1. not involving or subject to intellectual or cognitive processes. Emotions are sometimes considered anoetic.

2. describing a state of knowledge or memory in which there is no consciousness of knowing or remembering. Anoetic consciousness is a corresponding kind of “unknowing knowing” in which one is aware of external stimuli but not of interpreting them. [defined by Endel Tulving]

3. lacking the capacity for understanding or concentrated thought. This meaning, originally applied to intellectual disability, is no longer common. Compare autonoetic; noetic. —anoesis n.