Intellectualism

Intellectualism denotes the use and development of the intellect, the practice of being an intellectual, and of holding intellectual pursuits in great regard. Moreover, in philosophy, “intellectualism” occasionally is synonymous to “rationalism”, i.e. knowledge derives mostly from reason and reasoning. Socially, “intellectualism” negatively connotes: (i) single-mindedness of purpose (“too much attention to thinking”), and (ii) emotional coldness (the absence of affection and feelings).

Ancient moral intellectualism

In Socrates’s view, intellectualism allows that “one will do what is right or best just as soon as one truly understands what is right or best”; that virtue is a purely intellectual matter, since virtue and knowledge are cerebral relatives that one accumulates and improves with dedication to reason. So defined, “Socratic intellectualism” became a key doctrine of Stoic philosophy. The apparent, problematic consequences of this view are defined as “Socratic paradoxes”; an example is the view that there is no weakness of will — that no one knowingly does, or seeks to do, evil (moral wrong); that anyone who does, or seeks to do, moral wrong (evil) does so involuntarily. Another example is the view that virtue is knowledge, and that there are not many virtues, but that all virtues are one.

To date, philosophers dispute that Socrates’s conceptions of knowing truth, and of ethical conduct, can be equated with modern, post–Cartesian conceptions of knowledge and of rational intellectualism. For example, Michel Foucault demonstrated, with detailed historical study, that in Antiquity, knowing the truth is akin to what is contemporarily understood as “spiritual knowledge”. Without exclusively concerning the rational intellect, this form of knowledge is integral to the broader principle of “caring for the self”.

Typically, such care of the self involved very particular ascetic exercises meant to ensure that knowledge of truth was not only memorized, but learned and integrated to the self in transforming oneself into a good person. To understand truth, therefore, meant “intellectual knowledge” requiring one’s integration to the (universal) truth, and authentically living it in one’s speech, heart, and conduct. Achieving that difficult task required continual care of the self, but also meant being someone who embodies truth, and so can “speak freely”, via parrhesia — the Classical-era rhetorical device denoting: “to speak candidly, and to ask forgiveness for so speaking”, and, by extension, the moral obligation to speak the truth for the common good, even at personal risk. This ancient, Socratic moral philosophic perspective contradicts the contemporary understanding of truth and knowledge as rational undertakings.

Mediæval metaphysical intellectualism

In mediæval philosophy, intellectualism is a doctrine of divine and human action, wherein the faculty of intellect precedes and is superior to the faculty of the will. It usually is contrasted with voluntarism: “According to intellectualism, choices of the will result from that which the intellect recognizes as good; the will, itself, is determined. For voluntarism, by contrast, it is the will which identifies which objects are good, and the will, itself, is indetermined”. From that perspective and context, the Muslim polymath Averroes, the Christian theologian Thomas Aquinas, and the German theologian Meister Eckhart, are recognised intellectualists.

Contemporary intellectualism

Though present-day educators all advocate learning in some way, there is currently no significant group of scholars that share a single doctrine of intellectualism beyond mere appreciation of knowledge, science, technology, and mathematics. This general appreciation may be supported to some extent by social phenomena like geek culture and nerd pride.

See also

• Anti-intellectualism
• Chinese intellectualism
• Intellectual