7/27/2019 Nous (Intellect, Higher Reason)

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Explanation

Nous is the special faculty or part of the soul by which one perceives truth and other things of a more

divine nature, such as Virtue. The exercise of the Nousi.e., knowing things by means of itis called

noesis.

Noesis is often compared to vision; it is something like 'seeing' a truth. When we say, "Ah, now I see your

point" and the like, that expresses having a noetic understanding or grasp of a truth or principle.

Today there is no English word in common use that carries the same meaning as Nous. As a result, the

concept of theNous has all but vanished from modern science. Historically, the words Intellect and

Intelligence meant much the same thing as Nous; however today that connection is obscured by a very

broad meaning of 'intelligence', which can be even applied to animals and machines (because they can, for

example, plan and learn). HoweverNous is something like consciousness itself, and, at least with

machines, certainly wouldn't be applicable.

Another possible English near-equivalent isReason. But here we must distinguish between Reason and

reasoning. Reasoning is a form of discursive thought, whereas noesis is direct apprehension of truth.

Discursive thought corresponds to what Greek philosophers called dianoesis, which is associated with a

different mental faculty, the dianoia. Reason itself (i.e., Nous) is part of reasoningi.e., the means by

which we perceive trueness of an argument or inference.

Noesis is sometimes defined as intuition. Again, this is only partly true, because intuition has two common

meanings. The first (the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious

reasoning) is similar to noesis; the second (knowledge that comes from instinctive feeling rather than

conscious reasoning) is not.

We are left with the practical difficulty that, in terms of common usage, there are no convenient English

words with the same meanings as Nous and noesis. Therefore it might be advantageous to simply re-

introduce the Greek terms into common use. In the case ofnoesis, this seems to be gradually happening.

Reading

The distinction between noesis and dianoesis is best explained in Plato's famous divided line analogy:

l Plato's Republic Republic 6.509-511

Transliteration: Nous

Definition:The mental faculty by which one perceives truth, goodness, and

divine things; the Intellect.

Pronunciation: noos (hear)

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