Noetic Science —Part 2 

by Thomas J. McPartland

Thomas McPartland is Professor and Chairman of the Whitney Young School of Honors and Liberal Studies at Kentucky State University in Frankfort. This essay is taken from his book, Lonergan and the Philosophy of Historical Existence, which appears in the Eric Voegelin Institute Series in Political Philosophy, and is available from the University of Missouri Press. This essay and the related succeeding essay will appear in five parts. It appears with permission of the publisher.

Cognitive Acts

We have thus far dealt with Aristotle's treatment of episteme and nous as distinct but functionally related habits in his effort to differentiate scientific demonstrations from the undemonstrable principles of demonstrations. How, then, are we to take Aristotle's seemingly paradoxical, if not contradictory, assertions that not all episteme is demonstrable and that there is an epistemic grasp of immediate principles? ¹⁵

The paradox, and contradiction, disappears if we interpret episteme in this context as act. ¹⁶ For a cognitive act to be epistemic it can meet either of two requirements: (1) it can know the cause of a fact and that it could not be otherwise; and (2) it can be the answer to the scientific question, what is it? ¹⁷ A clear example of such an epistemic act would be knowing a scientific demonstration, for a demonstration entails knowing that a fact is, knowing that it could not be otherwise, and knowing what it is. The knowing what it is (to ti estin) provides the middle term of a syllogism, but it is not itself ultimately the result of deduction; it is a preconceptual insight into a formal cause. Although the insight plays off images, it is not reducible to images, percepts, or sensations. Here Aristotle extends the meaning of science beyond an ordered set of propositions and rejects the reduction of scientific meaning to sense experiences, thereby avoiding both conceptualism and radical empiricism.

The meaning of science is extended still further, however, when episteme is applied to the type of cognitive act that grasps immediate principles. Knowing an immediate principle is to know that it is, what it is (formal cause), and that it cannot be other than it is (also formal cause). To know the principle of noncontradiction, for example, is precisely to know that it is, what it is, and that it cannot be other than it is. This kind of knowing thus meets the two criteria for an epistemic act adumbrated above. The startling conclusion, then, is that episteme can grasp indemonstrable principles. Is this not to say that such an act of episteme is also an act of nous and that therefore nous, in this sense, is science? And can we not, by extension, likewise call the epistemic act that grasps the middle term as noetic? Indeed, Aristotle is quite unmistakable in identifying nous as the act of cognition (to noetikon) that grasps (noiei) the forms in the images. ¹⁸ Noetic consciousness therefore is inherently scientific consciousness.

Principle of Science

Nous is also the principle of science. Here we can turn to another set of distinctions Aristotle makes about nous, one involving its potentialities. Aristotle differentiates two kinds of noetic potencies, namely, to use the terms of Scholastic commentators, active potency and passive potency. Active nous has the potential "to make all things" (to panta poiein). This nous poetikos, as scholars have frequently called it, is a cause of the nous receiving intelligible forms.

Nous poetikos makes (paid) thinking as a kind of habit (hos hexis tis) just as light makes potential colors into actual colors. The nous, conversely, is able to receive the intelligible forms because it, as passive nous, has the potency "to become all things" (to panta gignesthai). The nature of active nous, as Aristotle muses, is a "baffling problem." ¹⁹ Is active nous my nous as well as your nous? Is it the divine Nous? Is it, as immaterial, immortal?

While these questions have generated controversy among Aristotelian philosophers for two millennia, we can focus on one area for a degree of clarity. When we recall that nous grasps the forms in the images, we may be lead to ask, what moves nous to grasp forms in the images? Although the answer could be the divine Nous, an equally compelling answer, if we are to follow Byrne, and one not at all incompatible with the former, is that the mover is wonderment. ²⁰ It is wonderment—it is the process of inquiry, or, as Lear puts it, the desire to understand—that transforms and perfects images to move nous to receive intelligible forms.

The relation of nous to reality, then, is not one of passive perception but rather one of active engagement. Mind is not, for Aristotle, a mirror of nature. Nous is able "to make and become all things" because the horizon of wonderment is an expansive, self-transcending horizon correlative to the unrestrictedness of the desire to know that is embedded in human nature. ²¹ Nous itself is also the norm of scientific inquiry and thus its inherent principle. Nous, as wonderment, sets the criteria for the asking of scientific questions; nous, as passive potential, sets the criteria for the answering of scientific questions and hence the criteria of scientific propositions and scientific demonstrations. ²² This means that the standard for what makes episteme episteme is the luminosity of nous.

Nous as Episteme

To be sure, if episteme were solely demonstrative, then noetic science might be an oxymoron. The gap between the undemonstrable nous and demonstrable  episteme would be a chasm. For how could the undemonstrable shed light on the demonstrable? Conversely, how could there be a demonstration of the undemonstrable? And, furthermore, how could the demonstrable demonstrate itself? And the undemonstrable explain itself? But in the face of these apparent quandaries we have the luminosity of nous as the measure of science. The quandaries arise from the horizon of conceptualism, which demands that the essence of science be an ordered set of propositions. Wonder, on the contrary is the source of science, and wonderment causes the reception of intelligible forms.

Moreover, noetic inquiry about episteme bears the hallmarks of episteme in its proper and extended meaning. For nous affirms that episteme—both as epistemic acts that grasp forms and as habits of demonstration—is a fact and that it cannot be otherwise than it is, and nous inquires about what it is. More remarkable and startling is the sense in which noetic inquiry about nous likewise bears the hallmarks of episteme. Nous is a fact; it cannot be otherwise than it is; inquiry about it asks what it is. Noetic discourse about episteme and nous surely follows the same cognitive and logical laws that govern episteme, for the source is the same: nous.

The Self-Luminosity of Nous

Yet, we must not lose sight of the absolutely unique status of nous in the structure of human existence. We can consider nous again in terms of Aristotle's threefold distinction of potentialities, habits, and acts. As potentiality it is dynamic; as habit it is self-transcending; as act it is divinelike perfection. All these characteristics are interconnected as part of a unity.

The active potency of wonderment is a moving principle of intelligence and discovery. It is always greater than the propositions that it generates and the habits that it nourishes. Its fluid character makes it elusive, and its creative power renders it "baffling." We can postulate that the spirit of wonder is the self-transcending transformative mover of the aforementioned series of habits: from memories of sense perception, to the empeira of the person of judgment and good sense, to the procedures of the practiced scientist.

We can now add specific noetic habits to the series. Indeed, a person familiar with a range of sciences can inquire about what is science itself. This kind of inquiry would go beyond raising questions about the principles of any given science to pose questions about the principles of episteme itself. And here we encounter an incredible eruption of cognitive energy. We certainly have a nous of episteme. Still, if nous grasps the undemonstrable principles and if nous is the principle of science, then nous grasps itself. Nous of episteme leads by its own dynamic necessity to nous of nous. According to Aristotle, the nous, as immaterial, can be the object of thought. ²³

This self-luminosity of nous sparks a new level of habits beyond that associated with nous of episteme. This is the habit of sophia, which, concerned with the highest things, reflects upon both episteme and nous of episteme to understand nous as pure act. Whereas episteme and nous grasp intelligible forms in images, sophia reflects on the intelligible forms already grasped by episteme and nous. It seeks the highest principles, those most unchanging, intelligible, and universal, namely, the subject matter of metaphysics.

The activity of theoria is correlated with the habit of sophia, and, accordingly, Aristotle considers theoria the most perfect and self-sufficient human activity. ²⁴ In theoria the dynamics of nous attain their loftiest manifestation. As all acts of nous, theoria is "pure act" (energeia), but theoria is energeia in its most perfect form, not tainted by potentiality. ²⁵ This leads us to the highest thing and highest principle that theoria can contemplate: nous itself. Theoria grasps that the ultimate cause of cosmic order is the unmoved mover. Nature is a mirror of mind. ²⁶ But the unmoved mover is nous thinking itself. Theoria, then, is nous contemplating nous thinking nous. This is indeed the summit of Aristotle's investigation, where all major paths converge, whether in his Metaphysics, his Physics, or his Nicomachean Ethics. In the former two works Aristotle depicts the most perfect life, the life of the divine, as noesis understanding noesis. ²⁷ Still, every human act of nous shares in the divine life, albeit momentarily. ²⁸ This is precisely why the ultimate horizon of human existence, including political existence, is defined by self-transcending openness to the divine ground.

Nous and Phronesis

Although less perfect than the theoretical life, the ethical life and the political life, too, share in the activity of nous. Practical intelligence (phronesis) is an act of nous. It is less perfect than theoria because its objects—whether the individual choices of goods that would foster the well-being (eudaimonia) of the individual or the legislative arrangements that would promote human flourishing (arete) within the polis—are less unchanging, intelligible, and universal. ²⁹ We need not dwell on the obvious: how contingency, flux, and particularity pervade the human world. So political science will be science to a much lesser degree than such a discipline as geometry.

To a large extent the analytical side of political science, amid a plethora of contingent circumstances, adjusts means to ends. The ends are the excellences of human nature. The meaning of excellence (arete) is to "function well," and to "function well" as a human being is to realize the potentialities of human nature. But what is human nature? Human nature, like every nature, is an "internal principle of change and rest." ³⁰ What is this specifically human principle? The answer is the process of cognitive, moral, and spiritual inquiry, with its own built-in norms, a process of incarnate beings who can nonetheless participate—precariously—in the life of the divine Nous. ³¹ The principle, in short, is noetic consciousness. Noetic science, therefore, by explicating the structure of human existence, provides political science with the goals of political endeavor. The "single science" of government, which aims to determine which government is best, must determine what is the best human life. ³² The best human life, of course, is the life of nous, and the perfection of nous is theoria. But theoria needs phronesis since practical wisdom, including political wisdom (which frames legislation), is the precondition for engaging in theoria. ³³

Noetic science in asking the question what is nous is asking about the dynamic principle of human nature. Nous, with its acts, potentialities, and habits, is the self-transcending normative principle of change and rest in human life. Whereas the contemplative life seeks knowledge for its own sake, employs scientific demonstrations, and focuses on the universal and the necessary, and though the practical life seeks action, employs the "practical syllogism," and focuses on the particular and the contingent, these differences should not obscure the fact that they both share what is highest in human life. They both participate in the self-transcending normative process of questioning, which ranges from involvement with the images of physical things to the self-luminosity of the pure act of nous. They both share in noetic consciousness. All the virtues, both theoretical and practical, are inherently interrelated. ³⁴ This means that in authentic political life—a kind of phronesis that Aristotle calls the virtue of political wisdom—that which is best and divine in us is actualized. ³⁵ The subject matter of political science therefore concerns the participation of human nous in the activity of the divine Nous.    

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