The Intellect And The Senses

Reason, the set of necessary truths at the heart of all things and without which nothing could be true or knowable, is grasped by the intellect.  A deduction without assumptions and the logical axioms that cannot be rejected without contradiction make certain things true by necessity.  In contrast, the senses largely perceive things that cannot be proven to exist or be true; one simply either perceives them or does not.  These distinctions are at the core of valid epistemology, and they alone could be analyzed and savored for a lengthy time because of their sheer importance.  There is actually more that could be discovered or contemplated, including the metaphysical nature of reason that goes beyond its base epistemological nature.

One such fact is that reason is a set of necessary truths that exist independent of all other things--including the cosmos and the uncaused cause.  The laws of logic are not part of the nature of other things like God, human perception, or the physical world, but instead these necessary truths precede, underpin, and govern all other things.  Other things can only exist or be true if it is logically possible for them to be part of reality in the first place.  Even if all else ceased to exist, the laws of logic would persist by sheer necessity, for it could never be any other way.

The laws of logic exist independent of and therefore outside of all minds.  Then, if the intellect that grasps reason is ultimately aware of something outside of itself, and the senses perceive outward objects and environments that are or at least seem to be outside of one's mind, is the intellect a member of the human senses along with the sense of touch or hearing?  In the broadest rational scope of the concept, the intellect is indeed a sense.  It just is not a sense that seemingly or really corresponds to an external thing that is physical.  Ironically, while one can prove directly that the laws of logic cannot not exist and thus must exist outside of one's consciousness, senses like that of hearing, taste, or sight have no logically necessary

The conventional senses, while they could perceive immaterial things--after all, a person who hypothetically sees a spirit would still be using their sense of sight--perceive things that are made of matter, at least supposedly.  There is no way to prove that the sense of sight, for example, corresponds to anything outside of one's mind.  However, the immateriality of the laws of logic mean that the intellect only grasps that which is immaterial, which in turn enables a person to understand experiences and concepts related to the material world.

The intellect is a "sense" in one way but objectively distinct from the others all the same.  It is the supreme sense without which no knowledge, either from abstract reasoning or immediate introspective or sensory experience, could be possible.  Just as there would be no truths to know apart from the laws of logic making some truths necessary, there would be no way to grasp these truths without the intellect that is capable of understanding reason.  This supreme sense is what allows one, if one is willing, to develop a rationalistic worldview of recognized logical truths, all of which are consistent and all of which are absolutely certain.