Passive intellect

Passive intellect

Passive intellect is a term used in both psychology and philosophy.

Psychology

Passive intellect (more properly, passive knowledge) is the psychological concept of knowledge that is not being actively used (as opposed to active knowledge). For example, if you simply know French, but do not happen to be speaking it at the moment, it would be considered passive knowledge. If you are speaking French, your knowledge of it is currently active knowledge for you. Passive intellect is sometimes represented by three straight lines of equal length stacked together [http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/10/1011.html] .

Philosophy

In Aristotle's psychology, the passive intellect ("nous pathetikos")corresponds to sensing/feeling part of the mind, in contrast with the active intellect ("nous poietikos") or thinking part.

Later philosophers, including Averroes and St. Thomas Aquinas,elaborated on Aristotle's distinction between the active intellect and passive intellect. Other terms used are "material intellect" and "potential intellect", the point being that the active intellect works on the passive intellect to produce knowledge (acquired intellect), in the same way that actuality works on potentiality or form on matter.

Averroes held that the passive intellect, being analogous to unformed matter, is a single substance common to all minds, and that the differences between individual minds are the product of the differences in their physical organisms and history of sense perceptions. Aquinas wrote a book in five chapters to refute this position.

References

*"Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis De anima libros", ed. Crawford, Cambridge (Mass.) 1953: Latin translation of Averroes' long commentary on the De Anima
*Averroes (tr. Alain de Libera), "L'intelligence et la pensée", Paris 1998: French translation of Averroes' long commentary on book 3 of the De Anima

External links

* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08066a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia article]
* [http://www.dominikanie.pl/old/tomasz/oui/oui_t.htm Aquinas, "De Unitate Intellectus Contra Averroistas] (Latin)
* [http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/8246/unicity0.html Aquinas, "On the Unity of the Intellect, against the Averroists"] (English)


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