Toward a Philosophical Definition of Intelligence

ABSTRACT

What is intelligence? A short question, which is difficult to answer. In fact, there is no general agreement on the definition of intelligence. A good philosophical analysis starts with intuitions, which can be found in the literature. After the recollection of these intuitions and their discussion, it is necessary to add some rational justifications of them. I want to express a general definition of intelligence, whose formulation is indebted to a philosophical analytic approach that considers some different alternatives. Intelligence is a vague word and it has different meanings. In fact, the intelligence studies are so rich but they pose some particular philosophical problems. Philosophy defines complex and complicated words in a simple and coherent way. I want to defend a definition, which is philosophically consistent and meaningful for intelligence studies. Is this a good way to solve such a complex problem? As Ludwig Wittgenstein said: “The problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have always known. Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language”.

Resumen

¿Qué es inteligencia? Una pregunta corta, pero que es difícil de responder. De hecho, no existe un acuerdo general sobre la definición de inteligencia. Un buen análisis filosófico comienza con las intuiciones, que se pueden encontrar en la literatura. Después de la recopilación de estas intuiciones y su discusión, es necesario agregar algunas justificaciones racionales de ellas. Quiero expresar una definición general de inteligencia, cuya formulación está en deuda con un enfoque analítico filosófico que considera algunas alternativas diferentes. Inteligencia es una palabra vaga y tiene diferentes significados. De hecho, los estudios de inteligencia son muy ricos pero plantean algunos problemas filosóficos particulares. La filosofía define palabras complejas y complicadas de una manera simple y coherente. Quiero defender una definición, que sea filosóficamente consistente y significativa para los estudios de inteligencia. ¿Es esta una buena manera de resolver un problema tan complejo? Como Ludwig Wittgenstein dijo: “Los problemas se resuelven, no dando nueva información, sino organizando lo que siempre hemos sabido. La filosofía es una batalla contra el embrujo de nuestra inteligencia por medio del lenguaje”.

KEYWORDS:

• Intelligence definition
• philosophical analysis
• knowledge
• theory of intelligence

PALABRAS CLAVES:

• Definición de inteligencia
• análisis filosófico
• conocimiento
• teoría de la inteligencia

Acknowledgments

I want to thank Jan Goldman, who was very helpful in helping me to improve the essay. I am grateful to Jules J. S. Gaspard for a discussion we had on intelligence theory and intelligence definition. Michael Warner suggested to me two interesting articles. One of them was particularly useful to provide further evidence to my own thesis. I want also to thank prof. Mario Caligiuri for all his efforts and help. Daniel Blue read the article in advance. He kindly helped me to improve it. I want to thank two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and comments that helped me improving the paper.

Notes

1. Wittgenstein (1953), p. 47.

2. For an analysis of functions that can be interesting for intelligence analysis from a social ontological perspective, see Searle (1990, 1995, 2007); from an epistemological point of view, see Plantinga (1988, 1993, 1997).

3. Herman (1991), p. 213.

4. Gill & Phythian, 2012, p. 19.

5. I offer a translation: a. [Intelligence is] the product of an elaboration of one or more news of interest to the national security. In this sense, it corresponds to the term “information” as employed by the Italian Legislator on the basic law of information for the national security. b. [Intelligence is] the set of functions, activities and organizations involved in the process of planning, researching, elaborating and disseminating of information of interest for the national security. http://www.sicurezzanazionale.gov.it/sisr.nsf/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Glossario-intelligence-2013.pdf. This list should not be considered an exhaustive one. In fact, there is another definition provided by Milton Diaz (Diaz (2011), p. 59): “In its lexical form, intelligence is any process producing knowledge for the purpose of making a decision”. Weaton and Beerbower define intelligence in this way: “[intelligence] is a process, focused externally and using information from all available sources, that is designed to reduce the level of uncertainty for a decisionmaker,” quoted in Warner (2009), p. 17. Several others can be found in the Italian literature of intelligence studies, e.g., Jennifer Sims provides another definition. Francesco Cossiga, Mario Mori and Mario Caligiuri formulate similar but different definitions of intelligence. Nevertheless, the open problem remains; what I want to do here is just to provide a suitable list for my purposes. As I stated before, it would be impossible to report every single definition, even the explicit ones.

6. “A stipulative definition imparts a meaning to the defined term, and involves no commitment that the assigned meaning agrees with prior uses (if any) of the term” (Gupta, 2015).

7. Hulnik’s first definition is a nominal stipulative definition of intelligence. Indeed, he starts his statement with “In this paper … ”, which circumscribed the use of the word. Nevertheless, the second definition is not a nominal one. In fact, Hulnik changes how he formulates the definition: “Intelligence means … ” Technically speaking, this second definition is not a nominal one because it fixes the denotation of the word outside the literature. Therefore, even Herman tries to provide a real definition.

8. There is a connection between the property-use and the object-use. To be clear, here, it is not a matter of how we use the word “intelligence” but how we conceptualize it. Thus, do we think that intelligence is first and foremost an object or a property? It is a difficult question that can be left open. After all, is it so important to solve this problem? What is really at stake here is to relate the adjectival use of the word to the noun-use. The adjectival uses of the word distinguish the different part of the meaning of the noun-use of the term. For example, intelligence outcome and intelligence cycle are part of intelligence; they thus are a partition of the same object. I will show how this could partition be done (cfr. P. 5). This discussion is interesting because it resembles the classical distinction between Plato’s theory of ideas and Aristotle’s theory of objects. The first thinker thinks that the real objects are the categories (Platonic ideals) and not vice versa. In contrast, Aristotle believes that single objects define the categories. The question here is, what is the basic meaning of the word “intelligence”? Is it for a property or for an object?

9. Quoted by Marrin (2016), p. 270.

10. Gill and Phythian (2012), p. 19.

11. Interestingly, Warner reconsiders this issue in a different paper, published after his first work about the definition of intelligence (Warner (2009)). In this paper, he reconsiders the role of intelligence in turning uncertainty to risk to enhance the sovereign capacity to make rational decision. Warner (2009) is much more about the analysis of the nature of intelligence than about its definition. I should say that it could be interesting to analyze it by comparing the two different positions. Nevertheless, I should restrain myself to comment on his later paper just because it is not entirely in question here. I want to thank Michael Warner, who personally suggested improving this point.

12. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi- publications/csi-studies/studies/vol53no2/toward-a-theory-of-ci.html.

13. Interestingly enough, this list of content is quite similar to Diaz’s recollection of intuitions shared by the scholars, experts and practitioners he interviewed. I think the reason for this similarity lies in the common ground shared by the intelligence studies literature. Therefore, after all, we are in a better position than we thought to be.

14. There is a huge literature about epistemic communities, for example Cross, M. A. (2013). “Rethinking epistemic communities twenty years later. Review of International Studies”, 39(01), 137–160. Haas, P. (Ed.). (2015). Epistemic Communities, Constructivism, and International Environmental Politics. Routledge.

15. Wittgenstein (1953), p. 47.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Giangiuseppe Pili

Giangiuseppe Pili is a lecturer in intelligence studies in the International Master in Security, Intelligence and Strategic Studies (IMSISS) at Dublin City University. He earned a Ph.D. in philosophy and sciences of the mind with a thesis on individual and social epistemology. He issued a book a monography about the philosophy of war (Filosofia pura della guerra). He is the coauthor of the book Intelligence studies with prof. Mario Caligiuri which is forthcoming.