what is the role of the agent intellect?
I know it illuminates and then abstracts the phantasm, but not really understanding completely..thank you
The concept of the agent intellect originates from Aristotelian and later Islamic philosophical traditions. Its role is to aid in the process of human understanding and cognition. Allow me to explain further:
1. Sensory Perception: When we perceive the world, our senses gather information in the form of sensations or "phantasms." These sensations are particular and specific to the objects we sense. For example, seeing a red apple or hearing a bird's chirping.
2. Abstraction: The agent intellect facilitates the process of understanding by taking these particular sensations and abstracting universal concepts from them. It identifies the common characteristics or features shared by various objects. In our previous examples, the agent intellect would extract the universal concepts of "redness" or "birdsong" from the specific sensory experiences.
3. Illumination: The agent intellect also plays a role in illuminating the phantasm, which means it enables us to mentally represent these abstracted universal concepts. It illuminates or makes intelligible the abstracted concepts, allowing us to think about them and reason with them.
4. Intellectual Understanding: By abstracting and illuminating the phantasm, the agent intellect helps us comprehend the world beyond mere sensory experiences. It allows us to engage in higher-level thinking, conceptualization, and analysis.
To better understand this concept, you may find it helpful to think of the agent intellect as an internal faculty or mechanism within our cognitive process. It facilitates the transformation of sensory data into abstract concepts, enabling our intellectual understanding of the world.