Intellectual values are the values of the spirit — truth, knowledge, intelligibility. They form the second level in Dietrich von Hildebrand’s stratification of values and stand above the vital values. Their ontological foundation is the verum as a transcendental property of every entity.
To the domain of intellectual values belong truth and meaning — the cognition of the entity in its own actuality and the significance of personal life. The person is ordered toward intellectual values through its capacity for truth. It can grasp them — not merely calculate or simulate them.
Here lies a central demarcation against reductive conceptions of AI: AI processes symbol sequences probabilistically; it cognizes nothing. Truth is not an output token, but an objective value whose apprehension presupposes personhood.
Ontological classification:
- Superordinate concept: objective value
- Subordinate concepts: truth, meaning
- Transcendental foundation: verum
- Disjoint with: vital value, moral value, aesthetic value
Chapter assignment: Chapter 4: What Is Human Personhood? (German)
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Hildebrand, Dietrich von: Ethics (1953/1972). Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press.
- Seifert, J. (2014): Ontological Categories, Anuario Filosófico 47(2), pp. 353–354.
See also: