nous
n. in classical Greek philosophy, reason or intellect. For Plato (c. 427–c. 347 bce), nous was the highest form of reason, permitting the apprehension of the fundamental and unchanging principles of reality. Aristotle likewise distinguished between nous, which enables understanding of the essential and nonaccidental, and the knowledge gained from experience, which enables understanding of the temporary and contingent. In later Platonic and Neoplatonic thought, nous was sometimes identified with the rational principle governing the universe itself (see Neoplatonism).