Noology

Description

1.From the Wikipedia:

“Noology, or Noölogy derives from the ancient Greek words νοῦς, nous or "mind" and λόγος, logos. Noology thus outlines a systematic study and organization of thought, knowledge and the mind.In the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant uses "noology" synonymously with rationalism, distinguishing it from empiricism:

[Philosophers have differed from each other with] respect to the origin of pure rational knowledge, and as to whether it is derived from experience, or has its origin independently of experience, in reason. Aristotle may be considered as the head of the empiricists, Plato of the noologists. Locke, who in modern times followed Aristotle, and Leibniz, who followed Plato (though at a sufficient distance from his mystical system), have not been able to bring this dispute to any conclusion.

The Spanish philosopher Xavier Zubiri developed his own notion of noology.

The term is also used to describe the science of intellectual phenomena. It is the study of images of thought, their emergence, their genealogy, and their creation.”

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noology)

2. From the Noomakhia project of Alexander Dugin:

"The Noology as the science of the multiplicity of the human thought. The philosophic basis of multipolarity.

The self reflection of cultures and the territory of possible dialogue and polylogue.

The noology is the essential basis of the Theory of Multipolar World and Fourth Political theory."

(https://paideuma.tv/en/video/noomachia-serbia-2018-lecture-1-introduction#/?playlistId=0&videoId=0)

Characteristics

Alexander Dugin:

1. It uses the existential analysis of Heidegger, the traditionalism (Guenon, Evola), the concepts of Bachofen, the structuralism of Dumezil and Levy-Strauss.
2. The main concept is Nous greek word for Intellect, Intelligence, Mind, Thought, Consciousness. It is united in itself and represents the Human. The Nous is the Human. The thought is a Man. Everything that belongs to human being exclusively is the Thought. All the rest the man shares with others.
3. The Nous is threefold. It can exist as such it exist as its figures, forms, manifestations. Noology calls these very manifestations Logos.
4. The basic idea of Noology is: there are three main Logos that include in them countless variants.
5. The Logos of Apollo. Definition. Light. Verticality. Pure patriarchy. Androcraty. The Gilbert Durand’s concept of regime of diurne. The day, the Heaven. Platonism. The God Father. Law. Straight line. From top to the bottom.
6. The Logos of Dionysus. Definition. Semilight, dawn, duality, dialectic. Earth and Heaven. Pair. Man and woman. Androgyne. The dance. #The rhythm. The circle. The curve.
7. The Logos of Cybele. The Great Mother. Matriarchy. The Earth and hell. Underworld, Tartarous. Hades. Materialism, growth, progress. #From the bottom to top.

The main principle of Noomahia: three Logos are in insoluble conflict, they fight. They fight for the form of Nous that would dominate over culture."

(https://paideuma.tv/en/video/noomachia-serbia-2018-lecture-1-introduction#/?playlistId=0&videoId=0)

Discussion

Alexander Dugin:

"Noology is a new term. The term noology consists of two roots; ‘nous' (Greek word) and ‘logy' (logic, logos, science, teaching). So noology is the teaching of ‘nous.’ What is the ‘nous’ in Greek? That is very serious word and if you try to translate it, it could be ‘ум' in Russian. It is intelligence and intellect. It is as well mind, order, thought, or a kind of consciousness. In German it is ‘Bewusstsein.' It is something that lies at the depth of the human thought. But what is human? Human is the being that is different from any other being in the world, when one thinks. It is thinking being. Every other qualities, we share with other beings but thought is the same as to be human, to be thinking. Thinking creature and thinking being is human. So the thought is the human. To think is to be human. We have bodies and we have instincts and pain, suffering, or joy. But the other creatures as well have the same. But nobody except us, in the living world, have thought. So the thought, or nous, is the essence of the man. The man is thought. All the rest is man and not only. But the thought is the only aspect of man that makes us human. To be human is to be thinking. So the nous as a kind of thought and mind is the deepest root of human being, of human-ness, of mankind. We are human because of thinking and because of nous. We are ourselves because there is the nous. Without nous, there is no human. We are human because there is the nous. So thinking about the nous and trying to explore noology is the same as to explore ourselves. It’s not the kind of alienated objected. To think about nous is the same as to think about us and about our deepest nature. It is not abstract. It is a kind of introspection. We are speaking and learning our depth. We are learning human-ness of human beings. That is the nous.

We could present human being from different point of view. Noology presents human being from one point of view, from its essential point of view. It is the study of the thought as such. That is very very important. Noology as well is philosophical basis of multipolarity. Why multipolarity? Because the idea of noology is that there is not only one kind of thinking that is universal and common for all of humanity. There are differences. So when we try to study nous, the intellect, the mind, the thought carefully, we discover how much the process of thinking depends on culture. If you are thinking in one culture, you think in one way. If you belong to the other culture, to the other ethnical group, to the other religion, to the other age, you think completely differently. But you are still human. You are still Serb, Russian, French, English, Chinese, or African. But belonging to different cultures and spaces and times, you think differently. So if we want to study nous and the thought as such, we need to take into account these differences. And without studying the differences of way of thinking, we could not arrive at the essence of thinking. For example, if we presume that everybody thinks as ourselves, we will study our thought. But it is only part. Because for example, Croatians, or Albanians, or Russians, or English, or American, or African, or Chinese, or Muslims think differently not only about secondary aspects but they think differently about the nature of human, about life, death, family, gender, history, time, space, God, matter, world, about everything. Noology is a kind of phenomenology of the mind. We don’t prescribe how the nous should be or what the thought must be. We try to explore how it is, how thought works, and presents itself in different contexts. And this recognition of the differences without any normative prescription of how the man should normally think is the special feature of noology. So we are starting from the recognition of the differences and we are trying to understand better and deeper, the differences and not trying to unite or impose something as universal but trying to discover. That is very important feature. That is why noology is dedicated to the study of the concrete cultures. In my books in the project of noology, most of them are dedicated to European culture, for French Logos, English Logos, Eastern European Logos, Russian Logos, American Logos, Chinese Logos, Iranian Logos, and so on. We are studying cultures and basing on the cultures, we are deducing from these cultures their way of thinking. In that way, we are arriving to have the complete vision of the human thought. We are not saying ‘human should be as for example, modern European, white, atheist, materialist, and liberal.’ That is a concrete result of Anglo-Saxon European civilization. It is geographically and historically limited and it is not universal. It is English way of developing their English, American, European history. And if we go to Eastern Europe, Slavic world, Russian world, Chinese world, or Muslim world, we discover that they don’t go that American or English or European way. Everybody goes its own ways.

There is the conflict of civilizations as well the key to understand what is going on now with your country or our country, how we are dealing with the west, how they treat us, why they treat us so, why we respond, why we resist, or why we submit. The essence of noology is recognition of the plurality of the minds of the cultures. Plurality means that there is not only one universal, normative way of development of mind. There are minds and not the mind. Or there are different manifestations of one mind, nous, but so differently and specially that we need to study carefully each case; Serbian case, Russian case, French case, German case. It is not to create hierarchy or to say ‘it’s more developed or it’s less developed’ but to understand how everybody thinks in different conditions. That is noology.

Noology is multilevel analysis. In noology we are using philosophy. The minimal knowledge of philosophy is necessary to understand what is going on because the philosophy is the mirror of the thought. Studying philosophy, we are saving time to study the other, politics and history, because in philosophy, everything is in contact with it. It is simultaneously presented in the philosophy. So if we are reading the history of philosophy, we are reading the history of humanity. Why? Because to think is to be human. And philosophers consecrate all their life and all their efforts to thinking. So they are more human than other. They are more clear human than other. They are making the same thing as everybody but in special way. They are concentrated on this human-ness of human. And the other as well participate. We could say that every man is philosopher. But the philosopher is complete, accomplished, and perfect man. They are dedicated to the main goal of human, to think. That is why philosophy is so important in noology. History of religions is very important because religion is the other way to think. Religion is based on the premises of the thought. So without at least some knowledge of different religions, we could not understand noology because religion is as well the mirror of the thought. There is projection of our thought on the gods, on the relations between the reason of being and the source of being, creation, god, time, and many other things in religion that reflect the structure of nous. So in noology, we need to know a little bit of religion.

What is important is that, in noology, we need to have some knowledge of geopolitics because geopolitics is concretization of civilization. So that is a kind of generalization and if we discovered geopolitical position of thinker, we could not understand what he means because we are defined by philosophical tradition and religious tradition but we are as well defined by our position in the world and our way of thinking. Our own cultural noology is defined by our geopolitical position. If you belong to the civilization of the sea (sea power) or the civilization of the earth, you think differently. That is very important difference. Position on the geopolitical map of the world is very important to interpret concretely the thought. So geopolitics is absolutely unavoidable. World history is main topic. We need to know the history of different peoples and cultures. We also need to know basic knowledge of sociology because sociology is the discipline that shows how much the way of our being is defined by society. So that is very important because society is very important way of self reflection because if we know how much society and its principles are inside us, we will discover that our individuality and originality is almost zero, is almost non-existent quantity. Everything in us is put by the society. We think ‘I’m thinking that.’ It is not ‘I’ that thinks. Society through me thinks. Sociology is very important. Anthropology and above all, the new anthropological school from Franz Boas and Claude Lévi-Strauss and the other tradition. And I suggest that in development of our course, we absolutely need to have a kind of anthropological course about anthropology. It is a very important part. And modern anthropology shows ethnical tradition and condition of the living and the nature and the culture and the balance between the nature and culture defines the values of the society and how different the societies are. That is very important gain of modern anthropology. Old anthropology of 19th century was based on the evolutionary theory. So everybody is developing. There are developed society and underdeveloped societies. Modern anthropology shows there are no such things as development. There are differences. And in order to study archaic society, we could discover the society more complicated and more complex than our society but they are different. They are not underdeveloped. They are not childish stage of the same culture. That is maybe mature, maybe childish, maybe old stage of different culture that we need to study carefully without projecting our own ideas on them. That is the gain of modern anthropology. That is one of the main principles of noology and noomakhia."

(https://paideuma.tv/en/video/noomachia-serbia-2018-lecture-1-introduction#/?playlistId=0&videoId=0)