William Buckley and Mortimer Adler on the Human Intellect 5/08/13

Something I would like to add here. Take someone who understands, not sees or imagines but understands, a common object rather than a particular object (e.g. apple rather than this red apple). The person incidentally changes form from not-understanding apple to understanding apple, which is a change that is substantially different from say this apple changing from not-red to red. The apple changing from not-red to red appears to us a new and different change occurring in matter, but the person changing from not-understanding apple to understanding apple, and also in a certain way the apple changing form from not being understood to being understood, does not appear to us in sensible fashion, which thereby suggests the immaterial nature of the human person's intellective capacity, the human intellect (nous).

Adler's comment on the low degree of spirituality in human beings fascinates: "Man has both his feet in the world of matter and is leaning over the fence --- as it were --- with his intellect into the world of spirit." Adler stays close to the Thomistic tradition in comparing the angels, the highest intellectual substances separated from matter, to human beings, the lowest intellectual substances in matter.