Definition of "intellectualization" [intellectualization]

• Psychology The act or process of intellectualizing. (noun)
• Psychology An unconscious means of protecting oneself from the emotional stress and anxiety associated with confronting painful personal fears or problems by excessive reasoning. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "We saw Kristin’s philosophizing as a type of defense we called intellectualization."
• "Modern scientific and technological knowledge is a culmination of this process that Weber called intellectualization, in the course of which, the germinating grounds of human knowledge in the past, such as religion, theology, and metaphysics, were slowly pushed back to the realm of the superstitious, mystical, or simply irrational."
• "He uses this metaphor to account for the suspension of disbelief: "We suspend the rational process of intellectualization, which is to say, of the comparison of phenomenon to idea, which is a process too slow for the hunt.""