Voegelin and Aristotle on Nous: What is Noetic Political Science? (original) (raw)

Practical Nous in the Nicomachean Ethics

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 57, 2020

The paper presses an analogy between Aristotle’s conception of practical reasoning and theoretical reasoning. It argues that theoretical reasoning has two optimal cognitive states associated with it, episteme and (theoretical) nous, and that practical reasoning has two counterpart states, phronēsis and (practical) nous. Theoretical nous is an expertise which enables those who have it to understand principles as principles, i.e. among other things, to know how to use them to derive other truths in their domain. It is a cognitively demanding state, which only experts have. Aristotelian practical nous is structurally similar to theoretical nous in that it requires the agent not only to know certain everyday truths, but also to know how and when to use them in deliberative reasoning. It is also a cognitively demanding notion, and only moral experts will have it.

Aristotle: The Practical Sciences - Politics and Ethics

Past and Future, 2023

This backgrounder provides an overview of Aristotle’s historical context and explores the scope of his work before a more detailed account of his views on ethics and politics. Aristotle collected observational data and examined the nature of causation to interrogate received opinion, thereby hoping to achieve systematic knowledge and practical wisdom. The key concept of eudaemonia (eudaimonia), a sophisticated version of personal happiness, and the way that political life should contribute to this, are explored at length in his Politics and two works on Ethics. He developed a virtue ethics based on the idea of the mean as balanced, rational moderation in virtues, dispositions, and habits. Aristotle made a profound contribution to political philosophy and the terms we use today in political analysis, along with insights into the linkage among practical wisdom, political systems, and personal development.

Scholarship on Aristotle's Ethical and Political Philosophy (2021-) UPDATED OCTOBER 2022

I have sought to keep a running tabulation of all books, edited collections, translations, and journal articles which are primarily devoted to Aristotle’s ethical and political writings (including their historical reception but excluding neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics). Criteria for inclusion in this bibliography are: (1) published after January 1, 2021 (including pre-publication articles assigned a DOI); (2) devoted to one of Aristotle’s ethical or political works (e.g., Pol, EN, EE, MM, Athenian Constitution, Protrepticus); and/or (3) devoted to ethical or political concepts examined elsewhere in Aristotle’s corpus (e.g., Rhetoric, Poetics, zoological treatises, etc.). I encourage scholars to alert me about published works that I have omitted or listed incorrectly.