亚里士多德的“努斯”作为目的性推理:一种解释

Aristotle's Nous as Telos-related Reasoning:An Explanation

亚里士多德的努斯概念一般指人的理智所进行的某种目的性思考—推理活动。它分上行和下行两种活动:上行要把握人已经获得的目的(善),下行要达到某个具体决定。由于旨在达到某个具体决定,它在实践事务上被视作下行推理。它围绕我们面对的问题曲折推理,直至某一点,在该点上,我们无需再推导,只需做出这样或那样的行动。按亚氏的看法,对于好人,上行和下行的推理都是健全的,仅当中道不明确时,在下行推理中才需一种辅助推理。对于普通人,不存在上行思考,且因他的推理负担加重,下行努斯的辅助性推理就显得既突出又必需了。

Aristotle's concept of nous basically denotes to some telos-related thinking-reasoning activities of the intellect of human beings.It goes both upward and downward:upward to grasp a comprehension of the telos one has acquired,downward to reach some ultimate.As it aims to reach to some ultimate,on practice affairs it is construed to go reasoning downward.It goes in a zigzag route around the issues we are facing until it reaches to some ultimate point on which we need no more thinking than a so-and-so act.In the status of good men,both the upward and the downward thinking-reasoning make senses,an auxiliary factor of the downward reasoning comes to help where the mean is obscure.In the status of average men,the upward thinking fades out,and since a man in this states will have much heavier burden of reasoning,that auxiliary factor of the downward nous will seem to be both outstanding and unique./r/n