Intellectual virtues - Definition and Overview

Character traits necessary for right action and correct thinking. They include: intellectual sense of justice, intellectual perseverance, intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual empathy, intellectual courage, confidence in reason, and intellectual autonomy.

Aristotle

Aristotle analyzed virtues into moral and intellectual virtues (dianoetic virtues, the Greek aretai dianoetikai). In the Posterior Analytics and Nicomachean Ethics he identified five intellectual virtues - as the five ways the soul arrives at truth by affirmation or denial. He grouped them into three classes:

• Theoretical:
  • Sophia -i.e. wisdom of the eternal and unchangeable, philosophical wisdom.
  • Episteme -i.e. scientific knowledge, empirical knowledge.
  • Nous -i.e. intuitive understanding.
• Practical:
  • Phronesis -i.e. practical wisdom/prudence.
• Productive:
  • Techne -i.e. craft knowledge, art, skill.

Subjecent intellectual virtues in Aristotle:

• Euboulia. Deliberating well, deliberative excellence. Thinking properly about the right end.
• Sunesis. Understanding, sagacity, consciousness of why something is as it is. - e.g the understanding you have of why a situation is as it is, prior to having phronesis - understanding of what to do about it -i.e what is the best action.
• Gnomê. Judgement and consideration. Virtue which allows people to make equitable or fair decisions.
• Deinotes. Cleverness. The ability to carry out actions so as to achieve a goal.

References

• Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics Book VI.
• Thomas Hobbes On Man, Being the First Part of Leviathan. Chapter VIII: Of the Virtues Commonly Called Intellectual, and Their Contrary Defects (http://www.bartleby.com/34/5/8.html)
• R. M. Paul Critical thinking: What every person needs to survive in a rapidly changing world, (Rev. 2nd ed.). Santa Rosa, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking, 1992.
• Michael DePaul et Linda Zagzebski, Intellectual Virtue, Oxford, Oxford U. Press. 2003.

See Also

• Intellectual dishonesty
• Critical thinking
• Paideia
• Virtue ethics
• Epistemic virtue

External links

• The Intellectual and Moral Virtues of the Critical Person (http://scinfo.sc.maricopa.edu/events/assess/msg00006.html)
• Virtue Epistemology (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-virtue/), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Critical Thinking Glossary: An Educator's Guide to Critical Thinking Terms and Concept (http://www.criticalthinking.org/University/gloss/intro.html)