Philosophy & ThoughtGreek → English
Noetic
/noʊˈɛtɪk/adjective
Relating to the intellect or to knowledge grasped directly by the mind.
The Greek roots
νοῦς
noûs
mind, intellect
Literally: “of the intellect”
Follow a root:νοῦς1 word
The story of the word
Plato's divided line splits reality into the ὁρατόν, what the eye sees, and the νοητόν, what only the mind reaches; noetic belongs to the second half. νοῦς also survives whole in English, where a person of good nous has practical sense rather than metaphysical vision. The same root sits inside paranoia, mind beside itself, and metanoia, the change of mind that the New Testament calls repentance.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
nousparanoiametanoiaanoetic
In a sentence
Mystics report the experience as noetic: it arrives feeling like knowledge, not like emotion.