Commonly translated as 'mind' or 'intellect', the Greek word nous is a key term in the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus. What gives nous its special significance there is not primarily its dictionary meaning - other nouns in Greek can also signify the mind - but the value attributed to its activity and to the metaphysical status of things that are 'noetic' (intelligible and incorporeal) as distinct from being perceptible and corporeal. In Plato's later dialogues, and more systematically in Aristotle and Plotinus, nous is not only the highest activity of the human soul but also the divine and transcendent principle of cosmic order.

Plotinus wishes to speak of a thinking that is not discursive but intuitive, i.e. that it is knowing and what it is knowing are immediately evident to it. There is no gap then between thinking and what is thought--they come together in the same moment, which is no longer a moment among other consecutive moments, one following upon the other. Rather, the moment in which such a thinking takes place is immediately present and without difference from any other moment, i.e. its thought is no longer chronological but eternal. To even use names, words, to think about such a thinking is already to implicate oneself in a time of separated and consecutive moments (i.e. chronological) and to have already forgotten what it is one wishes to think, namely thinking and what is thought intuitively together.

Now as I have often argued on the Forum, and will until my last breath, this view of mind is fundamentally religious in nature. Plato and especially Plotinus were sages in a very similar sense to Hindu and Buddhist sages. So when they talk of 'the forms' and 'intellect' and these things, they are referring to types of cognition that can only be attained by the purified intellect in meditative absorption.

At risk of saying too much (again) I also need to refer back to a fundamental concept in Greek philosophy which is indispensable for understanding how 'mind' could be seen as something other than what is simply the activity of the brain.

Incidentally both those excellent quotes were pulled from the ether(net) by simply googling the phrase "plotinus nous'.

It is interesting because they are forms of panpsychism. The notion that mind is a fundamental and general feature of reality not an emergent property of matter. That position was the default assumption for most of human intellectual history.

Only of late did nature lose its soul and now it has lost its mind. For virtually the entire intellectual history of the West, nature possessed both a soul (telos), reason (logos) and mind (nous) which were all explained and represented in religon (mythos).

Only of late did nature lose its soul and now it has lost its mind. For virtually the entire intellectual history of the West, nature possessed both a soul (telos), reason (logos) and mind (nous) which were all explained and represented in religon (mythos).

Reason would be as you have said logos...and nous as number?

ahem...as I was about to say, I have discovered from my reading so far, that number is regarded as an example of the kind of incorporeal forms that Plato talked of...of course, the whole 'theory of forms' is distinguished by the fact that hardly anyone understands it (including myself, needless to say)...nevertheless, I was reading in the Cambridge Companion to Augustine something along the lines that the idea of number is a useful teaching device, because ordinary people can grasp the idea, whereas the forms themselves are possible only for the sage to discern.

So - in that sense, this idea of nous is indeed connected to number, but at the same time, there are said to be many forms over and above number which the Platonic sage is able to contemplate.

---------- Post added 03-01-2010 at 09:14 PM ----------

Hereis the section in question from Google Books. I find this whole style of argument fascinating.

To me your position regarding the moon sounds Kantian. You don't deny that it's out there; you just acknowledge that you can only know it by your symbol or organization of it. You've turned its qualia into a mental object, related temporally and spatially to other objects (also mentally created from something that is presumably there but never known directly..)... It seems to me that when Kant "invented" the noumena, he wasn't say much & yet he was saying quite a bit. Because the only thing you can say about the noumena is that it is the negation of appearance.

And this ties into Jeeprs post as well. It seems to me that man transcendentally cuts up qualia w/ pure concept. In the case of number/ratio, this concept remains pure, except for its thin shell of numerical symbolism. But in the case of logos or words, this concept must dirty itself by immersion in qualia and an analogical network of other such concepts. But philosophy is the reversal of this immersion, you might say. By means of negation, we synthesize abstaction. As Hegel saw, synthesis is impossible w/o negation, and that is why the Form of Forms is probably better described as a negative sign, and not a one. For man is not completely transcendental/eternal but also immersed in the flux of qualia.

If this "minus sign" or "Form of Forms" or "creative void" is numinous, it can serve as the driving force of history & philosophy. Man abstracts his discourse to become self-consciousness. For instance, "self" is an abstraction. But Kant hit the limit w/ his "unity of perception." Pure concept, and concept is nothing but synthesis...But Hegel had to explain the impure synthesis of reason. Reason is "born" immersed in its environment. It seems to me that to understand what abstraction is is crucial, and not just abstraction from qualia but more importantly from other concepts. At the top of this "chain of being" of abstraction would be the form of forms, the God of negative theology, the presence of an absence, pure subjectivity AKA negativity.

Question: is the Form of the Good just the ineffable feeling of Beauty/Holiness/wholeness/Perfection that occurs in response to the perception of the transcendental concept(Form of Forms)? Feeling exists in transcendental continuous time, and is therefore ineffable apart from metaphor.....like all feelings...thus the word "transcendent" as possibly only lyrical...

You are Speaking of "ONE" not ONE...remember that my friend !

I think I know what you mean, thus the minus sign. "1" is a just a mark. OK, dig this...eternity is "1" but man is negative one. appearance & reality, eternity & time. The one needs consciousness to perceive it?

More like what? But, whatever it is, what you say is definitely more like it. It could not be like anything else.

And you also say that "thoughts are real." I am assuming that you would also agree that sensations, feelings, beliefs, memories, dreams, hallucinations, etc., are "real" as well, wouldn't you?

Now what I think you are saying more precisely is that my thoughts, for example, are "real" in the sense that they are "independent of anyone else's belief that they exist." In other words: "My thoughts are real to me." The same for the rest of what I listed above. Wouldn't you agree?

But I did respond to both of them.

I said that thoughts are real in the sense that whether or not they are it is believed they exist, they do exist. I have, in fact said that several times. Would you please try to remember and stop saying I have not answered when I just did?

I don't understand your second question if it is a question.

But, could you please remember that I answered your first question?

Kennethamy,

My questions were:


And your response was:


If you read carefully you will see that before the first question I acknowledge that you have agreed that "thoughts are real." I was asking about things other than thoughts, such as sensations, etc., and you did not respond to that question, unless you consider them all to be "thoughts." So let me ask the question this way:

Do you consider "sensations, feelings, beliefs, memories, dreams, hallucinations" to be "thoughts" and therefore to be "real"?

As to the second question first you say "I did respond to both of them," and then you say "I don't understand the second question, if it is a question." So let me ask the question more directly, since I realize that I have made a number of statements and asked you to agree to all of them:

When you say that "thoughts are real in the sense that they are independent of anyone's belief that they exist," or as you put it above "thoughts are real in the sense that whether or not [they are SIC] it is believed they exist, they do exist," does this mean that they do not require even the belief of the person thinking the thoughts for them to exist?

And then I have a third related question:

Do you consider "thoughts" to be as real as "oases, chairs, stars, etc."?

:flowers: