists, from Berkeley
onwards, were unanimous in maintaining that the mind cannot form universal or
abstract ideas. This would be true were the intellect not a spiritual faculty
essentially distinct from sense. The simple fact is that they invariably
confounded the image of the imagination, which is individualized, with the
concept, or idea, of the intellect. When we employ universal terms in any
intelligible proposition the terms have a meaning. The thought by which that
meaning is apprehended in the mind is a universal idea.
(2) In
cognition we start from sensuous experience. The intellect presupposes
sensation and operates on the materials supplied by the sensuous faculties. The
beginning of consciousness with the infant is in sensation. This is at first
felt, most probably, in a vague and indefinite form. But repetition of
particular sensations and experience of other sensations contrasted with them
render their apprehension more and more definite astime goes on. Groups of
sensations of different senses are aroused by particular objects and become
united by the force of contiguous association. The awakening of any one of the
group calls up the images of the others.Sense perception is thus being
perfected. At a certain stage in the process of development the higher power of
intellect begins to be evoked into activity, at first feebly and dimly. In the
beginning the intellectual apprehension, like the sensations which preceded, is
extremely vague. Its first acts are probably the cognition of objects revealed
through sensation under wide and indefinite ideas, such as
"extended-thing", "moving-thing",
"pressing-thing", and the like. It takes in objects as wholes, before
discriminating their parts. Repetition and variation of sense-impressions
stimulates and sharpens attention. Pleasure or pain evokes interest and the
intellect concentrates on part of the sensuous experience, and the process of
abstraction begins. Certain attributes are laid hold of, to the omission of
others. Comparison and discrimination are also called into action, and the more
accurate and perfect elaboration of concepts now proceeds rapidly. The notions
of substance and accidents, of whole and parts, of permanent and changing, are
evolved with increasing distinctness. Generalization follows quickly upon
abstraction. When an attribute or an object has been singled out and recognized
as a thing distinct from its surroundings, an act of reflection renders the
mind aware of the object as capable of indefinite realization and
multiplication in other circumstances, and we have now the formally reflexuniversal
idea.
The
further activity of the intellect is fundamentally the same in kind, comparing,
identifying, or discriminating. The activity of ratiocination is merely
reiteration of the judicial activity. The final stage in the elaboration of a
concept is reached when it is embodied for further use in a general name.Words
presuppose intellectual ideas, but register them and render them permanent. The
intellect is also distinguished according to its functions, as speculative or
practical. When pronouncing simply on the rational relations of ideas, it is
called speculative; when considering harmony with action, it is termed
practical. The faculty, however, is the same in both cases. The faculty of
conscience is in fact merely the practical intellect, or the intellect passing
judgment on the moral quality of actions. The intellect is essentially the
faculty of truth and falsity, and in its judicial acts it at the same time
affirms the union of subject and predicate and the agreement between its own
representation and the objective reality. Intellect also exhibits itself in the
higher form of memory when there is conscious recognition of identity between
the present and the past. To the intellect is due also the conception of self
and personal identity. The fundamental difficulty with the whole Sensationist
school, from Hume to Mill, in regard to the recognition of personality, is due
to their ignoring the true nature of the faculty of intellect. Were there no
such higher rational faculty in the mind, then the mind could never be known as
anything more than a series of mental states. It is the intellect which enables
the mind to apprehend itself as a unity, or unitary being. The ideas of the
infinite, of space, time, and causality are all similarly the product of
intellectual activity, starting from the data presented by sense, and
exercising a power of intuition, abstraction, identification, and
discrimination. It is, accordingly, the absence of an adequate conception of
intellect which has rendered the treatment of all these mental functions so
defective. in the English psychology of the last century.
