The Night of the Soul - Intellect and its Acts in Meister Eckhart

True to the Dominican tradition, Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) attaches great importance to the intellect, both in the knowledge of God and for human beatitude.

However, it is not possible to consider this notion without highlighting the existence of a difficulty.

In its urge to reach truth, the intellect experiences a certain blindness; it never perfectly manages to grasp what is there, hidden in the depths of its being.

Far from being an obstacle, doesn't this difficulty define the nature of our thought?

This new work is an investigation into the acts of the intellect through an analysis of the main verbs employed by the Rhenish master to describe what happens in the soul and the ordeal it undergoes.

Must not the intellect consent to what is given to it in the mode of the unappropriable? And thought then becomes an endless quest.

"In the night, when no creature shines or casts a glance into the soul, in the silence where nothing speaks to the soul, the word is spoken in the intellect" (Sermon 70).

The experience of night is this necessary ordeal that allows the intellective soul to let an always unexpressed word resonate within it.