conceptualization of intelligence

Essay from the year 2008 in the subject Politics - Other International Politics Topics, grade: 1,5, Macquarie University, language: English, abstract: Given the evolution of the term intelligence during the last decades, it is easily comprehensible that its pristine meaning becomes blurry. In fact, intelligence "e;means many things to many people [and] boiling it down to one single definition is difficult"e; (Warner, 2007, p. 15). The growing "e;application of the concept or perhaps the illusion of intelligence analysis to various information processing activities that are not really intelligence in the professional sense of the word"e; (Agrell, 2002, p. 4) increases the difficulties to formulate a precise and applicable definition. Nevertheless in a "e;business as old as recorded history, one would expect to find a sophisticated understanding of just what that business is, what it does and how it works"e; (Warner, 2007, p. 15). Therefore it is the more astonishing that "e;all attempts to develop ambitious theories of intelligence have failed"e; (Laqueur, 1985, p. 8). In the following this paper will analyze some problems of finding a universally agreed upon definition of intelligence before the attempt to find a own conceptualization.