Intelligence has a plethora of meanings attached to it. Yet it seems as if philosophy would have some sort of impact on intelligence in a general sense due to the level of comprehension needed to understand what is being said. Several years ago there were works that were totally oblivious to me and I would have been just as well off reading Greek. Now, those same works are much easier to digest. This could be because I just understand through persistance, but it could also be that my education level was significantly higher before and after.
Another instance is the common social stereotype placed upon individuals who read philosophy. Having a large philosophical library I commonly hear, “You must be smart,” when guests view my selections. Now I have tons of books on a variety of different subjects, but people always comment on intelligence whenever they witness my philosophy section.
Now I am not declaring that reading philosophy will automatically boost your I.Q. by 15 points, but it seems if there is an attachment to intelligence through some means be it fictitious or actual.
Thoughts?
Think of an IQ as a potential rather than an actual measurement. IQ’s are genetic and can actually be assessed fairly accurately at ages as young as 3. You are born with it and cannot change it. Intelligence is your capability to comprehend certain knowledge. No matter how hard a person with a 70 IQ reads philosophy they will never get any more intelligent. They just don’t have the capacity to understand it.
Maybe, you are struggling more along the lines of the term ‘wisdom’ rather than ‘intelligence’? You can have a young teen with a 200 IQ and a 60-year-old experienced man with an IQ of a 100, where the 60-year-old displays more wisdom because of his experiences, accumulated knowledge, and learned problem solving skills. Make sense?
So I would suggest that Philosophy does not impact our intelligence, but it does effect our wisdom. Speaking of which, Philosophy actually translates to something like 'Love of Wisdom".
— At first philosophers were called Alethia which means unveiling, telling the truth; apparently however these first philosophers were not held in high regard and were forced to take upon themselves the then vague euphemism of philosopher.
— Understanding something that you could not hitherto understand, may, as you say enigma, just be the result of practice. The old adage “practice makes perfect” is as true of intellectual pursuits as others.
— I tender the converse hypothesis. That if one has a high intelligence then one can truly appreciate philosophy. I don’t know. Nevertheless, i love wisdom.
Intelligence is not a unalterable genetic brand you acquire at birth in my opinion and mainstream psychological thought, and although genetics do a play a role, socialization and psychological processes are very significant as well. Here’s a page from the APA displaying that there are more factors other than genetics which may very well influence intelligence: http://www.apa.org/releases/intell.html. If you put a little more thought into the notion of genetics only playing a role in intelligence, you may realize how faulty a premise it can be based on some fact finding through contemporary cognitive research.
As one matures, one can enhance or detract their intelligence if they subject themselves to the right or wrong enviroment and resources. There may very well be limitations on what one can do intellectually. That doesn’t however mean that intelligence is static and unalterable. Without the proper nutrition, language/logic formation or psychological adjustment; intelligence can suffer tremendously and vice versa. It seems more reasonable to me for us to have an intelligence range rather than just a static level branded at birth due to the ongoing adaptation of brain chemistry.
I agree with you that wisdom could very well be a part of it or the jest of the phenomenon. With intelligence being rooted in the ability to reason, it just seems to me that proper reasoning can very well be educated and enhanced within the realms of philosophy. As I stated in my initial post, this could be a misconception or there could very well be validity to it based on how you view intelligence.
— Think of it as a car Enigma. You’re given so many horse power, but you can improve that a nominal amount by using a better fuel, or refuse to maintain your engine till you lose power.
I think of it as a balloon. Balloons come in all different shapes and sizes, but it takes air to fill them up so that they may reach their full potentials. Of course, you may think that I’m just full of hot air 
!
— I Think one useful definition of intelligence would be how one copes with one’s environment.
ahh skeptic, you maybe full of hot air but i belive my balloon popped a long time ago 
wasn’t it Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who introduced the concept of the mind being like a storage space through his infamous character Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock himself would keep from retaining certain nonsense in his “attic”…
i would hope that there isnt a certain max or limit for us to reach, but if there is i highly doubt we will reach it.
In my opinion intellegence is required to understand and to comprehend philosophy, but philosophy itself doesn’t expand your intellegence. I think it opens your mind for different views. It gives you the possibility to observe things in many different ways and adds wisdom to you, in case of understanding it.
Locke Key said:
Although I would say Arthur Conan Doyle was an intelligent man, even he was tricked into believing in fairies. A bunch of girls made little fairy puppets, hung them off of trees, the girls sat on the tree and took a picture. Showing the picture to Doyle, he became convinced of fairies and the legitimacy of the photograph. Imagine, the great Sherlock Holmes outsmarted by a group of little girls
What’s your take?
hmmm, i thought for sure that they were real fairies, but Sir Doyle even hated his own character. maybe he should have used a little of his creations deductive skills.
anywho, i still stand by my point, whether or not it pertains to how philosophy effects our intelligence. the mind may or may not be an attic to fill, but there is no fathomable way (in our time anyways) for us to fill it.
as for intelligence bing required maybe, but i would prefer patience.
“Patience is a virtue that takes a life time to learn.”
~Magius
It doesn’t.
The only thing i can say that it is not the case that reading philosophical literatures increases your intelligence(whatever that means) but is the very fact that reading philosophical literatures over time only lead to the understanding of the language of philosophy and its games.
If one person read only Joyce’s novels,then in time after digesting this particular style will become an expert or an amateur of James Joyce.Same thing apply to other meta-narratives;especially philosophy.
It makes really stupid.
Philosophy is rhetoric. Rhetoric is argument. Philosophy argues about what things mean. Philosophy argues for what it means to be intelligent.
You have been persuaded to believe through popular philosophy that comprehending the book makes you smarter than you once were. A less popular philosophy may exist that argues you were smarter before when you couldn’t understand them.
Name dropping is very persuasive. If I told you I was an actor and I’ve worked on Ocean’s 11, Titanic, and Spider Man 3 you would be more likely to believe I was a good actor, then if I told you I worked at a dinner theater in Iowa, however, the better actors may be in Iowa doing dinner theater.
Likewise, goes for names like Freud, Nietzsche, and Einstein. If you drop those names people think you’re smart. People have been conditioned through school and mediums (the media) to think that those people are smart. It is those names who have defined the word smart for our society. To be like them means to be smart. That is why you get that reaction.
However, who gives a shite? I want to be like the fucking drunk on the corner, or a ninja, or maybe a police chief. It’s as good as anything.
Steve
philosophy doesn’t impact intelligence directly . but what philosophy does is to instigate questions , which provokes thought , and the flexibility of mind, which is passed down to ones children. from you.
however the thing about philiosophy , is that it can cause confusion to one.
and that is also its danger.
if one lacks the ability to Reason clearly and objectively. one gets captured in a series of thoughts , which leads to a conclusion without question. hence the loss of freewill.
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Intelligence is a blade.
Everyone is born with a blade of a standard thickness.
In cross-section, that blade would look like an isosceles triangle; the narrow base of which being the same for all.
Vocabulary increases the width of the blade (height of the triangle) and in so doing, its sharpness.
Wisdom is feeling/knowing what deserves to be sliced or cut into and what deserves to be left alone.
If you possess a surgeon’s scalpel, and unethically slice willy-nilly . . . . . . you are an idiot.
I concur with Enigma’s assessment. Intelligence is universally the ability of an organism to adapt to their environment, however this definition has been altered to mean the ability of a person to understand complex ideas and –apply- them in life. While evidence is still generally lacking for scientists to decide whether intelligence is more physiological or psychological, studies have shown that the latter has more impact (in first-world countries, anyway). Intelligence essentially starts before birth with the nourishment of the child, and assuming the child is properly fed, the most important factor becomes the intellectual environment. Various parents’ magazines suggest interacting with one’s child in order to foster proper language skills, and carrying on with basic math and instrument practice. These skills set a foundation for logic that will be strongly instilled in the child and used practically throughout life.
These magazines also suggest exposing children to social interaction and not imposing religion on them. The social interaction instills confidence and belief of the children in themselves while the lack of religion encourages a broader perspective of life and open-mindedness in general. Interestingly enough, a study was conducted in a junior high school and found that students who believed intelligence could be expanded outperformed their peers who thought it was static. With all this in mind, I would say that philosophy definitely increases intelligence – if only by a meager bit. A person who engages in philosophy is more prone to use logic and be more open-minded, and will probably apply these understandings in life making him a ‘smarter’ person. While it is true that people have limits as to how intelligent they can be, it is to my understanding that these limits are nearly identical in most humans – what makes the difference is how one goes about learning and applying themselves.
Hi Enigma.
I don’t know about intelligence, however you want to measure that,
but it’s been recorded that Philosophy majors do much better than others* on GRE and LSAT tests.
*(Except for math majors on math sections.)