Sentient Intelligence

Introduction

“Sentient Intelligence” is a trilogy: “Intelligence and Reality” (1980), “Intelligence and Logos” (1982) and “Intelligence and Reason” (1983), completed shortly before Zubiri’s death. It argues that Western philosophy since Parmenides has separated sensing from understanding and reduced intelligence to conceiving and judging. Against this Zubiri describes a single act, sentient intellection: in the primordial apprehension of reality a thing is present not only as sensed content but as something real, “de suyo”. Logos, the understanding of what a thing is in relation to others, and reason, the search for what it is in the world, are later modes built on this first apprehension. The trilogy is the systematic core of Zubiri’s late philosophy and the basis on which students such as Ignacio Ellacuría developed his thought further.

More works by Xavier Zubiri

• 1962On Essence