INTELLIGENCE AS AN OBJECT OF RESEARCH

The article deals with an overview of research on intelligence from the pre-scientific to post-neoclassical periods of the development of science. The continuity of knowledge is shown, the purpose of which is to determine the boundaries of human cognition of objective reality to create an optimal model of society, in which the maximum realization of intellectual potential is possible. A retrospective analysis shows that researchers have defined the basis of intelligence in different ways, designating the biological or environmental components as the dominant. The use of logical-deductive or experimental-inductive methods as a methodological basis had a decisive influence on the researcher while choosing methodological tools to solve the problem posed. The article notes that despite the task of studying intellectual development throughout ontogenesis, the period of gerontogenesis has been less studied. Empirical studies of intellectual development during this period prove that intellectual decline is largely the result of insufficient intellectual activity, the monotony of activity and a person's unwillingness to acquire new competencies in later life due to a number of objective and subjective reasons. It is noted that the decisive importance in ascending intellectual development has the level and quality of a person's subjectivity. This is expressed in the need for purposeful random activity, in which a person can abstract from social stereotypes about an unconditional decrease in intellectual development during the period of gerontogenesis.