INTELLECTUALISM. — In a general sense, intellectualism (i.) may be described as any conception of truth that admits the superiority of the intellect over the sensitive faculties and over both rational and irrational impulses of the appetite. In the proper sense, intellectualism is any philosophy that attributes to the intellect the exclusive primacy in attaining and determining truth; in this sense, intellectualism is precisely opposed to voluntarism, for which the intellectual function has the value of preparation first, and of reflection afterwards, with respect to the truth that the will attains and possesses.
Greek philosophy is predominantly intellectual in orientation, though to varying degrees according to the different schools: the good is identified with the true, morality with knowing the good, and the individual’s decision does not guarantee personal immortality. The ideal of Hellenism is the θεωρητικός βίος, the life of contemplation, in the full unfolding of rational activities in this life, and it is reserved for heroes and philosophers. The freedom of individuals, when explicitly affirmed (Aristotle, Stoics), always relates to the finite and does not assume a transcendent orientation, because the destiny of being is what is established by fact.
In Christianity, man obtains responsibility and thus personal freedom before God because earthly life is preparation for eternal life (Heb. 13:14); for this reason, Christianity is, in this sense, voluntarism: it demands that reason submit to faith (obsequium fidei) and considers the value of the spiritual life not in terms of the gifts of the intellect but in terms of the exercise of the will. Since in the exercise of freedom every person, without distinction, has fundamentally the same possibility, despite differences in intellect, Christianity offers a truly universal criterion of salvation (freedom, in this case). This does not prevent the observation, within this common faith, of tendencies—both in the patristic age and in the Middle Ages—that incline either toward intellectualism or toward voluntarism. While the Alexandrian school emphasizes intellectualism, St. Augustine extols the emotional and volitional factors. In the Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas explicitly marks the superiority of the intellect over the will and attributes to the intellect the formal act of beatitude (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 82, a. 3; in the sed contra, Aristotle, Eth. Nic., X, 7, 1077 a 20 ff., is cited). The Franciscan school, on the other hand, especially from Scotus onward, upholds the primacy of the will. Yet the same Angelic Doctor noted the principal function of the will, though subordinate to the intellect: indeed, in his Commentary on Aristotle he declares that the principal happiness consists in the contemplative life rather than the active, and in the act of reason or intellect rather than in the act of appetite regulated by reason (In X lib. Ethic., ed. Pirotta, Turin 1934, n. 126). Commenting on the Gospel, however, he goes on to clarify the meaning of the Aristotelian principle, declaring that “according to the Philosopher, for contemplative acts to make one blessed, two things are required: one substantial, namely that it be an act of the highest intelligible, which is God; the other formal, namely love and delight” (Exp. super Ev. Matth., cap. 5, lect. 1; ed. Parm., X, p. 49 b). The Franciscans rejected the Thomist exegesis, arguing that Aristotle, in the cited texts, intends to affirm the superiority of the intellectual sphere (intellect and will together) over sensibility, and not of the intellect over the will (cf. R. Marston, Quaest. disputatae, 6, in Bibl. Fr. schol. medii aevi, VII, Quaracchi 1932, p. 348). The proper reason for the supremacy of the intellect over the will, according to St. Thomas, is that the intellect is rational by essence, while the will is rational by participation; thus it is through the intellect that man comes to possess the truth by which he “participates in the likeness of God secundum intellectum,” so that the speculative life “is compared to the moral life as the divine is to the human” (In X Ethic., ed. cit., n. 2106; cf. n. 2109). This diversity of orientation among Catholic schools regarding the metaphysics of intellectual life directly affects the most vital questions of theology (controversies over the act of faith, divine moralization, etc.).
In modern philosophy, the meaning of intellectualism depends on the varying interpretation of the principle of immaculateness (v.) and is not always easy to distinguish from it: thus great pre-Kantian rationalist systems may fall under intellectualism, Kant is at once an advocate of intellectualism (pure reason) and of voluntarism (practical reason), as well as of a philosophy of intuition (Critique of Judgment); the same, and even more so, may be said of idealist systems insofar as absolute reason is active and creative rather than merely contemplative. Scientific intellectualism is professed by positivism and neo-positivism, for which whatever cannot have a precise concept is devoid of meaning. See INTELLECT; INTUITIONISM; IRRATIONALISM; RATIONALISM.