nous
(νους)
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| (Language: Greek) |
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| Short Description: |
intelligence, immediate awareness, intuition, intuitive intellect |
| Long Description: |
intelligence, immediate awareness, intuition, intuitive intellect; Plato distinguished nous from dianoia – discursive reason; Nous is the second hupostasis of Plotinus; every intelligence is its own object, therefore the act of intellection always involves self-consciousness: the substance of intelligence is its noetic content ( noeton), its power of intellection ( nous), and its activity – the act of noesis; in a macrocosmic sense, Nous is the divine Intellct, the Second God, who embraces and personifies the entire noetic cosmos (Being-Life-Intelligence), the Demiurge of the manifested universe; such Nous may be compared to Hindu Ishvara and be represented by such solar gods as the Egyptian Ra; nous is independent of body and thus immune from destruction – it is the unitary and divine element, or the spark of divine light, which is present in men and through which the ascent to the divine Sun is made possible. |
| Example(s): |
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| Source(s): |
The Golden Chain: An Anthology of Platonic and Pythagorean Philosophy, by Dr. Algis Uždavinys |
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