Cover -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Jacques Maritain's understanding of intellectual intuition -- 1.1. The distinctive character of philosophical intuition -- 1.1.1. Defining intellectual intuition -- 1.1.2. Intellectual intuition in pre-scientific cognition -- 1.1.3. Intellectual intuition in philosophical cognition -- 1.2. Intellectual intuition in cognitive operations -- 1.2.1. Intellectual intuition in sensory-intellectual perception -- 1.2.1.1. Intuition in sensory-intellectual perception at the level of sensory cognition -- 1.2.1.2. Intellectual intuition in sensory-intellectual perception at the level of mental cognition -- 1.2.2. Intellectual intuition in forming judgements -- 1.2.3. Intuition in the process of reasoning -- 2. The role of intellectual intuition in arriving at the concept of being -- 2.1. Being as the object of metaphysical cognition -- 2.1.1. Some reflections on understanding the word "object" -- 2.1.2. The concept of being as the object of metaphysical cognition -- 2.1.3. Understanding being as the object of nonmetaphysical types of cognition -- 2.1.4. The transcendental and analogous nature of the concept of being as being -- 2.2. The operation of forming the concept of the object of metaphysics -- 2.2.1. Abstraction as an intensive visualization exceeding the eidetic aspect of being -- 2.2.2. The assertion of claims constituting the departure point for forming the concept of the object of metaphysics -- 3. The intuitive validation of the first principlesof being -- 3.1. The relation of the first principles of being to the concept of being as being -- 3.1.1. On understanding the term "principle" -- 3.1.2. Outline of the first principles of being from the viewpoint of their linguistic formulae -- 3.1.3. The first principles of being as a result of the illumination of the concept of being as being.

3.1.4. The position of the first principles in the system of classical metaphysics -- 3.1.4.1. Metaphysics and its structure -- 3.1.4.2. The role of first principles in metaphysics -- 3.2. The method of validating the first principles of being -- 3.2.1. Indemonstrability of the first principles of being -- 3.2.2. The intuitive character of the first principles of being -- 3.2.2.1. The structure of the process whereby the concept of being as being is illuminated -- 3.2.2.2. The first principles of being as per se nota propositions -- 3.2.3. Understanding metaphysics as the most general theory of reality -- Conclusion -- Bibliography.