Perhaps the contemplative experience of "mynd" is what the poet TS Eliot called "the still point of the turning world." We rest at the still point, calm, wordless, free of images and thoughts, while "there the dance is."
A day is always better when something inspires me to re-read TS Eliot's The Four Quartets.
One of the most insidious stumbling-blocks to getting a handle on these concepts is the apparent reversal of terminology that transpired at the dawn of the Enlightenment in respect to words like “reason” and “intellect.” “Reason” began to be capitalised and exalted as a sort of divine power and even personified as a divinity, but in the apparent reversal, something was lost and Reason never really encompassed what was understood by the Ancients and Medievals by the terms νοῦς and intellectus.
I’m sure you have a lot more to say about this, @thebasecamp!
1. Translating νοῦς as "intellect" today feels unhelpful to me precisely because people assume "intellect" means "reason" in the modern sense as you describe it—and people are right to make that association because of what "intellect" generally means today. We should probably emphasize a different word in the translation ("contemplation" or just "nous," "noesis").
2. Our friend Dr. Sherman also likes to point out that it's not just νοῦς that's been more or less abandoned in modern epistemology, but that "reason" in its pre-modern sense itself meant something more than "reason" does today (i.e., something relational, and "ecstatic," moving outside ourselves, as Sherman points out).
So, we need a recovery of νοῦς but also a reconsideration of reason itself and its capacities—something I was a bit late to pick up on, even when writing this piece.
An interesting essay with much to consider.
Perhaps the contemplative experience of "mynd" is what the poet TS Eliot called "the still point of the turning world." We rest at the still point, calm, wordless, free of images and thoughts, while "there the dance is."
A day is always better when something inspires me to re-read TS Eliot's The Four Quartets.
Yes, TS Eliot is definitely aware of all this. Checkout the introduction he wrote to Josef Pieper's Leisure, if you haven't already.
Interesting essay! Thanks for featuring my photo
Great essay! Just saying.
This was probably the most transformative essay from the book for me. I haven't stopped thinking about it. A lot to be recaptured from this tradition.
Great to hear, Ben!
Really enjoyed this; thanks!
One of the most insidious stumbling-blocks to getting a handle on these concepts is the apparent reversal of terminology that transpired at the dawn of the Enlightenment in respect to words like “reason” and “intellect.” “Reason” began to be capitalised and exalted as a sort of divine power and even personified as a divinity, but in the apparent reversal, something was lost and Reason never really encompassed what was understood by the Ancients and Medievals by the terms νοῦς and intellectus.
I’m sure you have a lot more to say about this, @thebasecamp!
I think that's right. A few additional thoughts:
1. Translating νοῦς as "intellect" today feels unhelpful to me precisely because people assume "intellect" means "reason" in the modern sense as you describe it—and people are right to make that association because of what "intellect" generally means today. We should probably emphasize a different word in the translation ("contemplation" or just "nous," "noesis").
2. Our friend Dr. Sherman also likes to point out that it's not just νοῦς that's been more or less abandoned in modern epistemology, but that "reason" in its pre-modern sense itself meant something more than "reason" does today (i.e., something relational, and "ecstatic," moving outside ourselves, as Sherman points out).
So, we need a recovery of νοῦς but also a reconsideration of reason itself and its capacities—something I was a bit late to pick up on, even when writing this piece.