1 of 1- DanielJoachim
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Actualizing intellect
One questions that's been bugging me ever since I've started reading Philosophy of Mind:
How should we understand the relation between the physical brain and the intellect? If the intellect is immaterial and given to each human being at conception; wouldn't we expect even perceptive babies to show some more evident signs of grasping universals and engaging in abstract thinking?
Or should we understand the brain (or matter) as actualizing the potential for intellect, so its mostly potential until the baby comes of age? Does the intellect rely on the full development of other faculties in order to display these abstract functions properly?
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- DanielCC
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Re: Actualizing intellect
DanielJoachim wrote:
Does the intellect rely on the full development of other faculties in order to display these abstract functions properly?
Yes, in order for the intellect to begin its work the faculties relating to the sensitive soul must be sufficiently developed.
Interestingly both Augustine - in one of the commentaries on Genesis - and Thomas - in On Truth and the Summa - speculate on the development of the brain throughout infancy. I doubt modern neurological accounts would contain anything to surprise either of them.
If the intellect is immaterial and given to each human being at conception; wouldn't we expect even perceptive babies to show some more evident signs of grasping universals and engaging in abstract thinking?
Well they probably do in as much as they come to recognise de re truths pertaining to perceptual universals e.g. 'Red resembles Orange more than Blue'; it's only that without a developed retentive memory and linguistic capacities they cannot move on into full-brown propositional reasoning.
- Mateus
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Re: Actualizing intellect
According to Aquinas, the intellect only does it proper operations with the cooperation of matter / body. So if you don't have full development of the material powers necessary to do so, it seems fair enough to conclude that you would show less, if any, capacity for abstraction.
- Etzelnik
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Re: Actualizing intellect
How should we understand the relation between the physical brain and the intellect?
Being somewhat of a Cartesian Dualist I would offer that the brain is essentially the translator between the spiritual intellect and the sensory body. It translates ideas that by their very nature transcend spatiality and/or temporality into motion and waves which can in turn affect the body in the service of the spiritual. This idea works nicely with a lot of theology I've read.
Noli turbare circulos meos.
- DanielJoachim
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Re: Actualizing intellect
But can you have only a certain degree of "capacity for abstraction"? I thought it'd be more right to say that either you have the capacity or you don't? Like grasping universal forms. A binary 0 or 1.
The distinction between rational animals (1) and mere animals (0).
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Thread Starter- DanielCC
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Re: Actualizing intellect
But can you have only a certain degree of "capacity for abstraction"? I thought it'd be more right to say that either you have the capacity or you don't? Like grasping universal forms. A binary 0 or 1.
The distinction between rational animals (1) and mere animals (0).
Okay, to go with that way of talking they do have the capacity; they just can't put it to its full use yet. One can see and know the truth that one colour resembles another more than a third but in order to build this into a body of knowledge one must have the right kind of memory, reflective capacities and probably language usage to name the most obvious.
- Mateus
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Re: Actualizing intellect
But can you have only a certain degree of "capacity for abstraction"? I thought it'd be more right to say that either you have the capacity or you don't? Like grasping universal forms. A binary 0 or 1.
The distinction between rational animals (1) and mere animals (0).
I agree with the binary distinction if you are talking about the nature of a thing. Either it have the potential to abstract or it don't. But I don't think in concrete cases the manifestation has to be uniform. Common experience shows that even for the same person the capacity for intellectually demanding tasks can vary greatly (e. g. the same person starving and the same person well-fed).