Noēsis

Seeing with the mind

Noēsis is the activity of intellect at its height: the immediate, unhypothetical grasp of the Forms and ultimately of the Good. On the Divided Line it crowns the ascent, the knowing that uses no images and rests on nothing below itself. For the Neoplatonists noēsis names the eternal self-thinking of Nous, in which knower and known are one.