Noology

Noology (from νοῦς, mind, and λόγος, a word) is a term proposed to denote the science of intellectual facts, or the facts of intellect, in distinction from pathology (psychological), which is to deal with the science of the "phenomenes affectifs," or feeling or sensibility (see Pfaffe, Sur la Sensibilite, p. 30). The use of the term is noticed by Sir W. Hamilton as the title given to treatises on the doctrine of first principles, by Calovius, in 1651; Meyer, in 1662; Wagner, in 1670; and Zeidler in 1680; and he has said, "The correlations, noetic and dianoetic, would afford the best philosophical designations; the former for an intuitive principle, or truth at first hand, the latter for a demonstrative proposition, or truth at second hand. Noology or noological, dianoialogy and dianoialogical, would be also technical terms of much convenience in various departments of philosophy." The French philosopher, M. Ampere, proposed to designate the sciences which treat of the human mind Les Sciences Noologiques. "If, instead of considering the objects of our knowledge, we consider its origin, it may be said that it is either derived from experience alone or from reason alone; hence empirical philosophers, and those which Kant calls Noologists: at their head are Aristotle and Plato, among the ancients, and Locke and Leibnitz among the moderns" (Henderson, Philosophy of Kant, p. 172). SEE NOOGONY.