Il nous aristotelico e l'intuizione

This essay focuses on the intuitive aspects of nous. The understanding grasps noetic evidence and doubtless truths which are either the ground or the conclusion of a demonstrative and discursive process. In such an insight, activity and receptivity go hand in hand. In the first section the topic is introduced starting from the reasons why this intuitive conception of thought seems so alien to us today. In the second section several different meanings of noein, thinking in relation to essential forms, will be clarified. In the third section some phenomenological interpretations of this sense of thinking, notably in Husserl and Heidegger, will be examined. The aim is to show their pertinence but also their limits.