por The intellectual values of the human being They are ideas and forms of action that improve the human being in terms of reason, intellect and memory. Examples of this type of values are reading, science, knowledge or wisdom.
The intellectual person is dedicated to reflect and criticize reality: their ideas are intended to influence it. In addition, he intervenes, as a creator or mediator, in politics, in the production of ideologies, of cultural currents and in the defense of one or the other values.
Values are principles that guide the behavior of human beings. But there is no absolute, dominant or arbitrary definition of values, since the notion includes different contents and meanings approached from different theories and concepts.
A holistic view could refer to a quality of “excellence” or “perfection”. One value is telling the truth; a value is to work instead of stealing, for example.
Characteristics of intellectual values
Intellectual values revolve around truth, knowledge, research and rationality. In other words, we could think that intellectual values, studied logically, have:
-As an objective end the truth
-As a subjective end wisdom
-His main activities are abstraction and construction
-In preference to reason
-With the need to satisfy self-realization, which ultimately results in a whole person.
They give importance to knowledge
Classification and types of values
There is also no fair or unique order of values. Valuation hierarchies change easily depending on the context. The most common classification discriminates logical, ethical and aesthetic values, where intellectual values are found.
Most of the imposed classifications are divided into “ethical values” and “moral values”, but they have also been categorized as, according to Scheler (2000) in:
a) values of what is pleasant and what is unpleasant
b) vital values
c) spiritual values: the beautiful and the ugly, the fair and the unfair
d) values of pure knowledge of the truth
e) religious values: the holy and the profane.
On the other hand, Marín (1976), differentiates six groups:
a) technical, economic and utility values
b) vital values: physical education, health education
c) aesthetic values: literary, musical, pictorial)
d) Intellectual values (humanistic, scientific, technical)
e) Moral values (individual and social)
f) Transcendental values (worldview, philosophy, religion).
For his part, Francisco Leocata (1991) makes a scale of values with the synthesis of Hartman, Scheler and Lavelle, among which he also highlights intellectual values:
a) economic values: they have to do with the physical needs, the usefulness and the productivity of the human being
b) sensory-affective values or values of vitality: linked to the expression of the person with their way of feeling good and the sensitivity of pleasure
c) aesthetic values: they shape the transition from the natural to the cultural
d) intellectual values: they come together to demonstrate truth, knowledge, research and rationality
e) moral values: here intersubjectivity, conscience and behavior in relation to other people are at stake
f) religious values: where beliefs and faith play an important role.
Finally, Ervilla (1998) does make a classification between intellectual values and anti-values and relates them to the «rational nature of the human being.»
Intellectual values are defined as the essential virtues for the cognitive development of people: literacy, creativity, reflection. In opposition, the anti-values are: illiteracy, ignorance, dogmatism.
Studies on intellectual values
According to subjectivism, one of the main axiological theories, it is the subject who gives value and significance to things. In other words, things do not give themselves value, it is the human being who gives them their value.
The subjectivist visions are born from a psychological theory. According to Muñoz (1998), «to the extent that they presuppose that value depends on and is based on the subject that values: thus, from these theoretical positions, value has been identified with some fact or psychological state.»
Subjectivism fits values into what is not real and what is not worth by itself, but the human group is the one who catalogues, categorizes and gives meaning to a specific value.
This same appreciation establishes that the values will depend on the approval of a group accepted in society. The good and the bad will be delimited according to the ruling or assessment given by the majority social group.
And from the point of view of axiological objectivism, which is obviously opposed to subjectivism, the added value of things is not linked to individual experience.
According to Frondizi (2001), this current was born as a «reaction against the relativism implicit in the subjectivist interpretation and the need to establish a stable moral order.»
This school posits that values are ideals and objectives that have a value independent of people’s estimates and that they are real.
In this way, even though we are all unfair because we consider that it is a value, for example, justice continues to have value.
Examples of intellectual values
Some examples of intellectual values are:
– Wisdom. Accumulation of knowledge acquired through experience.
– TRUE. Certainty obtained from an undistorted reality.
– Reason. Mental capacity to come up with ideas that give meaning to a concept.
– Self realisation. Ability to act and achieve objectives without the need for external help.
– Integrity. Ability to keep intact your moral and ethical values.
– Intelligence. Mental capacity to adapt, learn, reason or make decisions logically.
– Communication. Ability to express ideas and emotions, as well as to receive them.
– Creativity. Ability to create or invent new concepts or ideas.
– Reflection. Ability to question thoughts and emotions to give them a more correct reality.
Themes of interest
Value types.
Human values.
Universal values.
Sociocultural values.
Material values.
Instrumental values.
Political values.
Cultural values.
Value hierarchy.
Priority values.
Personal values.
Objective values.
Priority values.
religious values.
Civic values.
Social values.
References
Curtain, A. (2000). Education and values. Madrid: New Library.
Ervilla, E. (1988). Educational Axiology. Granada: TAT Editions.
Frondizi, R. (2001). What are values? Mexico, DF: Breviaries of the Economic Culture Fund.
Leocata, F. (1991). Human life as an experience of value, a dialogue with Louis Lavelle. . Buenos Aires: Salesian Study Center.
Marin, R. (1976). Values, objectives and attitudes in education. Valladolid: Minon.
Seijos Suárez, C. (2009). Values from the main axiological theories: aprioristic and independent qualities of things and human acts. Santa Marta: Clio America.