Intelligence

Although the term intelligence has come to imply mental capacity, it was previously used (Thomas Aquinas) to express the spiritual function of the soul as participating in the divine nature, the means by which the soul acquires knowledge of the universal. It would thus be a direct and immortal creation of God. It is contrasted with [oestimativa]

or [practical judgement]

, the lower form of abstraction found also in animals which distinguishes instinctively and spontaneously the significance of objects for the needs of physical life. The latter implies no knowledge of causes or of relation of means to ends. [Cognitiva]

, or understanding, arises during man's natural development, and this includes reasoning, inference from one particular to another or from a series of particulars to a different case of a similar kind. The final step to actual intelligence is made with the conception of general principles, with intuition of the universal and necessary. It is at this third stage that true knowledge and science are said to begin.

Current definitions of intelligence still relate intelligence with knowledge, rationality and the employment of the mind; and tests of intelligence - to reveal an individual's [intelligence quotient]

or [IQ]

- attempt to measure in one overall figure the varying capacities and potential capacities of the individual to perform different mental tasks. There is considerable discussion as to whether intelligence can be considered as a single, overall concept, or whether such measures as IQ should be broken down to measure ability or capacity in a number of discrete functions. Clearly, some capacities are generally available to the majority of people (it is rare for someone to be incapable of learning speech) whereas others show widely differing individual achievement (for example, music). It is still not fully clear whether each individual has general powers capable of being put to numerous uses or whether a specific individual has a greater inate proclivity to carry out certain intellectual operations whilst being incapable of developing the ability to execute others. These differing abilities have been linked with the functioning of particular areas of the brain; and biochemical, genetic and neurophysiological research aims at giving a scientific basis for the nature of human intellectual competence. For example, the question as to whether different parts of the nervous system are able to carry out a variety of operations or are restricted to particular intellectual operations is being addressed from the level of the functioning of the individual cell to that of the two halves of the brain.

With regard to human development, there is also the question as to how intellectual capacity and potential may vary within an individual under differing circumstances. Current opinion seems to indicate a factor of approximately 0.6 as the hereditary component of intelligence, presumably implying that a factor of 0.4 depends on environmental factors after birth. If intelligence is significantly variable then appropriate intervention at crucial times may yield an individual with greater or lesser range and depth of mental capacities and limitations. This point is important in making education effective in allowing the individual to achieve his full intellectual potential.