Meaning & use
intellection
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountable
The act of using the mind to grasp ideas and think them through, as opposed to feeling or sensing them.
Grammar: Usually has no article or plural: pure intellection, not an intellection.
Patterns
- the intellection of something
- a process of intellection
The monk spent years training his mind to move from emotion to calm intellection.
Some philosophers argue that intellection, unlike perception, needs no sensory input.
Her essay treated intellection as a skill that can be sharpened with practice.
Common combinations
- pure intellection
- The mathematician described proof-writing as pure intellection.
- an act of intellection
- Recalling a name is a small act of intellection that we rarely notice.
- intellection and emotion
- The novel sets cold intellection against warm emotion.
- process of intellection
- The book maps the process of intellection from first impression to conclusion.
Synonyms and how they differ
- thinking
- Thinking is the everyday word and works in any register, whereas intellection sounds academic and abstract.
- cognition
- Cognition is the scientific term for all mental processing, including memory and perception, while intellection stresses reasoning and understanding.
- reasoning
- Reasoning focuses on drawing logical conclusions, so it is narrower than the general mental activity intellection names.
Opposites
Word family
- intellect noun
- the power of the mind to reason and understand
- intellectual adjective
- relating to the mind and its reasoning
- intellectually adverb
- in a way that involves the mind or thought
- intellectualize verb
- to analyse something in a purely rational way, often avoiding feeling
Commonly confused: intellection or intuition?
intellection vs intuition
Intuition is knowing something without conscious reasoning, whereas intellection is the deliberate working of the mind.
Practice
Which sentence uses intellection most naturally?
Choose one answer.
Intellection means the work of the mind in reasoning, so the seminar sentence fits; fear is a feeling, and the last two options treat it as a physical object.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “intellection”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.