SOBRE O CONCEITO DE NOEÎN EM PARMÊNIDES

The verb noeîn and its substantive form nóos belong to the Greek cognitive vocabulary of epic and presocratic literature, meaning an insight of reality or of the truth of an object, that is, a kind of cognition akin to sensory perception in its intuitive and direct features. According to Von Fritz, these concepts underwent an evolution in which Parmenides was a turning-point. In Parmenides, without losing its most important feature as an insight into the nature of things – hence of grasping the being (tò eón) – nóos also works as a logical reasoning. In other words, noeîn-nóos perform a dual function: it is both acquaintance with the ultimate reality and discursive thinking, which argues, infers and deduces. Our main purpose here is to present how Parmenides articulates these two roles of nóos.