Every intelligence, in the act by which it conceives the essence of a thing, undergoes a semantic experience: an encounter with meaning or the intelligible, without which it could not form a concept. A concept is not simply abstracted from the thing; it must first make sense, constitute an intelligible unity, and be recognized by intelligence because it resonates within it.
This recognition is the inner assent of intelligence to the intelligible: the idea is received because it “rings true,” because it is in accord with the very nature of intelligence. There is no deeper criterion of truth than this intimate agreement between intelligence and the meaning it grasps: truth appears as a co-nascent act, a joining of the knowing subject with the intelligible object.
This correspondence is not merely a logical or discursive adequation but an immediate experience through which intelligence touches the essence, beyond images or sensible representations. In its proper act, intelligence is thus an intuition of the intelligible — not a psychological flash, but the contact of the mind with what is intelligible in itself.
More precisely, human intelligence manifests two poles:
— a discursive mode (reason, ratio), which analyzes, compares, and deduces;
— an intuitive mode (intellect, intellectus), which directly grasps essence and meaning.
These modes belong to one and the same spiritual power, yet intellect is primary, for only it reaches the level of being and meaning. Reason is its discursive expression, operating through logical sequences, whereas intellect stands at the principial level, where truth is given immediately.
To know, then, is not foremost to manipulate representations but to enter into communion with the intelligible. In this sense, intelligence is participation in the Logos, the very principle of intelligibility. It does not invent truth; it receives and recognizes it, being already oriented toward it.
Thus, the act of intelligence is essentially a recognition of meaning that imposes itself by virtue of its intrinsic truth. This immediate grasp grounds conceptualization and discursive demonstration. Intelligence is therefore not primarily a power of deduction, but a power of seeing.
See the paper Reason and Intelligence, the Two Sides of the Mind.
For further reading
- Plato, Republic, Phaedrus, Parmenides — On the apprehension of Ideas as intelligibles.
- Aristotle, De Anima III — On the agent intellect and passive intellect.
- Plotinus, Enneads — On intellection as union with the Intellect.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 79–84 — On intellectual powers, abstraction, and intuition.
- Meister Eckhart, Sermons, ed. A. de Libera — On the intellect as the place of the birth of the Word.
- Étienne Gilson, Le réalisme méthodique — On intelligence as grasp of being.
- Jean Borella, La crise du symbolisme religieux ; Lumières de la théologie mystique (L’Âge d’Homme, 2002) — On the intelligence of the symbol, the experience of the intelligible, and inner assent.
- Bruno Bérard, Metaphysics for Everyone (Angelico Press); trans. of Métaphysique pour tous (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2022); Ita. Sui sentieri della metafisica ; Spa. ¿Qué es la metafísica? ; Ger. Was ist Metaphysik? — On intelligence as experience of meaning, immediate contact with essence, and participation in the Logos.