Psychology Wiki  Active intellect  34,114pages on this wiki
Revision as of 12:24, April 10, 2007 by Dr Joe Kiff (Talk |
contribs)     Active intellect is a term used in both psychology
and philosophy.   Active intellect is the psychological concept
of knowledge being actively used (as opposed to passive
knowledge). For example, if you are speaking French, your
knowledge of it is currently active knowledge for you. If you
simply know French, but do not happen to be speaking it at the
moment, it would be considered passive knowledge. Active
intellect is sometimes represented by three wavy lines of equal
length stacked together [1].   The active intellect was the
subject of much intense discussion in medieval philosophy. The
idea is first encountered in Aristotle's De Anima, in which he
discusses the human mind. The early Greek commentators on
Aristotle (such as Alexander of Aphrodisias) argued about what
it was and how it related to the passive intellect. Later
neoplatonist Muslim commentators (Al-Farabi) assoc