Intellect means understanding, reasoning, reflection. Intellect comes from Latin and means to read from the inside, it is a cognitive power of the human soul, through which it knows something about itself, something that surrounds it and something that transcends it. Intellect is a faculty an act, which is exercised through intelligence. One who makes use of the intellect is called intelligent.
The intellect recognizes as part of its knowledge the immaterial reality, but part of the material realities, that is, beyond corporeal things, the intellect seeks to know itself first, that is why it is said that the intellect is immaterial. Science has its starting point in intellectual activity.
Initially, the intellect was associated with the perception of notions of metaphysics, and was regarded as a capacity of the highest understanding, and was superior to reason. Later, the intellect was related to knowledge of finite things, while the infinite was approached by reason.
The intellect has its own object, it is called being, (which comes from the Latin and means what it is) all the reality that the intellect considers nature or essence, what the intellect apprehends from it.
The action of the intellect is to know reality and apprehend nature from it, aiming at the truth that is the adequacy of the intellect with the thing. when he apprehends the truth he affirms as true, while denying what is not.
Intellect and Philosophy
According to the philosopher Anaxagoras, and taking into account a classical Greek conception, the intellect was used for ordering of the cosmos and consequently was related to human thought, which contemplates the order cosmic. Aristotle differentiates the intellect from sensations, appetites and desires, stating that the intellect is "the part of the soul with which it knows and thinks".
The intellect is not only responsible for reflection, but refers to a critical reflection, awareness and analysis of the foundations or reasons for something.
Plato and Aristotle described the intellect in a generic way, as the faculty of thinking in general. However, some philosophers saw the intellect as a specific activity or technique of thought, which could be: intuitive intellect, operant intellect or as understanding or intelligence.
