Okay, this is a critical point-- thank you for bringing it up. I actually may do a full post on it, because it's so important, but for now it's enough to say this:
Nous is not at all the same as intellect as the word intellect is currently used in English.
Intellect as it was used in older writing is the same as Nous. "Intellect" is the English translation of the Latin "Intellectus." "Intellectus" is the word that was used to translate "Nous" into Latin. "Ratio," or "reason" was the word used to translate "Dianoia." Dianoia or ratio are lower functions of the soul than nous proper.
Today, the English word "Intellect" means what "ratio" once meant, and there is no English word for "nous." This causes an enormous amount of trouble. It makes many of our own earlier works of philosophy and theology incomprehensible, it makes certain thoughts nearly unthinkable, and, at the worst, it cuts us off from nous itself, by rendering the concept so foreign.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2022-08-31 09:58 pm (UTC)Nous is not at all the same as intellect as the word intellect is currently used in English.
Intellect as it was used in older writing is the same as Nous. "Intellect" is the English translation of the Latin "Intellectus." "Intellectus" is the word that was used to translate "Nous" into Latin. "Ratio," or "reason" was the word used to translate "Dianoia." Dianoia or ratio are lower functions of the soul than nous proper.
Today, the English word "Intellect" means what "ratio" once meant, and there is no English word for "nous." This causes an enormous amount of trouble. It makes many of our own earlier works of philosophy and theology incomprehensible, it makes certain thoughts nearly unthinkable, and, at the worst, it cuts us off from nous itself, by rendering the concept so foreign.