Mettre le noos en relation avec les idées de « panaristos » et de « méga nèpios » permet d’étudier les spécificités du concept noétique chez Hésiode lequel est le plus souvent amalgamé, dans les recherches sur l’évolution historique du noos/noein, à Homère. La présente étude propose d’articuler davantage le noos/noein dans les objectifs poétiques propres aux Travaux et Jours d’où émerge une vision particulière de l’activité psychique de l’individu grec archaïque, depuis le sot ignorant (Persès et les mauvais rois) (...) jusqu’au poète sachant (Hésiode lui-même). Il convient également de montrer comment Hésiode établit une nouvelle hiérarchie des créatures sur la base du noos qui devient consubstantiel à la dikè. Ensemble, ces deux paramètres sont insérés dans un discours à la fois poétique et politique où s’illustre entre autre le mythe des races. Le noos sert tout particulièrement l’autorité poétique d’Hésiode contre celle des rois et révèle une vision à part de l’intelligence. (shrink)

Malgré l'obscurité qui entoure encore l'étymologie du couple νόος-νοεῖν, il est possible, au niveau sémantique, d'établir une signification première non seulement en lien avec l’expérience directe, mais plus précisément dans le sens du νόος-organe/fonction de l'élaboration de « schémas d'action ». L'activité du νόος serait donc la création d' « images » qui n'auraient pas une valeur seulement « représentationnelle » mais, avant tout, « pragmatique-conative », capables d' « anticiper », sans pourtant être le fruit d'une réflexion élaborée, la (...) « forme » de l'action à accomplir par le sujet et le pousser à cet accomplissement. L'article se propose de développer cette conjecture, replaçant le νόος dans les spécificités de la culture orale homérique, au moyen de la confrontation avec : 1) les deux hypothèses étymologiques prédominantes, qui partagent l’idée d’un lien étroit entre l’activité du νόος et le registre de la vision : l'hypothèse *snu, radical indoeuropéen, qui vaut pour « flairer » une chose ou une situation (von Fritz, Heidegger, Gadamer et al.) et l'hypothèse *nes, autre radical qui sert à indiquer « le retour de la lumière » ou « l’évitement de la mort » (Frame et al.) ; 2) les positions de Kérenyi, Snell et Lesher sur le νόος, qui appuient leur réflexion critique sur le texte homérique, considéré source principale pour la détermination du sens du νόος-νοεῖν ; 3) le domaine des sciences cognitives et notamment la notion d' « action-oriented representation » développée par Andy Clark et l'hypothèse du νόος comme « le mouvement de retour de la conscience à elle-même », développée par Stefanelli avec l'utilisation des travaux de Damasio. Cette confrontation permettra de corroborer l'hypothèse initiale du νόος comme « schéma d'action » et de clarifier son caractère d’activité « productive » et de « construction » de la réalité. (shrink)

Cet article examine le rôle joué par la notion d'intelligence dans la poésie de Xénophane et de Parménide. L'auteur soutient que ces deux philosophes, en modifiant les attributs traditionnels du noos humain et divin, répondent aux problèmes posés par le pessimisme gnoséologique de la tradition poétique archaïque, dans laquelle les mortels sont inéluctablement condamnés à l'ignorance. Comme le montre le cas d'Hésiode, même l'inspiration divine ne garantit pas d'acquérir la connaissance, parce que la divinité peut communiquer, à son gré, le (...) vrai ou le faux et que le poète est dépourvu de moyens pour établir la validité de la révélation. Chez Xénophane en revanche, la régularité de l'ordre naturel fondé sur l'immuable noos du dieu offre aux hommes la possibilité effective d'améliorer leur compréhension du monde, tandis que dans le poème de Parménide, la déduction des attributs de l'Être donne aux mortels l'accès à cette vérité qui était auparavant une prérogative exclusive des dieux. (shrink)

Résumé En réponse à l’appel lancé en mai 2003 par Habermas et Derrida pour « une vision attrayante de l’Europe à venir », cet article identifie six points aveugles qui font du cosmopolitisme dominant une attitude tournée vers le passé (le recours à la notion de devoir moral, le fétichisme du droit, l’attachement à l’Etat-Nation, la problématique identitaire, un reste d’eurocentrisme et la référence à Kant). Il propose ensuite six retournements : du devoir à la puissance, du droit sacralisé à (...) la puissance du droit, du Super-Etat-Nation à la régulation globalisée, de l’identité héritée à l’invention imitative, de l’eurocentrisme à l’interaction des multitudes, et de Kant à Spinoza. Tout cela afin d’inventer une Europe post-identitaire qui se situe au-delà du moralisme et du confédéralisme. (shrink)

The word νóoς must, if it is inherited from Indo-European, be a word of the λóγoς type, and come from Indo-Eur. nósos, nówos, or nóyos, since a consonant must have been lost, and it is known that only s, w, and y vanished between vowels in Greek. Neither nóyos nor nówos can be traced with a suitable meaning in any Indo-European language; nóyos, on the other hand, would be a very probable ancestor of Skr. nayas. The senses of nayas are, (...) I submit, sufficiently close to those of νóoς to lend some support to the identification. They are: ‘leading, performance, behaviour, worldly wisdom, policy, fundamental principle, system, theory.’. (shrink)

Le sujet de cette étude est la manière dont Plotin, dans une perspective qui reste essentiellement platonicienne, interprète la notion de noeîn dans Parménide, surtout à la lumière du bien connu Fr. 3 DK, sur l’identité de l’être et de la pensée, dont Plotin, avec Clément d'Alexandrie, est notre source. Cette interprétation est essentielle pour comprendre la nature et la fonction ontologique-métaphysique de l’hypostase plotinienne du Noûs. La conception parménidienne de noeîn est profondément remaniée par Plotin et intégrée (...) dans une perspective compatible avec l’ontologie platonicienne et la métaphysique néoplatonicienne. (shrink)

De nombreuses études ont été consacrées au vocabulaire psychologique et aux fonctions intellectuelles dans la littérature grecque et singulièrement au théâtre notamment depuis les travaux de Br. Snell jusqu’aux ouvrages de S. D. Sullivan. L’article ici proposé est à la fois modeste et précis : il analyse comment le théâtre tragique est un corpus privilégié pour saisir la manière dont l’intelligence peut se présenter de manière traditionnelle avec un sens concret lié à l’agir, mais également s’enrichir en s’écartant de ces (...) emplois, ou même apparaître plus abstraitement comme une réflexion sur le sens de l’action humaine, dans un drame où celle-ci est à la fois mise en scène et mise en question. L’étude ne porte pas seulement sur la distinction entre des sens traditionnels et des significations novatrices, mais sur les contextes dramatiques dans lesquelles ces notions sont employées, car ceux-ci peuvent contribuer à renouveler l’emploi d’un sens apparemment traditionnel (ainsi des contextes à valeur politique plus marquée chez Sophocle ou Euripide). De même, l’examen ne se limite pas à nous et noein : il prend en compte, d’une part les créations lexicales propres à un auteur pour mesurer leur éventuelle importance sur l’évolution de la notion (Eschyle), et d’autre part certains dérivés et composés — pour autant qu’ils font intervenir la notion d’intelligence — comme ἐννοεῖν, ἔννους, πρόνοια, ou comme l’antonyme ἄνοια : ces mots, verbes, noms ou adjectifs, permettent en effet de sérier des emplois liés à l’action pratique, mais où la notion d’intelligence revêt une portée essentielle, et qui sont parfois proches de ceux présents chez les historiens contemporains comme Hérodote ou Thucydide. L’analyse montre comment le théâtre tragique, dans sa forme dialogique elle-même, présente des situations conflictuelles où est questionné le sens même du nous selon les points de vue divers des personnages, ainsi que les réflexions des personnages ou du chœur sur ces conflits, en mettant en scène des prises de décision qui se traduisent ou non en actions. Le corpus tragique est ainsi un corpus important pour l’étude de l’évolution de la notion d’intelligence en Grèce antique avant Platon. (shrink)

Le sujet de cette étude est la manière dont Plotin, dans une perspective qui reste essentiellement platonicienne, interprète la notion de noeîn dans Parménide, surtout à la lumière du bien connu Fr. 3 DK, sur l’identité de l’être et de la pensée, dont Plotin, avec Clément d'Alexandrie, est notre source. Cette interprétation est essentielle pour comprendre la nature et la fonction ontologique-métaphysique de l’hypostase plotinienne du Noûs. La conception parménidienne de noeîn est profondément remaniée par Plotin et intégrée (...) dans une perspective compatible avec l’ontologie platonicienne et la métaphysique néoplatonicienne. (shrink)

This volume rethinks the relations between form and forms of communication, calling for a new logic of representation; it examines the manner in which ...

Dans cet article je propose un examen de la lecture traditionnelle du fr. B3 de Parménide (τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἐστίν τε καὶ εἶναι), qui suppose une « identité » forte entre penser et être, pour lui préférer l’hypothèse d’une « correspondance » de ce qui est pensable et de ce qui est. Ces considérations me conduisent a défendre une traduction du fr. B3, qui me paraît la moins anachronique: « c’est en effet une seule et même chose que l’on (...) pense et qui est ». Je m’interroge ensuite sur le sens du verbe νοεῖν et des termes apparentés dans le Poème de Parménide (particulièrement dans le fr. B4). Je présente trois options d’interprétation du νοεῖν : 1. comme connaissance purement intellectuelle de l’être vrai (c’est à dire de l’intelligible) ; 2. comme connaissance discursive ou « véritative » qui concerne donc la vérité ou la fausseté d’une proposition ; 3. comme capacité de « réaliser une situation », de « reconnaître » quelque chose ou quelqu’un, en supposant un sens d’« être » qui vise la simple constatation de l’être des choses et du monde sensible. (shrink)

Le présent numéro réunit les contributions de spécialistes internationaux de la question du νόος-νοεῖν avec pour optique de reconstruire une histoire des termes liés à l’intelligence et ses activités dans la Grèce antique. Il s’agit de tracer, sans prétendre à l’exhaustivité, les grandes lignes de l'évolution de ces termes, en s’attachant à en approfondir certaines étapes les plus significatives. Naturellement, chaque article a aussi, ou avant tout, une valeur en tant que tel et peut être lu...

This issue is devoted to a nootechnics of the digital, which defines the importance given to both life and thought in the technogenesis of objects (both artefac- tual and technical). If the ontogenesis once resided in the relation between form and matter, we are now moving toward the question of a nootechno- genesis that resides in the relation between noos and techné. Nootechnogene- sis does not separate the emergence of technics and life. Instead, it offers a mode for thinking about (...) the genesis of both noos (intuition, intelligence, flair, intention) and techné (technique, craft, art) as the condition and the conse- quence of our cultural condition, of our ability to mediate and negotiate dif- ferent realms of reality. Nootechnics refers to the psycho-cultural practices of care and empowerment. It supposes the wiring of a transductive unity between beings and technical objects. This transductive unity is what allows noos and techné to operate in a relational mediation toward one another and to restructure the dynamic relations between elements within a system. For that matter, nootechnics refers to care and empowerment as structural oper- ations; they promote a relational ontology of mediation needed to implement changes. (shrink)

This article reviews the notion of 'noûs' and the verb 'noein' in pre-Socratic philosophy: it brings together research carried out since Kurt von Fritz's famous articles of 1945-1946, taking into account 20th and 21th centuries studies, in particular the ones of James H. Lesher, Shirley D. Sullivan, Rossana Stefanelli and Favio Stella. This paper also focuses on the conception of 'noûs' in the thought of Xenophanes, who links it with divinity and thus anticipates the important contribution of Anaxagoras. Finally, it (...) examines the conception of 'noûs' and 'noein' in Parmenides, in whose Poem it is closely linked to his conception of Being. (shrink)

The philosophy of Diogenes pays special attention to knowledge. Diogenes bases his thought on the well-known thesis of Parmenides which identifies einai and noein, combining it with the nous of Anaxagoras. According to Diogenes, the intellect (noesis) is embodied in the formal features of things and therefore is powerful, like the nous of Anaxagoras. The aim of the following pages is to show, in confrontation with Laks, that noesis does not homogenize the cosmos, but rather it diversifies it.

The paper outlines a tentative genealogy of the Platonic metaphysics of sight by thematizing pre-Platonic thought, particularly Heraclitus and Parmenides. By “metaphysics of sight” it understands the features of Platonic-Aristotelian metaphysics expressed with the help of visual metaphors. It is argued that the Platonic metaphysics of sight can be regarded as the result of a synthesis of the Heraclitean and Parmenidean approaches. In pre-Platonic thought, the visual paradigm is still marginal. For Heraclitus, the basic structure of being is its discursive (...) articulation (logos) into conceptual pairs of binary opposites, an articulation that at the same time binds differences together into a tensional unity. The fundamental grasping of this ultimate unity-in-difference is conceived primarily through acoustic terms as a non-sensory “hearing.” For Parmenides, the ultimate unity of contraries is based on the capacity of thinking (noos) to intend anything as present; in fragment B 4, the exclusive relationship of thinking to intelligible presence is finally visualized in terms of a seeing or looking (leusso). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hippota NestorRichard P. MartinDouglas Frame. Hippota Nestor. Hellenic Studies 37. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2009. Dist. by Harvard University Press. x + 912 pp. 12 black-and-white plates, 6 maps. Paper, $34.95.This magisterial volume achieves a remarkable new synthesis of work on the deep roots of the Homeric poems in Indo-European antiquity with fine-grained historical analyses of the period when the text was crystallizing (eighth–fifth centuries b.c.e.). (...) Frame’s unmatched range of learning in specialized subjects from Vedic meter and Greek noun morphology to the tangled web of Ionian inter-state relations in the archaic era enables him to buttress a massive structure of argumentation arrayed with architectural artistry over five large parts (each the size of a small monograph and detailed with a mass of excellent notes). The result should change views not just of the underlying poetic structure of the Iliad and Odyssey but also of the place, date, and circumstances of their composition. Few Classics books containing 782 pages of text can be said to reward reading of every paragraph; this one does.The argument evolves in two extended narrative sequences: one about Nestor (parts 1 and 2, comprising chaps. 1–7), the other about the locales affecting the shape of Homeric poetry (parts 3–5, chaps. 8–14). It is the all-important figure of Nestor, along with the myth-historical evidence about his family the Neleids, that unites the two.The first sequence starts from the findings of Frame’s 1978 monograph The Myth of Return in Early Greek Epic (New Haven), which has remained essential for its careful exposition of the deep mythopoetic structure of the Odyssey. Tracing the implications of etymology—the verbal root shared between the name Nestor and nostos (“return”)—led Frame three decades ago to profound conclusions about narrative, culture and its heroes, the “return to light and life” as related to the notion of “consciousness” (noos), and the epic role played by the cunning intelligence of Odysseus and Nestor. Here he expands the earlier analysis to take full account of the connection between Nestor and the cognate Nāsatyā, twin Vedic gods better known as the Aśvinā, the Dioscuric horsemen of the Indic pantheon. That the horseman (hippota) Nestor can be related to an Indo-European “twin myth” is held to be the key to the Pylian hero’s function in Homeric poetry.After a precise account of the semantics of the root *nes- as developed in Greek with specific reference to “safe return,” Frame tackles the even more complex Sanskrit linguistic and poetic evidence. The Nāsatyā are known for saving and healing, returning others to light—or even, in a cosmic context, dispelling [End Page 687] darkness to retrieve light itself. Beneath the usual treatment of the pair as indissociable are slender signs of distinction; in their paternity, for instance (Rig Veda 1.181), and in hints that one is associated with cattle, the other with horses. Frame follows these traces through later epic stories about Nakula and Sahadeva, sons of the Vedic twin gods who express more openly the paternal variations. Juxtaposing the rich evidence concerning Castor and Pollux in Greek tradition, he finds that it preserves an archaic situation whereby one (immortal) twin rescues another (mortal) from death. A rigorous linguistic and metrical analysis, bringing in the evidence of Iranian for a singular noun, enables him to conclude that the twin-name Nāsatyā actually represents the nominalization of an old syntagma (third-person singular + relative pronoun) *nasati ya “he who brings back to life.”The meaningfulness of this carefully sketched Indo-European background for Nestor emerges chiefly in Iliad 11.670–761, his autobiographical tale of youthful raiding. His brother Periclymenos had been killed when Heracles sacked Pylos; some time later Nestor must take on the characteristics of his dead “twin,” seize cattle from the Epeians of Elis, and then become a horseman in the ensuing battle for his city. Although Periclymenos is not technically a twin brother (he is one of eleven sons of Neleus besides Nestor, or one of two others, according to the Odyssey), this shape... (shrink)

The article presents the main provisions of S.D. Bodrunov’s theory of noonomics and synthesizes them with the leading theories of the leaders of the Frankfurt school: Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth. Noonomics refers to a new stage in the development of society as a whole, in which people will be forced out of material production, which will allow everyone to freely develop their creative powers. However, on the way to noonomics, humanity must avoid falling into a state of “digital concentration (...) camp,” which is possible only by transforming human nature itself, moving “from zoo- to noo-state.” This implies a synthesis of science and culture and the highest value of moral self-improvement for each person. Therefore, it is the development of the human mind that will allow the transition to noonomics. It is the study of the content and possibilities of the mind that will allow us to creatively develop the theory of noonomics by using J. Habermas’s concept of communicative rationality and A. Honneth’s new theory of socialism. Communicative rationality is a special capability which makes possible to achieve mutual understanding between representatives of con-flicting social classes and develop universal norms of activity that allow for the sustainable development of society as a whole. This capability can be developed within a special institutional environment based on solidarity activities. Thus, each person will consider the successful implementation of the plans of others as a condition for the possibility of implementing their plans. This network of social institutions based on solidarity activity will be the realization of freedom in its social form. Within the framework of solidarity activities, new universal meanings of social development arise, which the communicative community will be able to formulate. Further, these meanings will replace the existing ones, which are focused on profit and unlimited economic growth, and thus transform the existing institutional system. (shrink)

L'article vise à déterminer si le nóos dans sa valeur volitionnelle a été attribué par Xénophane non seulement au theós, mais aussi aux humains. Dans ce but, l'étude commence avec l'examen du fr. 25, où un nóos volitionnel est clairement reconnu comme une caractéristique de la nature divine : le fragment suggère que la spécificité du theós tient dans sa capacité à provoquer des effets sur toute chose, et cela, sans effort. L'analyse se tourne alors vers l’examen des (...) fragments de Xénophane sur le thème du savoir et sur la description des dieux, afin de démontrer que des capacités noétiques, en général, et du nóos volitionnel en particulier, sont attribuables aux humains : elle s'appuie sur le contraste entre la nature absolue du divin et celle purement comparative de la dimension humaine, La relation étroite qui, selon Xénophane, lie la sophíe à la areté et à ses implications pratiques est aussi une clé pour comprendre quels pourraient être les effets réels du nóos volitionnel de l’homme. (shrink)

This essay proposes ways to extend the concept of _planetary health_, in the framework of major evolutionary transition applied to the planet as a whole. I argue that planetary health can be naturally extended to a fully planetary scale, including issues related to geo- bio- techno- and noo- spheres. I show the need and importance for ethics and governance to become global and I give some examples of physiological and psychological health issues from a planetary perspective.

In fragment B 1 Heraclitus claims to have achieved a profound insight into the nature of things: ‘distinguishing each thing in accordance with its nature and explaining how it is.’ In a number of similarly cryptic remarks, he offers a series of clues to the nature of that insight. It is properly spoken of as noos or wisdom rather than as learning from experience (B 17, 28a, 40, 45, 54, 104, 107, 123). It consists of xunesis or understanding what is (...) common (B 2, 80, 89, 103) and requires paying attention (B 86, 118, 112) to how things opposed to one another are actually in agreement (B 8, 10, 12, 80, 88). In making these cryptic remarks Heraclitus was seeking to make his audience aware of the possibility that they might achieve a deep insight into the nature of the cosmos and their place within the larger scheme of things. -/- . (shrink)

According to Viktor Frankl, although people are not always free to choose the conditions in which they find themselves, they are always free to choose their attitude towards these conditions and, thus, are always free to find their lives meaningful. This basic tenet of Frankl’s theory is also often repeated approvingly in the secondary literature. I argue that the claim is wrong; not all people are free to find their lives meaningful. Counterexamples include people who suffer from severe depression or (...) people who, due to lack of sufficient intelligence, ability to focus, or determination cannot profit from psychological counseling (including logotherapeutic counseling). I also criticize Frankl’s oft-repeated argument that some people’s success in finding their lives meaningful in the concentration camps shows that all people are free to find their lives meaningful. Frankl’s discussion of the noetic dimension and its relation to other dimensions of the human personality is also insufficient for defending his claim about all people’s freedom to find their lives meaningful. Frankl’s theory of the noos suggests that all people’s lives are meaningful. But since not all people’s lives are meaningful, Frankl’s claims about the noos seem incorrect: either some people do not have (or are not also) a noetic dimension or the noetic dimension does not always endow life with meaning. Further, the claim that, thanks to all people’s noetic dimension, all people’s lives are already meaningful is in tension with the claim that all people can wrest meaning from life. I suggest that understanding Frankl as only claiming that all people have a potential for meaningful lives is also unhelpful. Finally, I discuss the implications of my criticism for Frankl’s theory at large. I argue that much in this very helpful theory can be retained, but identify those aspects of the theory that need to be modified. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ON BEING OR NOT BEING A THOMIST ROBERT E. LAti'DER St. John's University Jamaica, New York Nineteenth-Century Scholasticism: The Search for a Unitary Method. Gerald A. McCool, S.J. New York: Fordham University Press, 1989. 301 pages (paper). From Unity to Pluralism: The Internal Evolution of Thomism. Gerald A. McCool, S.J. New York: Fordham University Press, 1989. 9248 pages (hardcover). BEFORE I READ Gerald A. McCool's two volumes examining nineteenth (...) and twentieth centrury scholast :i:cism and Thomism, if someone had asked my philosophica ;l o:rientation, I would have replied "I am a Thomist." Having rerud McCool's two books, I still and with a strong sense of gratitude articulate my philosophical self-des,ignation as Thomisit, but what I mean by Thomist has become considerably more nuanced. Not only those who identify themselvies with the thought of St. Thomas but a, wider philosophical and theologiea1l community shou1d be grateful to Father McCool for- his eXiceHent scholarly contribution to the understanding of sicholasticism and Thomism. His two volumes show many of us who call ourselves Thomists where we have been an:d wheve we rare and, by illuminating our past,and present, clarify for us our options for the future. Nineteenth-Century Scholasticism was first published under,the title Catholic Theology in the Nineteenth Century by The Seabury Press in 1977, but it has been re-issued hy Fordham University to ruocompany the appearance of his second volume. In this earlier work McCool ohal'ts in detail the growth and 301 30~ ROBERT E. LAUDER d.wection of scholasticism, especially in relation to two influential Chmich documents: the Apostolic Consititu.tion on Faith Dei Filius, solemnly app:rovced in 1870 by the fathers of the First Vatican Council, and Leo XIII's 1879 encyclical Aeterni Patris. The,earlier,document defined and darified the Church's teaching on the supernatural and free charac1te:r of faith and on the relation between supe:matural faith and natural reason; the encydical was a disciplinary document concerning the method of philosophicaJ instruction for priests. McCool \Stresses that the linking of the two documents in the minds of Roman authorities and theologians gave the documents enormous weight and influence during the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century, but now, more than a hundred years fater, their influence is being and r'easses:sed. Though the present situation in Catholic philosophical and theological circles is not a case history reversing itself, it is an extra011dina :ry example of history leruding to the l'eopening of questions ithat,seemed definitivdy dosed. McCool suggests that there are at ~east two factors affecting contemporary Catholic theology which indicate that ·current historical research into nineteenth-century Catholic theology may point to a genuine option between a deveJoped Thomism and a restored pre-Thomistic nineteenth century system: The first of these is the freedom given to Catholic theologians by the Second Vatican Council to experiment with non-Thomistic theological systems. Aetelf'ni Patris no longer enjoys the status of an irrevocable theological option, based on immutable dogmatic and metaphysical principles. Its theological signification has been relativized. Aeterni Patris must now be considered an historical moment in the dialectical progress of theological development. The second distinctive characteristic of contemporary theology is the current ferment over theological method. This means that the nineteenth-century debate, which the official option of Aetelf'ni Patris seemed to have closed definitively, has been reopened. The disciples of SL Thomas and the partisans of the ' new ' theologies are free once more to submit their diverse theological methods to the judgment of their fellow theologians. (p. 6) GERALD MC COOL AND THOMISM 303 McCool views Joseph Kleutgen as the outstanding representativ ;e of the noo-Thomisit.ic movement in the nineteenth century. Kleutgen was trying to strike a balance between the extremes of fideisim and rationalism. He felt strongly thrut if one says positive and speculative theology are nort intrinsically difforent in their intellootua;} questions from a philosophy of·l'leve!Imtion then either natural veason's proper autonomy has to be compromised by a tmditional :fideism or the distinctiveness and gra.tuity of supernatuml knowledge has to be blurred by... (shrink)

This book is the first sustained modern investigation of Plato’s theology. A central thesis of the book is that Plato _had _a theology—not just a mythology for the ideal city, not just the theory of forms or the theory of cosmic souls, but also, irreducible to any of these, an account of God as _Nous _, the source of rational order both to souls and the world of bodies. The understanding of God as Reason, and of the world as governed (...) directly or indirectly by Reason, is worked out in the dialogues of Plato’s last period, the _Statesman, Philebus, Timaeus, _and _Laws. _These dialogues offer a strategy for explaining the physical world that goes beyond anything in the middle dialogues, and gives the best starting point for understanding the cosmologies and theologies of Aristotle, the Stoics, and later ancient thinkers. Menn focuses on the _Timaeus _as Plato’s most sustained effort to provide what _Anaxagoras had failed to deliver: an explanation of the world through Reason, showing that things are as they are because it is best, or because it best serves the order of the world as a whole. Anaxagoras was disappointed because he explained things through their material constituents, without explaining why the constituents are ordered as they are; but the theory of forms has the same defect, since it_ _cannot explain why different parts of the universe participate in different forms according to a particular order. The _Timaeus _and other late dialogues attempt to supply the missing explanation of the ordering of the physical world. These dialogues do not retreat from the middle dialogue theory of forms, nor do they escape into an esoteric theory of numbers; but they add to the middle dialogues an analysis of the principles necessary to account for the existence and partial intelligibility of the sensible world—not only forms and a material substance but also _Nous _and souls. Although the demiurge of the _Timaeus _ _is represented as a cause both to souls and bodies, most scholars have been reluctant to identify the demiurge as a being separate from and superior to souls, because they think that both the meaning of the Greek word _nous _and Plato’s own statements require that _Nous _is_ _either a kind of soul or something inseparable from souls. Reexamining the linguistic evidence and the Platonic texts, Menn argues that _nous _can mean something separate from souls, namely the virtue of rationality or intelligence that souls participate in. Menn argues that Anaxagoras’ _Nous _should be construed as such a virtue; then he examines what status this virtue has in the context of the Platonic theory of forms, and how it_ _is a cause both to souls and to bodies. Soul plays a crucial role in mediating the causality of _Nous _and introducing rational order into the world of bodies, but neither soul in general nor the world-soul in particular can be identified with _Nous. _ Menn stresses the pre-Socratic context for the cosmology and theology of Plato’s late dialogues; he argues for the importance of Diogenes of Appolonia in particular, and he reconstructs a possible new fragment of Diogenes from the _Timaeus _and from the Hippocratic treatise _On Breaths. _In the _Timaeus _and other late dialogues Plato attempts to do better than his predecessors by standards implicit in Socrates’ critique of Anaxagoras in the _Phaedo, _but what Plato offers remains consciously provisional. Aristotle argues that the _Timaeus _remains liable to some of the same criticisms that Socrates had leveled against Anaxagoras, and Aristotle’s own cosmology and theology take up Plato’s challenge to carry out Anaxagoras’ promise of an explanation of the world through _Nous, _and attempt to improve on the _Timaeus _as_ _Plato had improved on Anaxagoras. In this way the _Timaeus _serves as an essential starting point, not only_ _for those later ancient philosophers who took it as an authoritative statement on the world and on God but also for those who took it as a challenge to do better. (shrink)

Se pretende en este estudio cuestionarnos sobre el significado de Leer, y desde esta pregunta encaminarnos a la cuestión tratada por Heidegger en ¿qué significa pensar? sobre el pensar y el decir. Ello en el contexto de la indagación hermenéutica de las modalidades del decir de leer, interpretar y comprender en la obra de Martin Heidegger. Esto nos obliga, en primer lugar, escuchar los sentidos arcaicos en griego de légein y noeīn y sus derivas en la lengua castellana y el (...) alemán de Heidegger. (shrink)

Although the Greek language of the archaic period lacked nominative expressions equivalent to the English “knowledge”, Greek speakers and writers employed a number of verbs in speaking of those who fail or succeed in knowing some fact, truth, state of affairs, or area of expertise—most commonly eidenai, gignôskein, epistamai, sunienai, and noein (in its aorist forms). In the Homeric poems, knowledge can be attained either through direct observation, through a revelatory trial or testing procedure, or from the reliable testimony of (...) others (each of these approaches figures in the discovery of Odysseus’ identity). Three broad ‘epistemic sentiments’ pervade early Greek poetry: the inability of mortals to grasp the nature of things lying beyond their immediate experience; the inability of mortals to grasp the larger course of events or ‘conceiving of what lies ahead and behind’ (prossô kai opissô); and the ability of ‘gifted’ poets and seers to overcome these limitations by drawing upon divine sources of truth and wisdom. (shrink)

Through a re-articulation of Derridean différance, Bernard Stiegler claims that the human is defined by an originary default that displaces all psychic and social life onto technical supplements. His philosophy of technics re-articulates the logic of the supplement as concerning both human reflexivity and its supports, and the history of the différance of life itself. This has been criticised for reducing Derrida's work to a metaphysics of presence, and for instituting a humanism of the relation to the inorganic. By refuting (...) these claims, this article will show that Stiegler's doubling of différance enables him to articulate the human as constituted by both the individuation characteristic of ‘life’, and that of a technical, psychic, and collective individuation. Putting forward a reading of the logic of the trace in life, and emphasising the aspects of Leroi-Gourhan, Simondon, and Canguilhem that Stiegler uses in his reading of Derrida, I will demonstrate that the political stakes of adaption and adoption in his Noopolitics require this re-articulation of différance. Technics shapes the human future, arising from this differential mutation; marking the invention of the human as the site of the political. (shrink)

L’étude de la notion de nous est un cas très intéressant pour saisir la différence entre l’épistémologie de Socrate et celle de Platon. En effet, le mot nous, au coeur de l’épistémologie du Phédon et de la République malgré des différences évidentes, n’apparaît que rarement dans les dialogues de jeunesse et dans les témoignages de la première génération de socratiques. Il est donc nécessaire de comprendre pourquoi le nous n’est pas central dans la méthode socratique, et une des raisons de (...) la différence entre les méthodes socratique et platonicienne se trouve dans la distinction entre noein et phronein. Si pour Platon la connaissance est d’ordre intellectuel, elle est pour Socrate d'ordre pratique; si la méthode dialectique conduit à la vision des idées, la méthode de définition socratique conduit à l’aporie; si la vision est au coeur du nous, la phronesis tient du sentir et de l’écoute. Malgré ces différences, qui doivent être soulignées pour saisir la spécificité des deux méthodes, le rôle de l'eros dans la connaissance met au jour une forme de continuité entre les deux épistémologies et, ainsi, entre la phronesis et le nous. (shrink)

This paper considers Carson’s rewriting of Heracles’ tragic madness— through the art of collage, an assembling and disassambling of textual fragments, scraps of papers, drawings, chromatic smears, and sketches—as an imagistic site for theorizing the anti-normative materiality, physical and metaphysical, of par-a-noia. I make a case for a materiality of par-a-noia by proposing a comparison with Alain Badiou’s Marxist political formalism. The distinctive formal trait of H of H, verbal and pictorial juxtaposition, invites us to think of par-a-noia as an (...) aesthetico-political radicality located on the edge of a voiding of thought (noein), a radicality that, as I suggest at the end, can be aligned with modes of non-normate cognition, with neuroqueer countersociality. (shrink)

This contribution begins by analysing the argument against conceptualism in the Parmenides and then extends it to “the not-being” (to mê on) in the Sophist, or that which “is what is not” (258c2-3). It concludes with the puzzle that, in this case, the being of “the not-being” also has “understanding (nous), life (zôê) and soul (psychê)” (249a9). The main new points are (1) if “the not-being” has understanding (nous), “the not-being” –according to the ontological argument of the Parmenides – also (...) has thought (noêma), which has a second “not-being” as its object and (2) the question of wether Plato would have interpreted Fragment 3 of Parmenides, to gar auto estin noein te kai einai, not only in the sense that thinking implies being, but also in the sense that being implies thinking. (shrink)

This commentary welcomes Prof. Vasiliou’s adoption of an “objects first” method for the analysis of nous in Aristotle as well as his suggestion that there are three distinct levels of nous for the essences of material things, mathematical things, and immaterial things. It queries his claim that nous is not to be understood as a faculty, citing texts in which Aristotle uses “that by which” language to describe nous. It suggests that ordinary human beings have what may be called a (...) functional grasp of essences, and that, while some of Aristotle’s uses of nous and noein may be highly technical, his aim in De Anima III 4 is to explain an operation that is widely shared among human beings. The commentary concludes by expressing the wish that Prof. Vasiliou had said more about the case in which nous is its own object. (shrink)

Parmenides B 16/D51 presents an account of human cognition and understanding. It is usually taken to form part of the account of the untrustworthy opinions of mortals. Regardless of its proper location within the poem, it invokes difference, movement, and multiplicity — features that the goddess describes as fundamental to mortals’ opinions and as incompatible with what one must say and conceive on the road of inquiry that she recommends. The tale of the journey and both parts of the goddess’s (...) speech use negation, invoke difference and change and multiplicity, and in general conform in many ways to the conceptual framework the goddess attributes to mortals in B8.53-61/D8.58-66 and B9/D13. Does this reflect confidence in the Light-Night conception as a starting-point for an adequate account of what-is? Or does it produce a paradox, wherein the Light-Night conception undermines itself but we would have to use it in order to deny its adequacy? In sum, what kind of a claim about human understanding might the passage represent? What could B16/D51 say about the epistemological status of its own claims, and about the epistemological status of each part of the poem? Why does the passage mention humans (anthrōpoi) specifically, as opposed to all beings that have awareness? These questions will be the focus of this essay. (shrink)

La troisième Pythique de Pindare comporte un nombre extraordinaire de termes relatifs à des états de conscience (νόος, φρήν, γνώμα, ψυχά, θυμός et καρδία). En particulier, la narration mythique de l’ode détaille la façon dont Apollon s’est rendu compte, tout seul et à distance, que la mère d’Asclépios lui était infidèle : le νόος y joue à l’évidence un rôle capital mais le texte requiert un examen minutieux (v. 24-32). Plus loin, Pindare invite son dédicataire à cultiver lui aussi son (...) intériorité (v. 80-82) et esquisse ainsi les contours d’un savoir humain qui n’est ni absolu, ni aveugle, ni corrompu. Un rapprochement avec Pyth. 9, 33 sqq. permet d’éclairer avec humour les troubles de l’omniscience divine. (shrink)

Starting from the identification and characterization of three literary forms that coexist throughout Parmenides’ Poem, all of them plainly different from each other, it is proposed and demonstrated that such a variety of forms mirrors the delimitation of the different ways of thought and language elaborated by Parmenidic philosophy, in which at least two types of nature of knowledge must be recognized: the logical and the cosmological. The first, marked by a formally logical-argumentative speech which is given the name of (...) truth (aletheia) and whose way of thinking is exclusively noetic; the second, of a theoretical-descriptive nature, dedicated to the consideration of the movement proper to cosmic phenomena, whose devenir demands an equally mobile way of thinking (phronein). (shrink)

The concept of 'social brain‘ is a hybrid, located somewhere in between politically motivated philosophical speculation about the mind and its place in the social world, and recently emerged inquiries into cognition, selfhood, development, etc., returning to some of the founding insights of social psychology but embedding them in a neuroscientific framework. In this paper I try to reconstruct a philosophical tradition for the social brain, a ‗Spinozist‘ tradition which locates the brain within the broader network of relations, including social (...) relations. This tradition runs from Spinoza to Lev Vygotsky in the early 20th century, and on to Gilles Deleuze, Toni Negri and Paolo Virno in recent European philosophy, as a new perspective on the brain. The concept of social brain that is articulated in this reconstruction – some early-20th century Soviet neuropsychologists spoke of socialism and the cortex as being ―on the same path‖ – overcomes distinctions between Continental thought and the philosophy of mind, and possibly gives a new metaphysical framework for social cognition. (shrink)