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Nous (UK: /naʊs/,[1] US: /nuːs/), from Greek: νοῦς, is a concept from classical philosophy, sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real.[2]
Alternative English terms used in philosophy include "understanding" and "mind"; or sometimes "thought" or "reason" (in the sense of that which reasons, not the activity of reasoning).[3][4] It is also often described as something equivalent to perception except that it works within the mind ("the mind's eye").[5] It has been suggested that the basic meaning is something like "awareness".[6] In colloquial British English, nous also denotes "good sense",[1] which is close to one everyday meaning it had in Ancient Greece. The nous performed a role comparable to the modern concept of intuition.
In Aristotle's philosophy, which was influential on later conceptions of the category, nous was carefully distinguished from sense perception, imagination, and reason, although these terms are closely inter-related. The term was apparently already singled out by earlier philosophers such as Parmenides, whose works are largely lost. In post-Aristotelian discussions, the exact boundaries between perception, understanding of perception, and reasoning have sometimes diverged from Aristotelian definitions.
In the Aristotelian scheme, nous is the basic understanding or awareness that allows human beings to think rationally. For Aristotle, this was distinct from the processing of sensory perception, including the use of imagination and memory, which other animals can do. For him then, discussion of nous is connected to discussion of how the human mind sets definitions in a consistent and communicable way, and whether people must be born with some innate potential to understand the same universal categories in the same logical ways. Derived from this it was also sometimes argued, in classical and medieval philosophy, that the individual nous must require help of a spiritual and divine type. By this type of account, it also came to be argued that the human understanding (nous) somehow stems from this cosmic nous, which is however not just a recipient of order, but a creator of it. Such explanations were influential in the development of medieval accounts of God, the immortality of the soul, and even the motions of the stars, in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, amongst both eclectic philosophers and authors representing all the major faiths of their times.
- ^ a b The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (3 ed.), Oxford University Press, 1973, p. 1417
- ^ Several of the terms commonly used in English philosophical contexts come directly from classical languages. Nous itself comes from Ancient Greek νοῦς (nous) or νόος (noos). "Intellect" comes from Latin intellēctus and intellegentia. To describe the activity of this faculty, the word intellection is sometimes used in philosophical contexts, as well as the Greek words noēsis and noeîn (νόησις, νοεῖν).
- ^ See entry for νόος Archived 2021-03-08 at the Wayback Machine in Liddell & Scott, on the Perseus Project.
- ^ See entry for intellectus Archived 2022-06-16 at the Wayback Machine in Lewis & Short, on the Perseus Project.
- ^ Rorty, Richard (1979), Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton University Press page 38.
- ^ "This quest for the beginnings proceeds through sense perception, reasoning, and what they call noesis, which is literally translated by "understanding" or intellect," and which we can perhaps translate a little bit more cautiously by "awareness," an awareness of the mind's eye as distinguished from sensible awareness." Strauss, Leo (1989), "Progress or Return", in Hilail Gilden (ed.), An Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essays by Leo Strauss, Detroit: Wayne State UP.