Nous

Nous or Nus ( ancient Greek νοῦς ) is a term of ancient Greek philosophy. He refers to the human ability to grasp something mentally, and the instance in humans, which is responsible for recognizing and thinking. In German, " Nous " is usually rendered " spirit ", " intellect ", " mind " or "reason", the Latin equivalent is intellectus. In metaphysical and cosmological doctrines that emanate from a divine governance of the world, even one acting in the cosmos principle is called Nous, the divine world reason.

• 3.1 pre-Socratic period
• 3.2 Plato
• 3.3 Aristotle
• 3.4 Hellenistic and Roman Period
• 3.5 Middle Ages and modern times

Etymology and related terms

The etymology of the word nous is controversial in research. One older hypothesis is that it is a developed form of σνό ϝ ος ( snówos ) derive the " sniffing " with the sense of " to anticipate a hazard " related ( cf. English to sniff ). Accordingly, it is the collection of facts on the basis of sensory perception. According to a recent research review, there is a connection with néomai ( return ) and Nostos (return).

The associated verb is νοεῖν ( Noein, think ). At the same word family includes more philosophical terms: " Noesis " ( mental activity, act of thought ) with the corresponding adjective " noetic " (Greek noetos ), " epistemology " ( the doctrine of the Nous and his work, not psychological epistemology, Edmund Husserl, phenomenology of reason ), " noema " ( idea of individual thought content ), " noumenon " ( that which is thought, in Kant, the thing in itself ) and " Dianoia " ( discursive thinking). While in Greek Dianoia often a " Dianoetic " means thinking ( deductive advancement), with nous is often specifically an intuitive " noetic " meant thinking ( immediate detection of a self-evident facts ). Thus dianoia rather corresponds to the German term " mind " nous rather the German - term reason. However, the use of language in the ancient sources is not uniform and not always clear.

The Nous as an instance in humans

Pre-Socratic period

The noun nous come (originally in the uncontracted form Noos ) noein and the verb before already in the pre-philosophical parlance of the Archaic period. The extent to which these expressions were connected at that time clear, differentiated ideas, is not exactly known and controversial in the research. Homer noein used in contexts where it comes to sensory perception ( "recognize" in the sense of " perceive ", " notice " ), for example in the statement " He was aware of the eyes." The sensory perception is closely connected with him with the processing of delivered impressions of it, the sense organs are like tools of thought. The activity of Nous appears as the spiritual aspect of perception, which you can play with " perception " or " implementation". Despite the close linkage of sensory perception with their evaluation Homer distinguishes also between the perception as such and the led of her understanding, for example, the realization that a perceived situation is dangerous. For this Homeric Nous is characteristic that he is considering not analyzing, but recognized the situation immediately and causes an appropriate response. In addition to the poet at noos but also the thinking of people call that leads an inner monologue that thinks up something and some plans.

The philosophical term use was linked to the colloquial. Also in philosophical texts it came to a proper understanding of what the perceptible as the underlying reality. However, the aim of the philosopher was not like the figures of Homer, the action-oriented sensing intent or the meaning of a given concrete situation, but insight into a hidden behind the appearances reality.

Pre-Socratic philosophers like Empedocles and Democritus limited thinking not clear as ability or specific nature of perception from. They regarded it as the perception than physical process in which material is detected the same of matches. This made them later Aristotle criticized for. Thus Empedocles believed that " blood flowing to the heart " was the bearer of the power of thought. He said the blood was the best mixed material and therefore suitable as a seat of knowledge.

Heraclitus put polemically that " polymathy does not lead to understanding ( nous ). " By this he meant a mere accumulation of knowledge does not confer deeper insight. Such insight, he spoke from the vast majority of people.

The requirements for a clear distinction of sense activity and mental activity created Parmenides. He appointed as the sole object of thought, the time-independent beings whose contrast to the range of ephemeral objects of sense, he stressed. After his apprenticeship, only the About Temporal and therefore unchangeable really exist. The world of changeable things is unreal and deceptive by its very nature, it is therefore not an object of thought, which will lead to true statements, into consideration. The timeless Being, however, can be detected by thought suitable, because thinking and being of the same nature and form an inseparable unit. Therefore, the nous is the one instance in man which is able to fend for themselves to know the truth. From this ability of the thinker makes use when he turns to the unchangeable Being. He also uses discursive, folgerndes thinking. According to the doctrine of Parmenides, not only the immediate apprehension of being, but also logical reasoning is an activity of the nous.

In the research has long been controversial is the question of what the exact meaning of the verb is noein in Parmenides. Some historians of philosophy see it first and foremost a recognition as an infallible intuitive grasp of the truth; was therefore noein - expounded as already Martin Heidegger in his Parmenides interpretation - not really "think" properly captioned, but rather "recognize" with with. Heidegger translates it as " hear " because it was a pure intuitant reportedly something of what already exists in its pure presence-at. These researchers relied on the assertion of Parmenides, there is no noein of non-being. You mean with noein could therefore no thought be meant, for some not-being may well be imagined. Another research direction pulls the translation "think" before and indicates that noos and noein are quite capable of error in Parmenides. It remains that Parmenides the human noein the ability to correctly capture its subject or of being ascribed, but only under conditions that are not given a priori, but must be created by the thinkers only.

Plato

Plato draws on the approach of the Parmenides and works a sharp distinction between the physical objects of sense perception and a purely spiritual, only the Nous accessible area out. Under Noesis he understands the highest faculty of knowledge, that activation of the Nous, with this sensor measures the immutable beings directly and in accordance with reality, independent of any sensory perception. To this end, all souls are basically qualified by nature, but those who have connected with articles, which usually the noetic cognition have lost. This applies to the souls of animals, but also for the vast majority of human souls. A recovery was lost ability keeps Plato possible; the way to it provides the philosophy for him.

The noetic cognition which conveys only real knowledge is subordinated in Platonism the Dianoia ( the sensory impressions proceeding inferential thinking). The Dianoia to which the partially perceptual thinking of mathematicians counts, though can also lead to knowledge, but it is error- prone because it is based on illusory sensations and unproven conditions. All thinking, which is aimed not only apply to non Paranormal, produces only an inadequate, incorrect opinion (doxa ).

Plato believes that the nous is always bound to a soul, without which it can not exist. As part of the natural order of the psychic life dominates and directs the Nous, the soul. If he can actually exercise its rightful steering function, the man acts prudently and ethically correct. Misbehavior is due to a disorder of the inner soul hierarchical order.

Aristotle

Major parts of the Nous doctrine of Aristotle are shown only sketchily in his works, not systematically worked out, and the transfer of its concepts in modern terminology is problematic. Therefore, the interpretation of key elements in research is controversial.

For Aristotle the nous is the intellect of the highest part of the soul of man, defined as " that by which the soul thinks and makes assumptions ". This part is only present in the human soul, while the perception and the animals and the responsible for the nutritional function of the soul belongs to all living beings biologically writable. Not only actual knowledge but also false opinions are exclusively produced by Nous. The ability of the animals to behave appropriate to the situation because of their perceptions, Aristotle takes you back to a special function of animal cognition, which by its very nature of the activity of the human Nous is different.

The Nous is itself formless, it has no prescribed contents and has no own nature ( apart from its full capacity ) and no organ associated with it. Aristotle compares it with a blank chalkboard. Because of this uncertainty is the nous to be able to include all forms in himself, so he has the option under about them. Only if it receives a certain thinking form, in terms of the ability of this form reality. The Nous is in each case what he thinks as long as he thinks it; applies to all non Material that subject and object of thought are the same. In contrast to the other two parts of the soul of nous is not mixed with the body, but autonomous, but he needs for his job ideas ( phantasms ), which produces the perceiving soul part. The nutritive and perceptive soul exist from the beginning only in conjunction with the body, the Nous, however, is characterized by an independent existence from the body. He comes from outside the body ( " through the door ").

Aristotle rejects the view that there could be a material basis and explanation for the activity of the nous. After his argument would have a material basis means that the thinking would be like the sense limited to certain types of objects and to certain spatial regions. Nonexistent would be inconceivable for the Nous to the Far he would at most by a material transfer with which the distance is overcome access. The Nous may think but all alike, he is acting independently of the existence or the distance of thought. In addition, nothing thinkable damage the Nous by an excess or destroy, in contrast to the senses, in which excessively strong impressions wreak destruction.

Like Plato, Aristotle distinguishes the noetic reliable detection of individual simple situations, the operation of Nous in the strict sense, the inferential and comparative thinking, which is based on the derivation of a possibly misguided idea from another and therefore fallible. Principles that must be provided for scientific evidence, but are themselves not deductively derivable can be obtained only on noetic way. This process does not consider Aristotle but intuitive in the sense of Platonic essences, but interprets it empirically as a result of repeated perception: From several observations, a reminder, several memories allow understanding ( lógos ) forms; a plurality of memories leads to a certain experience ( empeiria ) on many experiences based the principles of cognition.

Plays an important role in the philosophy of Aristotle, the distinction between different types of Nous, which are required for every human thought process. One type is the " erleidende " Nous, which is affected, which can only learn agents ( nous pathētikós ). This passive Nous Aristotle holds for transitory. Another type of Nous is the effecting ( by later commentators nous poietikos called, latin agent intellect ). Only the effecting intellect, the nous in the proper sense, is eternal, for Aristotle, immaterial and autonomous. He transferred to the objects of thought from the opportunity to be feasible in reality to be object of thought. The effecting intellect is to the be suffered as the light to the color that makes it visible. He himself is affected by any effects. His incessant activity is the highest purpose of human existence and at the same time the highest type bliss that man can reach for Aristotle. Errors that undermine the thinking are due to the fact that the erleidende Nous, which belongs to the transitory things, how the body is subject to a process of destruction.

Aristotelians

Termed Peripatetics in ancient pupil of Aristotle and later adherents of Aristotelianism recognized in the Nous - teaching some other accents than he or contradicted his. Theophrastus, who succeeded Aristotle as head teacher ( Scholarch ), stressed that the possible intellect is not pure chance in the sense that he absolutely "nothing" is, unless it is transferred by a thought in the act. Rather, he was real as physical substrates as a mere possibility in the same sense. Theophrastus' successor Strato of Lampsacus turned against the strict separation of perception and thinking. He said the nous is responsible not only for the evaluation of perceptions, but already on the act of perception significantly involved, because it was he who sees and hears, by noting the irritation of the sensory organs.

In the Roman Empire, the influential Aristotelian commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias sat apart with the Aristotelian notion of an incoming from outside the body Nous. He said this could not be spatially to understand, but it must be understood in a figurative sense as the activation of the thinking potential by the insertion of a thinking process because the mind through does not mention any change of location. Alexander took a tripartite division of Nous, upholding shared the erleidende page: The effecting ( current ) Nous he presented a potential (possible) and a habitual over. The potential (possible) Nous ( dynamei nous, latin possible intellect ) is potentially ( the option provided for ) is able to detect the objects of thought, but he realized by not thinking of this possibility. After Alexander's teaching, he is " matter -like" ( hylikós ), it is pure potentiality. Under the influence of effecting it passes into the habitual ( nous en héxei ) or acquired ( Epiktetos nous ). The habitual intellect is the one who has already taken intelligible forms so that the knowledge is there.

The late ancient commentators on Aristotle, who were with the exception of Themistius Neoplatonists, mixed in their nous and soul doctrine Platonic with Aristotelian thought. Themistius, a Neoplatonic Aristotelians influenced the 4th century, represented an Aristotelian concept with Neoplatonic elements. As Alexander of Aphrodisias, he distinguished three types of Nous. He said the possible Nous is not mixed with the body. He could be just like the effecting Nous separated from the body; both are immortal, but not in the sense of continued existence of a Individualitätsbewusstseins after death, since both are individually. In addition, there is a third, be suffered Nous ( pathētikós nous ), which is inseparable from the body and thus impermanent; on it rests the Individualitätsbewusstsein. The erleidende Nous is responsible for memory, emotions and discursive thought. Some late antique commentators identified the be suffered Nous with the imagination ( phantasia ).

The Nous as an ontological and cosmological principle

Pre-Socratic period

Regardless of the reflection on the specifically human way of thinking and cognition is already in the pre-Socratic philosophy the idea from that there is also a superhuman, universal, the divine realm associated reason, which is responsible for the overall planning and steering of the cosmos. Heraclitus calls the world reason logos, other pre-Socratic philosophers use the term " Nous ". Xenophanes writes the deity to the ability to shake everything "with the power of their Nous ". Anaxagoras assumes an eternal cosmic Nous, which he is assigning divine attributes and functions, especially infinity ( infinity ) and the role of the instance that knows everything, arranged and classified. For this pre-Socratic philosophers of the Nous is an independent principle, which autonomously controls the sensible world and caused the changes in her; he is homogeneously mixed with anything, he is the finest and purest. This shows that Anaxagoras the Nous only in degree, not in principle different from the matter and does not consider it transcendent. In his doctrine of the Nous is the principle of becoming, but not themselves involved in the process of becoming.

Plato

In Plato's philosophy is the science part of the rationality of the world order to the core idea. The Nous reigns as world reason over heaven and earth. In the Platonic doctrine of creation, it is the demiurge ( creator god ), the Nous, the ideas, the eternal archetypes of perceptible things, gives the physical cosmos and this thus gives shape. This requires the divine Nous, to act on the alien to him spatiotemporal realm of matter, can the world soul as intermediary. Through this spiritual influence which inherently formless, chaotic world of the senses receives its rational and therefore also beautiful structure and is also busy because the Platonic world of ideas, to which it owes everything is even imbued with life. As a product of the world of ideas, the world of sensible forms is an animated and steered by the world-soul beings. It is also even reasonable, since the Demiurge has the soul of the world come with a private Nous, which is the cause of periodic processes in the cosmos.

From Nous only good comes from his creative activity aimed always at the best possible. However, his rule is not absolute in the cosmos. The principle that limits its influence on the material world, is the necessity ( Ananke ). The need is within the range of substantive realizable those limits that necessarily result from the nature of matter. The matter is in fact their very nature not suitable, like the spiritual world and can make to direct resistance from Nous. Your inherent (and necessary ) deficiency does not permit it fully. In the creation myth which is told in Plato's Timaeus, the Nous moved by the need for " rational persuasion " into submission and to engage in constructive interaction. His reign is sitting across from the accidental, Disordered, which necessarily results from the nature of matter, largely through. It follows that in the cosmos prevailing law and order. The tendency of matter towards the chaotic is restrained by the action of the Nous. Thus, the world in which people live, not as a product of perfect Nous absolutely optimal in every respect. Rather, the existing conditions are only the best of what the nous can wrest the need here.

Aristotle

For Aristotle the nous is not only a part of the human soul, but he referred to with this term, a cosmological principle, the " first mover." The first mover is the eternal, self unmoving, not influence or change underlying substance that causes all movement. The movable things are in motion, because they are driven by their quest for unmoved mover. This is therefore being the cause of their movement, but without any intention that he himself followed with regard to the cosmos. His causality arises from its existence; he does not make the movement, but it solves only.

In contrast to the option provided for ( potentially) existing only temporarily realized things is the nous as the first mover pure reality ( enérgeia, Akt ) in the sense of the Aristotelian distinction of act and potency. The thinking is as the highest activity at the same time the only one who is the first mover appropriate and are therefore necessarily always deserves. It follows in the Aristotelianism that the nous thinks incessantly. Since the object of his thought can be nothing of lower rank is Himself (otherwise would be his dignity by turning to anything less impaired ), he can only think for themselves. Thus, the mental activity of the nous is solely based on himself, it is Noesis noḗseōs ( " thinking of thinking "). As for Aristotle, the first mover is the highest principle, he locates the same set with this principle Nous at the top of the ontological hierarchy.

Hellenism and the Roman Period

For Plato's student Speusippos the nous with the Demiurge is the same, it is a transcendent God. Xenocrates, another student of Plato, sets the Nous with the Monas same, the One (hen ) as the highest ontological principle and the supreme deity.

In Mittelplatonismus and neo-Pythagoreanism in the view is widespread, the highest ontological principle is to be identified with being and at the same time with the Nous and with Plato's Demiurge. The Mittelplatoniker emphasize the transcendence of this principle against the other levels of existence, all of which he is subordinate. With the positioning of the Nous at the top of the hierarchical ranking they agree with Aristotle and Xenocrates. This view joins also the author of the Chaldean oracles; he represents the " first Nous " as " Mona " at the top of his system and summarizes the world-soul, which follows in its gradual order directly to this supreme deity, as a second Nous. Even the influential Mittelplatoniker Numenios takes a second to which he holds for the creator of the sensible cosmos under the first Nous.

In the 3rd century summarizes Plotinus, the founder of Neo-Platonism, the idea with reference to Plato as the contents of the timeless self-intuition of the absolute, supra-individual Nous. This Nous he identified with the original being and - as the Mittelplatoniker - with the Demiurge. In contrast to the Mittelplatonikern but it borders the Nous sharply from the One, the highest principle from. The one he considers to be " over -existent ", the nous is with him the image of the second highest one and as such, the One immediate child principle. Detailed Plotinus founded his belief that the One is different and superior to it by Nous. He argues, when thinking of the nous to refer to himself, he was at the same time Thinking and the thought and so is already in place in him a duality, with the absolutely a exclusive identity. When the nous but thinking an object turn to, which is outside of it, so will this object provided as him antecedent principle, which also requires the assumption of an existing duality and thus equating the nous with the highest principle, originally a, verunmögliche.

Plotinus believes that the Nous one hand, the One turns ( " hinblickt on it "), but on the other hand is also among themselves, - as Aristotle assumed - thinks himself. This thinking is a direct detection of the objects of thought contained in it. In Nous subject of thought, object of thought and the act of thinking about time- to-understand form a unit, the object of thought has no ontological priority before thinking. Apart from thinking and Being Plotinus emphasizes life as a third feature of the Nous. The individual soul is in principle able to move up to the super-individual Nous and to him it to moderate so that they can grasp it intuitively.

In the late ancient Neoplatonists Iamblichus, Proclus Syrianos and the Nous - teaching will be expanded and differentiated by subdivision of the Nous. Iamblichus leads within the Nous, the distinction between a higher-level " intelligible world " ( kósmos noetos ) and a subordinate " intellektualen world" ( kósmos noerós ), where he both still assigns an internal structure. Syrianos and Proclus complement this two-stage model to an intermediate stage, the " intelligible and intellektuale world." For Proclus is in the hierarchical order stages, each stage of the product of each immediate parent level Denkakts.

Medieval and modern times

In the Byzantine Empire had by Neoplatonic Nous performances of the works of influential theologians like Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor. The late antique Christian Neoplatonist Pseudo-Dionysius, anknüpfte to its concept in the 7th century, Maximus, took on three forms of movement of the spiritual soul: a circular, with which the soul from all outside retracts and focused on themselves, a spiral with which they discursively concludes, and a straight line, with which it conducts its exploration of the world of sense objects. The first ordered Maximus the Nous as the highest cognitive faculty of man, the second to the Logos as second-rate faculty of cognition, and the third of sense perception. In the Latin -speaking West grabbed the 9th century, the philosopher Eriugena on this classification.

In the Western and Central European philosophical literature of the Middle Ages and the early modern period is not the Greek word nous, but the Latin word intellectus was usually used for the intellect. However intellectus also served specifically identifying the discursive intellect as opposed to the Latin ratio mentioned reason. The use of the term was not always clear and consistent.

In literary representations of an embossed antique ideas of cosmology occurs in the 12th century, the Nous, as Noys Latinized on at Bernardus Silvestris and Alanus from Insulis in the role of personified Divine Spirit. These authors Noy is an allegorical female figure, embodying the divine wisdom and providence in creation and brings to bear. In Bernardus ' Cosmographia seal it is one of the main characters and is referred to as God's daughter.