title: History of Malta

text: Over the years, the power of the knights declined; their reign ended in 1798 when Napoleon Bonaparte's expeditionary fleet stopped off there en route to his Egyptian expedition. Napoleon asked for safe harbour to resupply his ships, and when they refused to supply him with water, Napoleon Bonaparte sent a division to scale the hills of Valletta. Grand Master Hompesch capitulated on 11 June. The following day a treaty was signed by which the order handed over sovereignty of the island of Malta to the French Republic. In return the French Republic agreed to "employ all its credit at the congress of Rastatt to procure a principality for the Grand Master, equivalent to the one he gives up".


title: History of Malta

text: During his very short stay (six days), Napoleon accomplished quite a number of reforms, notably the creation of a new administration with a Government Commission, the creation of twelve municipalities, the setting up of a public finance administration, the abolition of all feudal rights and privileges, the abolition of slavery and the granting of freedom to all Turkish slaves (2000 in all). On the judicial level, a family code was framed and twelve judges were nominated. Public education was organised along principles laid down by Bonaparte himself, providing for primary and secondary education. Fifteen primary schools were founded and the university was replaced by an ’Ecole centrale’ in which there were eight chairs, all very scientific in outlook: notably, arithmetic and stereometry, algebra and stereotomy, geometry and astronomy, mechanics and physics, navigation, chemistry, etc.


title: History of Malta

text: He then sailed for Egypt leaving a substantial garrison in Malta. Since the Order had also been growing unpopular with the local Maltese, the latter initially viewed the French with optimism. This illusion did not last long. Within months the French were closing convents and seizing church treasures, most notably the sword of Jean de Valette which has since been returned to Malta in 2017, after a century in Paris, and for many years exhibited at the Louvre, in Paris. The Maltese people rebelled, and the French garrison of General Claude-Henri Belgrand de Vaubois retreated into Valletta. After several failed attempts by the locals to retake Valletta, the British were asked for their assistance. Rear Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson decided on a total blockade in 1799. The French garrison surrendered in 1800.


title: History of Malta

text: In 1800, Malta voluntarily became part of the British Empire as a protectorate. Under the terms of the 1802 Treaty of Amiens with France, Britain was supposed to evacuate the island, but failed to keep this obligation – one of several mutual cases of non-adherence to the treaty, which eventually led to its collapse and the resumption of war between the two countries.


title: History of Malta

text: Although initially the island was not given much importance, its excellent harbours became a prized asset for the British, especially after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The island became a military and naval fortress, the headquarters of the British Mediterranean fleet.


title: History of Malta

text: Home rule was refused to the Maltese until 1921 although a partly elected legislative council was created as early as 1849 (the first Council of Government under British rule had been held in 1835), and the locals sometimes suffered considerable poverty. This was due to the island being overpopulated and largely dependent on British military expenditure which varied with the demands of war. Throughout the 19th century, the British administration instituted several liberal constitutional reforms which were generally resisted by the Church and the Maltese elite who preferred to cling to their feudal privileges. Political organisations, like the Nationalist Party, were created or had as one of their aims, the protection of the Italian language in Malta.


title: History of Malta

text: In 1813 Malta was granted the Bathurst Constitution; in 1814 it was declared free of the plague, while the 1815 Congress of Vienna reaffirmed the British rule under the 1814 Treaty of Paris. In 1819, the local Italian-speaking "Università" was dissolved.


title: History of Malta

text: The year 1828 saw the revocation of the right of sanctuary, following the Vatican Church-State proclamation. Three years later, the See of Malta was made independent of the See of Palermo. In 1839, press censorship was abolished, and the construction of St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral began.


title: History of Malta

text: Following the 1846 Carnival riots, in 1849 a Council of Government with elected members under British rule was set up. In 1870 a referendum was held on ecclesiastics serving on Council of Government, and in 1881 an Executive Council under British rule was created; in 1887, the Council of Government was entrusted with "dual control" under British rule. A backlash came in 1903, with the return to the 1849 form of Council of Government under British rule.


title: History of Malta

text: The last quarter of the century saw technical and financial progress in line with the Belle Époque: The following years saw the foundation of the Anglo-Egyptian Bank (1882) and the beginning of operation of the Malta Railway (1883); the first definitive postage stamps were issued in 1885, and in 1904 tram service began.


title: History of Malta

text: In 1886 Surgeon Major David Bruce discovered the microbe causing the Malta Fever, and in 1905 Themistocles Zammit discovered the fever's sources.


title: History of Malta

text: Between 1915 and 1918, during World War I, Malta became known as "the Nurse of the Mediterranean" due to the large number of wounded soldiers who were accommodated in Malta.


title: History of Malta

text: In 1919, the "Sette Giugno" (7 June) riots over the excessive price of bread led to greater autonomy for the locals during the 1920s. After Filippo Sciberras had convened a National Assembly, in 1921 self-government was granted under British rule. Malta obtained a bicameral parliament with a Senate (later abolished in 1949) and an elected Legislative Assembly. Joseph Howard was named Prime Minister. In 1923 the "Innu Malti" was played for the first time in public, and the same year Francisco Buhagiar became Prime Minister, followed in 1924 by Sir Ugo Pasquale Mifsud and in 1927 by Sir Gerald Strickland.


title: History of Malta

text: The 1930s saw a period of instability in the relations between the Maltese political elite, the Maltese Catholic church, and the British authorities; the 1921 Constitution was suspended twice. First in 1930–1932, when British authorities assumed that a free and fair election would not be possible following a clash between the governing Constitutional Party and the Church and the latter's subsequent imposition of mortal sin on voters of the party and its allies, thus making a free and fair election impossible. Again, in 1933 the Constitution was withdrawn over the Government's budgetary vote for the teaching of Italian in elementary schools, after just 13 months of a Nationalist administration. Malta thus reverted to the Crown Colony status it held in 1813.


title: History of Malta

text: Before the arrival of the British, the official language since 1530 (and the one of the handful of educated elite) had been Italian, but this was downgraded by the increased use of English. In 1934 Maltese was declared an official language, which brought the number up to three. Two years later, the Letters Patent of the 1936 constitution declared that Maltese and English were the only official languages, thereby legally settling the long-standing 'Language Question' that had dominated Maltese politics for over half a century.


title: History of Malta

text: In 1934, only about 15% of the population could speak Italian fluently. This meant that out of 58,000 males qualified by age to be jurors, only 767 could qualify by language, as only Italian had until then been used in the courts.


title: History of Malta

text: In 1936 the Constitution was revised to provide for the nomination of members to Executive Council under British rule (similar to the 1835 constitution) and in 1939 to provide again for a partly elected Council of Government under British rule.


title: History of Malta

text: Before World War II, Valletta was the location of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet's headquarters. However, despite Winston Churchill's objections, the command was moved to Alexandria, Egypt, in April 1937 fearing it was too susceptible to air attacks from Europe. At the time of the Italian declaration of war (10 June 1940), Malta had a garrison of less than four thousand soldiers and about five weeks of food supplies for the population of about three hundred thousand. In addition, Malta's air defences consisted of about forty-two anti-aircraft guns (thirty-four "heavy" and eight "light") and four Gloster Gladiators, for which three pilots were available.


title: History of Malta

text: Being a British colony, situated close to Sicily and the Axis shipping lanes, Malta was bombarded by the Italian and German air forces. Malta was used by the British to launch attacks on the Italian navy and had a submarine base. It was also used as a listening post, reading German radio messages including Enigma traffic.


title: History of Malta

text: The first air raids against Malta occurred on 11 June 1940; there were six attacks that day. The island's biplanes were unable to defend due to the Luqa Airfield being unfinished; however, the airfield was ready by the seventh attack. Initially, the Italians would fly at about 5,500 m, then they dropped down to three thousand metres (in order to improve the accuracy of their bomb-aiming). Journalist Mabel Strickland spoke of the Italian bombing efforts as such: "The Italians decided they didn't like [the Gladiators and AA guns], so they dropped their bombs twenty miles off Malta and went back." Despite these words, the accuracy of Italian bombers improved after repeated attempts, causing a great deal of devastation to both military and civilian infrastructure in Malta. However, these raids proved ineffective to the Axis siege efforts, as any damage incurred was eventually repaired before a new wave of bombers could launch bombing runs over the islands.


title: History of Malta

text: By the end of August, the Gladiators were reinforced by twelve Hawker Hurricanes which had arrived via HMS "Argus". During the first five months of combat, the island's aircraft destroyed or damaged about thirty-seven Italian aircraft, while suffering even greater losses than the Italians. Italian fighter pilot Francisco Cavalera observed, "Malta was really a big problem for us—very well-defended.". Nevertheless, the Italian bombing campaign was causing serious damage to the island's infrastructure and the ability of the Royal Navy to operate effectively in the Mediterranean.


title: History of Malta

text: On Malta, 330 people had been killed and 297 were seriously wounded from the war's inception until December 1941. In January 1941, the German X. "Fliegerkorps" arrived in Sicily as the Afrika Korps arrived in Libya. Over the next four months 820 people were killed and 915 seriously wounded.


title: History of Malta

text: On 15 April 1942, King George VI awarded the George Cross (the highest civilian award for gallantry) "to the island fortress of Malta — its people and defenders". Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived on 8 December 1943, and presented a United States Presidential Citation to the people of Malta on behalf of the people of United States. He presented the scroll on 8 December but dated it 7 December for symbolic reasons. In part it read: "Under repeated fire from the skies, Malta stood alone and unafraid in the centre of the sea, one tiny bright flame in the darkness – a beacon of hope for the clearer days which have come." (The complete citation now stands on a plaque on the wall of the Grand Master's Palace on Republic Street, in the town square of Valletta.)


title: History of Malta

text: In 1942, a convoy code-named Operation Pedestal was sent to relieve Malta. Five ships, including the tanker SS "Ohio", managed to arrive in the Grand Harbour, with enough supplies for Malta to survive. In the following year Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill visited Malta. George VI also arrived in Grand Harbour for a visit.


title: History of Malta

text: During the Second World War, Ugo Mifsud and George Borg Olivier were the only remaining Nationalist members of parliament of Malta. Ugo Mifsud fainted after delivering a very passionate defense against the deportation to concentration camps in Uganda of Enrico Mizzi and 49 other Italian Maltese accused of pro-Italian political activities. He died a few days later.


title: History of Malta

text: In 1943, the Allies launched the invasion of Sicily from Malta. The invasion was coordinated from the Lascaris War Rooms in Valletta. Following the Armistice of Cassibile later in 1943, a large part of the Italian Navy surrendered to the British in Malta.


title: History of Malta

text: The Malta Conference was held in 1945, in which Churchill and Roosevelt met prior to the Yalta Conference with Joseph Stalin.


title: History of Malta

text: The 1946 National Assembly resulted in a new constitution in 1947. This restored Malta's self-government, with Paul Boffa as Prime Minister. On 5 September 1947, universal suffrage for women in Malta was granted. That year, Agatha Barbara was the first woman elected as a Maltese Member of Parliament.


title: History of Malta

text: After the Second World War, the islands achieved self-rule, with the Malta Labour Party (MLP) of Dom Mintoff seeking either full integration with the UK or else "self-determination" (independence) and the Partit Nazzjonalista (PN) of George Borg Olivier favouring independence, with the same "dominion status" that Canada, Australia and New Zealand enjoyed.


title: History of Malta

text: The 1953 Coronation incident (where, initially, no invitation was sent for a Maltese delegation to attend the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II), temporarily united Maltese politicians. After the MLP's electoral victory in 1955, in December Round Table Talks were held in London, on the future of Malta, namely the Integration proposal put forward by Mintoff. It was attended by the new Prime Minister Dom Mintoff, Borg Olivier, and other Maltese politicians, along with the British Colonial Secretary, Alan Lennox-Boyd. The British government agreed to offer the islands their own representation in British Parliament, with three seats in the House of Commons, with the Home Office taking over responsibility for Maltese affairs from the Colonial Office.


title: History of Malta

text: Under the proposals, the Maltese Parliament would retain authority over all affairs except defence, foreign policy, and taxation. The Maltese were also to have social and economic parity with the UK, to be guaranteed by the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) the islands' main source of employment.


title: History of Malta

text: A UK integration referendum was held on 11 and 12 February 1956, in which 77.02% of voters were in favour of the proposal, but owing to a boycott by the Nationalist Party and the Church, only 59.1% of the electorate voted, thereby rendering the result inconclusive.


title: History of Malta

text: There were also concerns expressed by British MPs that the representation of Malta at Westminster would set a precedent for other colonies, and influence the outcome of general elections.


title: History of Malta

text: In addition, the decreasing strategic importance of Malta to the Royal Navy meant that the British government was increasingly reluctant to maintain the naval dockyards. Following a decision by the Admiralty to dismiss 40 workers at the dockyard, Mintoff declared that "representatives of the Maltese people in Parliament declare that they are no longer bound by agreements and obligations toward the British government" (the 1958 "Caravaggio incident"). In response, the Colonial Secretary sent a cable to Mintoff, stating that he had "recklessly hazarded" the whole integration plan.


title: History of Malta

text: Under protest, Dom Mintoff resigned as Prime Minister along with all the MLP deputies on 21 April 1958. Georgio Borg Olivier was offered to form an alternative government by Governor Laycock but refused. This led to the Governor declaring a state of emergency thus suspending the constitution and Malta was placed under direct colonial administration from London. The MLP had now fully abandoned support for integration (when Mintoff's demands for financial guarantees were not accepted) and now advocated full independence from Britain. In 1959, an Interim Constitution provided for an Executive Council under British rule.


title: History of Malta

text: While France had implemented a similar policy in its colonies, some of which became overseas departments, the status offered to Malta from Britain constituted a unique exception. Malta was the only British colony where integration with the UK was seriously considered, and subsequent British governments have ruled out integration for remaining overseas territories, such as Gibraltar.


title: History of Malta

text: From 1959 Malta's British governor started to pursue a plan of economic development based on promoting tourism and tax competition, offering very low tax rates on pensions, royalties and dividends to attract British (referred to as ‘sixpenny settlers’) and former colonial pensioners. Malta saw a large influx of Britons from Rhodesia after 1967.


title: History of Malta

text: In 1961, the Blood Commission provided for a new constitution allowing for a measure of self-government and recognising the "State" of Malta. Giorgio Borg Olivier became Prime Minister the following year, when the Stolper report was delivered.


title: History of Malta

text: Following the passage of the "Malta Independence Act 1964" by the British Parliament and the approval of a new Maltese constitution by 54.5% of voters in a referendum, the State of Malta () was formed on 21 September 1964 as an independent constitutional monarchy, with Elizabeth II as Queen of Malta and head of state. The date continues to be celebrated annually as Independence Day (), a national holiday in Malta. On 1 December 1964, Malta was admitted to the United Nations.


title: History of Malta

text: In the first two post-independence electoral rounds, in 1962 and 1966 the Nationalist Party emerged as the largest party, gaining a majority of the Parliamentary seats. In these years, relations with Italy were of the utmost importance to secure independence and establish linkages with continental Europe. Malta signed four cooperation agreements with Italy in 1967, during a visit of Aldo Moro to the island.


title: History of Malta

text: In 1965 Malta joined the Council of Europe, and in 1970, Malta signed an Association Treaty with the European Economic Community.


title: History of Malta

text: The Labour government immediately set out to re-negotiate the post-Independence military and financial agreements with the United Kingdom. The government also undertook nationalization programmes and the expansion of the public sector and the welfare state. Employment laws were updated with gender equality being introduced in salary pay. Concerning civil law, civil marriage was introduced and homosexuality and adultery were decriminalised (1973); capital punishment for murder was abolished in 1971. The following year, Malta entered into a Military Base Agreement with the United Kingdom and other NATO countries, after mediation by Italy's Aldo Moro.


title: History of Malta

text: Through a package of constitutional reforms, Malta became a republic on 13 December 1974, with the last Governor-General, Sir Anthony Mamo, as its first President. The "Ġieħ ir-Repubblika" Act, promulgated the following year, abolished all titles of nobility in Malta and mandated that they cease to be recognised.


title: History of Malta

text: The Party was confirmed in office in the 1976 elections. Between 1976 and 1981 Malta went through difficult times and the Labour government demanded that the Maltese tighten their belts in order to overcome the difficulties Malta was facing. There were shortages of essential items; water and electricity supplies were systematically suspended for two or three days a week. Political tensions increased, notably on Black Monday, when following an attempted assassination of the Prime Minister, the premises of the "Times of Malta" were burned and the house of the Leader of Opposition was attacked.


title: History of Malta

text: On 1 April 1979 the last British forces left the island after the end of the economic pact to stabilise the Maltese economy. This is celebrated as Freedom Day ("Jum Il-Ħelsien") on 31 March. Celebrations start with a ceremony in Floriana near the War Memorial. A popular event on this memorable day is the traditional regatta. The regatta is held at the Grand Harbour and the teams taking part in it give it their best shot to win the much coveted aggregate Regatta Shield.


title: History of Malta

text: Under Mintoff's premiership, Malta began establishing close cultural and economic ties with Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, as well as diplomatic and military ties with North Korea.


title: History of Malta

text: During the Mintoff years, Libya had loaned several million dollars to Malta to make up for the loss of rental income which followed the closure of British military bases in Malta. These closer ties with Libya meant a dramatic new (but short-lived) development in Maltese foreign policy: Western media reported that Malta appeared to be turning its back on NATO, the UK, and Europe generally.


title: History of Malta

text: History books were published that began to spread the idea of a disconnection between the Italian and Catholic populations, and instead tried to promote the theory of closer cultural and ethnic ties with North Africa. This new development was noted by Boissevain in 1991: "The Labour government broke off relations with NATO and sought links with the Arab world. After 900 years of being linked to Europe, Malta began to look southward. Muslims, still remembered in folklore for savage pirate attacks, were redefined as blood brothers".


title: History of Malta

text: Malta and Libya had entered into a "Friendship and Cooperation Treaty", in response to repeated overtures by Gaddafi for a closer, more formal union between the two countries; and, for a brief period, Arabic had become a compulsory subject in Maltese secondary schools. In 1984 the Mariam Al-Batool Mosque was officially opened by Muammar Gaddafi in Malta, two years after its completion.


title: History of Malta

text: In 1980 an oil rig of the Italian company Saipem commissioned by Texaco to drill on behalf of the Maltese government 68 nautical miles south-east of Malta had to stop operations after being threatened by a Libyan gunboat. Both Malta and Libya claimed economic rights to the area and this incident raised tensions. The matter was referred to the International Court of Justice in 1982 but the court's ruling in 1985 dealt only with the delineation of a small part of the contested territory.


title: History of Malta

text: In 1980, Malta signed a neutrality agreement with Italy, under which Malta agreed not to enter into any alliance and Italy agreed to guarantee Malta's neutrality. Malta's relations with Italy have been described as "generally excellent".


title: History of Malta

text: The 1981 general elections saw the Nationalist Party (NP) gaining an absolute majority of votes, yet the Labour winning the majority of Parliamentary seats under the Single Transferable Vote and Mintoff remained Prime Minister, leading to a political crisis. The Nationalists, now led by Eddie Fenech Adami, refused to accept the electoral result and also refused to take their seats in parliament for the first years of the legislature, mounting a campaign demanding that Parliament should reflect the democratic will of the people. Despite this, the Labour government remained in power for the full five-year term. Mintoff resigned as Prime Minister and Party leader and appointed Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici as his successor in 1984.


title: History of Malta

text: The Mifsud Bonnici years were characterised by political tensions and violence. After a five-year debate, Fenech Adami, through the intervention of Dom Mintoff, reached an agreement with Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici to improve the constitution. Constitutional amendments were made voted and made effective in January 1987 which guaranteed that the party with an absolute majority of votes would be given a majority of parliamentary seats in order to govern. This paved the way for the return of the Nationalist Party to government later that year.


title: History of Malta

text: The general elections that followed in 1987 saw the Nationalist Party achieve such a majority of votes. The new Nationalist administration of Edward Fenech Adami sought to improve Malta's ties with Western Europe and the United States.


title: History of Malta

text: The Nationalist Party advocated Malta's membership in the European Union presenting an application on 16 July 1990. This became a divisive issue, with Labour opposing membership.


title: History of Malta

text: A wide-ranging programme of liberalisation and public investments meant the confirmation in office of the Nationalists with a larger majority in the 1992 elections. In 1993, local councils were re-established in Malta.


title: History of Malta

text: General elections were held in Malta on 26 October 1996; although Labour received the most votes, the Nationalists won the most seats. The 1987 constitutional amendments had to be used for the second time, and the Labour Party was awarded an additional four seats to ensure they had a majority in Parliament.


title: History of Malta

text: A split in the Labour Party in 1998, between the PM Sant and the former PM Mintoff (died in 2012) resulted in the government losing the majority. Notwithstanding the President of the Republic's preference for a negotiated solution, all attempts proved futile, and he had no other option but to accept Sant and his government's resignation and a call for early elections.


title: History of Malta

text: On being returned to office in the 1998 elections with a wide 13,000 vote margin, the Nationalist Party reactivated the EU membership application. Malta was formally accepted as a candidate country at the Helsinki European Council of December 1999.


title: History of Malta

text: EU accession negotiations were concluded late in 2002 and a referendum on membership in 2003 saw 90.86% casting a valid vote of which 53.65% were "yes" votes. Labour stated that it would not be bound by this result were it returned to power in the following general election that year. In the circumstances, elections were called and the Nationalist Party, led by Prime minister Fenech Adami, won another mandate, In April 2004, Eddie Fenech Adami was sworn in as President of Malta. Lawrence Gonzi succeeded him as Prime Minister and the leader of the Nationalist Party. The accession treaty was signed and ratified and Malta joined the EU on 1 May 2004. A consensus on membership was subsequently achieved with Labour saying it would respect this result. Joe Borg was appointed as first Maltese European commissioner in the first Barroso Commission.


title: History of Malta

text: Malta's accession to the European Union in 2004 had important implications for the state's foreign policy. Notably, Malta was required to withdraw from the Non-Aligned Movement of which the state had been an active member since 1971.


title: History of Malta

text: In the context of EU membership, Malta joined the Eurozone on 1 January 2008; the 2008 election confirmed Gonzi in the premiership, while in 2009 George Abela became President of Malta.


title: History of Malta

text: On 28 May 2011, the Maltese voted 'yes' in the consultative divorce referendum. At that time, Malta was one of only three countries in the world, along with the Philippines and the Vatican City, in which divorce was not permitted. As a consequence of the referendum outcome, a law allowing divorce under certain conditions was enacted in the same year.


title: History of Malta

text: Following a corruption scandal John Dalli had to resign and was replaced by Tonio Borg as Maltese commissioner in 2012. A snap election was called for March 2013 after the Gonzi government lost the Parliamentary majority. The Nationalist Party lost the election after having governed Malta more than 15 years since 1987 (except for a period from 1996 to 1998). Labour Party leader Joseph Muscat was elected as Prime Minister.


title: History of Malta

text: In April 2019, the parliament elected George Vella as the 10th President of the Republic of Malta to succeed Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca.


title: History of Malta

text: On 16 October 2017, Maltese journalist and anti-corruption activist Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated in a car bomb near her residence in Bidnija. Her murder caused an uproar of criticism for the Labour government and the judicial system on the islands. Following evidence of implication between Joseph Muscat's close circle and the arrest of Yorgen Fenech, a long series of protests on the islands and international criticism precipitated the 2019–2020 political crisis. This resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Minister Konrad Mizzi, and Prime Minister's Chief of Staff Keith Schembri. An internal election on 11 January 2020 within the Maltese Labour party elected Robert Abela, son of former president George Abela, as party leader, and Prime Minister of Malta.


title: History of Malta

text: In March 2022, the ruling Labour party, led by Prime Minister Robert Abela, won its third successive election. It gained even bigger victory than in 2013 and in 2017.


title: Matthew Casey

text: Matthew Casey is a fictional character on the NBC drama "Chicago Fire", portrayed by actor Jesse Spencer. Casey is a firefighter at Firehouse 51. He was a lieutenant from Seasons 1-6 and from season 6 is a captain in the Chicago Fire Department on Truck Company 81.


title: Matthew Casey

text: The character had an ongoing feud with Detective Hank Voight (Jason Beghe), a protagonist in "Chicago Fire" spin-off "Chicago P.D." Casey's storyline crosses with Voight's once again in the season 3 finale of "Chicago Fire", after he reluctantly agrees to help Voight with an undercover investigation.


title: Matthew Casey

text: As the leader of the truck company, Casey's cool, standoffish demeanor and no-nonsense attitude sometimes put his crew off, but he is respected by them and highly regarded by Chief Boden. He is extremely private about his personal life, preferring to wallow in his own problems rather than seek help from his colleagues. He sometimes comes across as distant and aloof, as he usually keeps to himself during down time, even when around colleagues in the lounge room. In the season 4 premiere, Herrmann tellingly comments that the way Casey deals with things is "not dealing with it"; of all the characters, he generally confides in Severide or Dawson and only after he is at his breaking point. Despite this, Casey does care for his men and will not hesitate to defend them, even if it means standing up to his superiors and risking his own career. He trusts the men of his truck company implicitly (and vice versa) and is generally quite lax with them in good faith that they will maintain professional standards themselves, only disciplining them when he has no choice. However, he is known for being tough with candidates, as seen with Mills, Jones, and Borrelli, and would either personally or have one of his more senior firefighters regularly drill them.


title: Matthew Casey

text: Casey is the son and youngest child of Gregory and Nancy Casey and has an older sister, Christie. He is burdened by his ex-convict mother Nancy, who shattered the family 15 years earlier when she murdered his abusive father. He and his older sister grew distant with each other after their father's death, but they have since mended their relationship. His family still remains a touchy subject and, according to veterans Mouch and Herrmann, there is an unspoken rule within the firehouse that no one is to mention Casey's family or ask him about them. His relationship with Gabriela Dawson was a major storyline throughout the series and they eventually married in the series' 100th episode. Their relationship ended when Dawson left Chicago to head a rescue-and-relief unit in Puerto Rico at the end of season 6, and they eventually divorced.


title: Matthew Casey

text: After Dawson's departure, Casey gradually grew closer to her former partner, paramedic-in-charge Sylvie Brett, throughout seasons 7 to 9. Eventually they fell in love with each other and finally consummated their relationship in the season 9 finale "No Survivors". In the season 10 episode "Two Hundred" Casey moves to Oregon to take care of Andrew Darden's sons, becoming their legal guardian, but maintains a long-distance relationship with Brett.


title: Matthew Casey

text: A skilled handyman and carpenter, Casey freelances as a construction contractor when off-duty. Other characters have consulted him for advice on construction-related issues. For example, he was "consulted" by Herrmann on renovation works and building code compliance for Molly's and built a ramp for a paraplegic accident victim he and his men had rescued.


title: Matthew Casey

text: In the pilot, Casey and Kelly Severide are shown to be good friends since their days at the fire academy and longtime coworkers who are at loggerheads with each other, much to Chief Boden's frustration, over the death of fellow firefighter and close friend Andy Darden due to a bad call. Although they try to remain professional in front of their men, their spats often make their way into the firehouse off duty to the point where they indirectly insult each other, with newest candidate Peter Mills getting caught in the crossfire. They eventually put aside their animosity by the end of the first season. Throughout the show they are often seen putting themselves in danger to assist each other during dangerous calls. Both are known to their men as intensely guarded and reticent about their personal lives but they confide in each other, usually over a beer or sharing a cigar on the firehouse roof.


title: Matthew Casey

text: Darden's death affects Casey in the following episodes because he is forced to look after Darden's two young sons when Darden's widow, Heather, is imprisoned for DUI manslaughter. He discovers that he was named their legal guardian in the Dardens' will, and their time together helps him develop a strong relationship with the boys. The fact that Heather still keeps in contact with Casey is a sore point for him and Severide as she blames Severide for failing to prevent her husband's death.


title: Matthew Casey

text: Casey is engaged to Dr. Hallie Thomas for a time, but she tells him she never wants to have children (in contrast to his desire for them) and they decide to break it off. He tentatively pursues Gabby Dawson but they end up staying friends. At the end of the first season in "Ambition", Hallie returns and Casey rekindles his relationship with her. After discovering a drug ring in a clinic where she works, she is murdered in the season 1 episode "Leaders Lead". Despite Casey and Severide’s efforts to rescue her from the fire set at her clinic, Casey is told by a doctor that Hallie has died, and he begins weeping in Mills’ arms. At the end of season 1 and the prelude into season 2, Gabby shows up at his door helping him cope with Hallie's death. She has for a long time had a crush on him, but on a casual date at her cousin's Christmas party, he "kissed her on the cheek" when she tried to kiss him, and from then on Dawson seems mad at him. In the season 2 episode "Rhymes with Shout" he shows up at Gabby's door and kisses her. At the start of the next episode, they are shown waking up in bed together. In the season 2 episode "Not Like This", Casey risks his life to save a baby in a burning building and is rushed to the hospital in critical condition. When he gets back on the job, he suffers from neurological symptoms such as memory loss, uncharacteristic outbursts of anger and headaches but keeps this from his colleagues, although his erratic behavior is quickly picked up by several veteran coworkers and Dawson. When he begins to bleed from his ear, he sees a doctor who tells him that it was caused by a crack in his skull and warns him that another hit to the head could be catastrophic. He decides not to tell his colleagues or the Chief, fearing that he would be forced into disability retirement.


title: Matthew Casey

text: After Mills breaks up with Dawson for various reasons (one being Dawson’s feelings for Casey), Dawson and Casey begin to spend more time together, partially because Casey has to look after Heather's children (even with his 24-hour shifts) and asks for help. After spending more time together, Casey and Dawson decide for the moment they are happy just being friends. Casey eventually gets help from Dawson's friend, Isabella, to get Heather moved to a minimum security facility so that she can see Griffin and Ben more often. In the episode "No Regrets", Heather gets released due to overcrowding and she moves to Florida because she can't live in Chicago without being reminded of both her husband and friend's death. This deeply saddens Casey, but he understands. In the episode "You Will Hurt Him", Casey and Dawson wake up in bed together. Dawson still has doubts and fears about Casey's commitment but he tells her, "I had a chance at this a year ago and I blew it. I've been regretting it ever since." He further assures his commitment by telling her "As far as I'm concerned, it's our time now." They kiss and start a relationship. He proposes to her in the season two finale "Real Never Waits", but before he can get an answer the bells go off and they head to a call at which Shay is killed. This puts off his plans for a while but months later in "Wow Me", Casey proposes to Dawson again at the Fire academy, and she happily says "yes" even before he can finish the question. The two then go home to have sex. However, their happiness is short lived because Dawson joins Truck 81 and therefore as coworkers they cannot get married. In "Nobody Touches Anything", the two share how they would do anything if they could get married now and seal it with a kiss. This is also short-lived because after they are caught kissing, things go downhill for the couple. Following Shay's death, Severide moves in with Casey and Dawson. Some of the strain on Casey and Dawson's relationship comes from Casey and Severide's relationship; with Casey putting Severide in front of Dawson. This, amongst other things, leads Dawson to break up with Casey in "Let Him Die". In "Headlong Toward Disaster", Severide turns down an order from his chief to spy on Casey. He also tells the chief that Casey is "one of the finest firefighters [he's] ever had the opportunity to work with in the entire CFD." Severide is the only person on the show, besides Dawson and Chief Boden, to call Casey by his first name. Casey is the only person on the show to call Severide by the nickname "Sev", while Severide is the only person on the show to call Casey by the nickname "Case".


title: Matthew Casey

text: In the season 3 episode "Category 5", Casey knowingly turns down Voight's help (hinting that there are still tensions between him and Voight) with a case of human trafficking that involves the owner of a strip club, Jack Nesbitt. Nesbitt is a former firefighter and friend. Casey initially takes on construction as a favor but senses that something is not right about some of Nesbitt's "business associates". He eventually agrees to help Voight get intel about Nesbitt. In the season finale, "Spartacus", he is discovered missing when Dawson goes to his house to check on him. She finds his apartment trashed and torn apart and the dead body of a stripper named Katya who had worked for Nesbitt's strip club. Casey is nowhere to be found, presumably kidnapped.


title: Matthew Casey

text: It is revealed that Katya had been compiling a notebook of evidence with the intention of exposing the trafficking ring running out of Nesbitt's nightclub. She went to Casey's house to ask for help but they are ambushed by Bulgarian criminals who kill Katya on the spot. For the first several episodes, Casey is seen struggling to come to terms with Nesbitt's betrayal and having to witness a murder in his own home. His inner turmoil is somewhat assuaged when Dawson, who is temporarily on desk duty at the Office of Fire Investigation, reveals to him that she is pregnant with their child. They intended to keep the secret "in-house" but word eventually spreads to their colleagues, even to their contemporaries at the CPD, but Dawson suffers a miscarriage.


title: Matthew Casey

text: Casey's relationship with Dawson became strained when they disagree over her decision to foster Louie, a boy they had rescued who had no listed next of kin. He comes to accept Louie, much to Dawson's delight. They push for an adoption but a judge tells him that their chances are slim due to the lack of evidence that they are in a committed relationship. In the 100th episode he and Dawson get married and file for the adoption together. However, Louie's biological father files for custody, having just returned from a deployment in Afghanistan and having learned about Louie's existence recently. He succeeds as he is backed by his immediate family members.


title: Matthew Casey

text: In the season 5 finale "My Miracle", Casey's life is left hanging in the balance when he is trapped in a warehouse fire along with Herrmann, Mouch, Kidd, Otis, Severide and Kannell. His fate is not revealed until the season 6 premiere, and he calls Gabby "my miracle" in what looks like a goodbye speech to her as he is not sure if he will be able to get out.


title: Matthew Casey

text: In the season 6 premiere "It Wasn't Enough", Boden makes the call to open up the water cannon, ordering the men to take cover any way they can. Casey is seen taking cover using a metal cabinet, as well as shielding a victim. When Boden finds Casey, he is passed out under the cabinet with his PASS alarm going off. The episode jumps two months later where the firehouse looks to be at a memorial to his life. They are in dress blues for this, but it turns out Casey receives a medal of valor after the fire and he along with the rest of Firehouse 51 return to normal lives.


title: Matthew Casey

text: In "An Even Bigger Surprise", he is recommended for promotion to Captain after rescuing a suicidal mentally unstable person from jumping off a building. In "A Breaking Point", after rescuing Dawson from the collapsed parking garage, he is promoted to Captain. Uniformed personnel clap for him and Dawson and the two hug. In "Devil's Bargain" he snaps at Ramon and then gets in to it with Dawson. He also has come to blows with Severide after they decide how to get a patient down who is trapped in wire on a building.


title: Matthew Casey

text: In "Down Is Better", after having learned that Hope, Sylvie Brett's friend from Indiana, has forged a signature from a fire chief, Matt and Chief Boden dismiss her from the fire station. In "Slamigan", Casey and Dawson are awarded temporary foster guardian of Bria Jamison, a runaway teen who has an addict father and family members who want nothing to do with her. In "Law of the Jungle", in the middle of a call of a warehouse fire, Casey and Severide jump off the roof as it explodes. In "The F Is For", he and Severide jump into the river fully clothed, and while Casey swims and heads to the surface, Severide is injured, and Kidd rescues him. Casey is then comforted by Gabby, and Severide recovers.


title: Matthew Casey

text: In "The Strongest Among Us", Casey helps Gabby get Bria ready for prom. He decides they should have something good to remember so he lets Bria and her date ride in the Truck. After the truck leaves Gabby tells Matt she wants to start trying again which he agrees to. In "The Grand Gesture", after going to a doctor and finding out Gabby has a 10% chance of dying if she gets pregnant, he decides he doesn't want her getting pregnant. He brings up adoption and looks into it, which makes Gabby upset since she's afraid the same thing will happen that happened to Louie. After a fight in the last episode, Gabby tells Matt she'll be right back and goes to ask about a job in Puerto Rico while he stays home, not sure where his wife has gone. In "A Closer Eye", his wife Gabriela, comes back from Puerto Rico only for her to leave once and for all. In "Going to War", while fighting an apartment fire, Brett expresses blame to Casey for letting Gabby go, only for him to tell her that there was nothing anyone else could do.


title: Matthew Casey

text: In "The Solution to Everything", Casey tells Severide that he and Dawson are divorced. He starts dating a reporter named Naomi but she tells him in "Inside These Walls" that she is going to Zurich. He is surprised but happy that she helped him deal with the departure of his ex-wife.


title: Matthew Casey

text: In "You Choose", Brett helps Casey look for an apartment to live in following the fire that destroyed his old apartment. She finds what appears to be the 'perfect apartment', but Casey decides to move in with Severide following his breakup with Stella Kidd. In "Fault in Him", while on a call for a suicide attempt and getting a clear from one of the officers, he is ambushed by a gunman who had killed his brother. In "Move a Wall", as he deals with his post-traumatic stress stemming from the events, he takes it out on Herrmann when Ritter gets injured on a call.


title: Matthew Casey

text: In "Double Red", While on the scene of a call, Casey is hit by an uncooperative drunk driver and he fears that his career at the fire department may be over. In "Natural Born Firefighter", Casey goes to get an MRI as a result of his head injury and Brett comes with him. He says that the results could mean he might have to quit the CFD.


title: Matthew Casey

text: The MRI shows no damage to his brain. The complaints were caused because of a shoulder injury. Both Brett and Casey are happy to hear Casey is cleared to return to full duty. They share a long and passionate hug.


title: Matthew Casey

text: In "A White-Knuckle Panic" Casey finally confessed his true feelings to Brett and tells her that he loves her, and they consummated their relationship in the season 9 finale "No Survivors".


title: Matthew Casey

text: In season 1, he is engaged to Dr. Hallie Thomas but they end it when she tells him she doesn't want to have kids. Later on, they resume the relationship. However, at the end of season 1, Hallie dies in a fire at the clinic where she works.


title: Matthew Casey

text: His relationship with Dawson starts at the end of season 1 after the death of his fiancée Hallie. Their relationship goes up and down. At the end of season 3, Dawson reveals she is pregnant. However, she loses her child as a result of ectopic pregnancy in the beginning of season 4. They foster Louie at the end of season 4 and in season 5, they marry in the 100th episode in order to successfully adopt Louie.


title: Matthew Casey

text: At the end of season 6, Dawson leaves for Puerto Rico for relief help. She returns once more in the opening episode but tells Casey she will move there. She returns to Chicago for a charity event in "Best Friend Magic".


title: Matthew Casey

text: After the departure of Dawson, Matt grew close to her partner, Sylvie. They have been there for each other during tough times, like when Casey lost his home to arson or her break-up with a CFD chaplain. However, after a friend mentioned that Sylvie should be with Matt, she was initially confused by her feelings for him, especially since she was close to his ex-wife. However, she got engaged to her ex-boyfriend before Matt could ask her out.


title: Matthew Casey

text: In season 8, Sylvie is still confused by her feelings for Matt, getting overly defensive when he assumes she was going on a date. However, Matt helps her through a very difficult time of not only reconnecting with her birth mother, but in the aftermath of her death and the possibility of raising her new baby half-sister on her own.


title: Matthew Casey

text: In season 9, Matt's feelings for Brett become more apparent when he offered to stay at Sylvie's place after she suspects a violent brother of an OD patient may be out for revenge and after her ambulance was run off the road, Matt jumped out of the truck without it stopping. This culminates to a kiss at the end of the episode, but Brett stops before it progresses any further because of their relationship with Dawson. While the two try to move on from the kiss, Matt struggles to get over her and she begins dating another truck lieutenant at another firehouse. However, when an old head injury threatens Casey's career, Brett was there for him, but causing her boyfriend to break up with her. After Severide encouraged him, Casey told Brett about his real feelings for her and a period of awkwardness between them, she admitted the same. Soon, after they consummated their relationship.


title: Matthew Casey

text: In season 10, Casey moves to Oregon to take care of Andrew Darden's sons, becoming their legal guardian, but he and Sylvie still love each other, and they agree to continue dating each other, with their relationship turning into a long-distance relationship.


title: Matthew Casey

text: Casey has appeared on "Chicago P.D.", mainly in cross-overs. Although he is on friendly terms with most characters, he has a notable grudge against Sgt. Hank Voight due to the fact that he was a victim of Voight's cover as a corrupt cop running with local gangs and was made livid by Voight's cover-up of his son's DUI. The animosity has since faded some since Voight saved him from being shot by Jack Nesbitt in the nick of time and assisted Boden in several arson-related investigations. Matt even showed sympathy to Voight after the loss of his son, Justin.


title: Lovedrive

text: Lovedrive is the sixth studio album by German band Scorpions, released in 1979. Considered by some critics to be the pinnacle of their career, "Lovedrive" was a major evolution of the band's sound, exhibiting their "classic style" that would be later developed over their next few albums. "Lovedrive" cemented the "Scorpions formula" of hard rock songs combined with melodic ballads.


title: Lovedrive

text: "Lovedrive" was the band’s first album to be released by Harvest Records in Europe and Mercury Records in the United States and Canada following the band's departure from RCA. It proved to be a major commercial breakthrough, reaching No. 55 on the "Billboard" Top 200, which none of their previous five albums had dented at all. The RIAA certified the record as Gold on 28 May 1986, and the album also proved a breakthrough in the United Kingdom where it was the first Scorpions album to chart and peaked at No. 36.


title: Lovedrive

text: This is the first album to feature Matthias Jabs on lead guitar, and thus the first record to feature the band's "classic" lineup. Jabs replaced Uli Jon Roth who went on to form his own band, Electric Sun.


title: Lovedrive

text: Michael Schenker, younger brother of rhythm guitarist Rudolf, had just split from UFO. He recorded lead guitars on "Another Piece of Meat", "Coast to Coast", "Holiday", "Loving You Sunday Morning" and "Lovedrive". At the beginning of the Scorpions' German tour in February 1979, Michael rejoined the band and the group reluctantly parted ways with Matthias Jabs. However, in April 1979 while the band was touring in France, Michael quit, which led to Jabs' immediate return after intense negotiations.


title: Lovedrive

text: The original album cover depicted a well dressed man and woman seated in the back of a car, with the woman's right breast exposed and connected to the man's hand by stretched bubblegum. The back cover featured the same man and woman, but holding a photograph of the band, and with the woman's left breast completely exposed without any gum. It was created by Storm Thorgerson of the design firm Hipgnosis. It caused some controversy in the US upon the album's release, with later pressings of the album bearing a simple design of a blue scorpion on a black background. The original uncensored art was restored for the remaster series.


title: Lovedrive

text: Recalling the cover photo with the woman and the car, Thorgerson remarked: "Not exactly the most politically correct scene you've ever seen. I thought it was funny, but women read a different inflection into it now."


title: Lovedrive

text: In a 2010 interview, singer Klaus Meine commented on the album cover, stating: "We just did not know it would be a problem in America, it was just sex and rock 'n' roll. It is odd that in America some of these covers were a problem, because in the '80s when we would tour here, we always had boobs flashed to us at the front of the stage. Nowhere else in the world, just here. We just did not think it would be a problem to put out a record like "Lovedrive" in America."


title: Nous

text: Nous, or Greek νοῦς (, ), sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, is a concept from classical philosophy for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real.


title: Nous

text: Alternative English terms used in philosophy include "understanding" and "mind"; or sometimes "thought" or "reason" (in the sense of that which reasons, not the activity of reasoning). It is also often described as something equivalent to perception except that it works within the mind ("the mind's eye"). It has been suggested that the basic meaning is something like "awareness". In colloquial British English, "nous" also denotes "good sense", which is close to one everyday meaning it had in Ancient Greece. The nous performed a role comparable to the modern concept of intuition.


title: Nous

text: In Aristotle's influential works, which are the main source of later philosophical meanings, nous was carefully distinguished from sense perception, imagination, and reason, although these terms are closely inter-related. The term was apparently already singled out by earlier philosophers such as Parmenides, whose works are largely lost. In post-Aristotelian discussions, the exact boundaries between perception, understanding of perception, and reasoning have not always agreed with the definitions of Aristotle, even though his terminology remains influential.


title: Nous

text: In the Aristotelian scheme, "nous" is the basic understanding or awareness that allows human beings to think rationally. For Aristotle, this was distinct from the processing of sensory perception, including the use of imagination and memory, which other animals can do. For him then, discussion of "nous" is connected to discussion of how the human mind sets definitions in a consistent and communicable way, and whether people must be born with some innate potential to understand the same universal categories in the same logical ways. Derived from this it was also sometimes argued in classical and medieval philosophy, that the individual "nous" must require help of a spiritual and divine type. By this type of account, it also came to be argued that the human understanding ("nous") somehow stems from this cosmic "nous", which is however not just a recipient of order, but a creator of it. Such explanations were influential in the development of medieval accounts of God, the immortality of the soul, and even the motions of the stars, in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, amongst both eclectic philosophers and authors representing all the major faiths of their times.


title: Nous

text: In early Greek uses, Homer used "nous" to signify mental activities of both mortals and immortals, for example what they really have on their mind as opposed to what they say aloud. It was one of several words related to thought, thinking, and perceiving with the mind. In pre-Socratic philosophy, it became increasingly distinguished as a source of knowledge and reasoning opposed to mere sense perception or thinking influenced by the body such as emotion. For example, Heraclitus complained that "much learning does not teach "nous"".


title: Nous

text: Among some Greek authors, a faculty of intelligence known as a "higher mind" came to be considered as a property of the cosmos as a whole. The work of Parmenides set the scene for Greek philosophy to come and the concept of "nous" was central to his radical proposals. He claimed that reality as perceived by the senses alone is not a world of truth at all, because sense perception is so unreliable, and what is perceived is so uncertain and changeable. Instead he argued for a dualism wherein "nous" and related words (the verb for thinking which describes its mental perceiving activity, "noein", and the unchanging and eternal objects of this perception, "noēta") describe another form of perception which is not physical, but intellectual only, distinct from sense perception and the objects of sense perception.


title: Nous

text: Anaxagoras, born about 500 BC, is the first person who is definitely known to have explained the concept of a "nous" (mind), which arranged all other things in the cosmos in their proper order, started them in a rotating motion, and continuing to control them to some extent, having an especially strong connection with living things. (However Aristotle reports an earlier philosopher, Hermotimus of Clazomenae, who had taken a similar position.) Amongst the pre-Socratic philosophers before Anaxagoras, other philosophers had proposed a similar ordering human-like principle causing life and the rotation of the heavens. For example, Empedocles, like Hesiod much earlier, described cosmic order and living things as caused by a cosmic version of love, and Pythagoras and Heraclitus, attributed the cosmos with "reason" ("logos").


title: Nous

text: According to Anaxagoras the cosmos is made of infinitely divisible matter, every bit of which can inherently become anything, except Mind ("nous"), which is also matter, but which can only be found separated from this general mixture, or else mixed into living things, or in other words in the Greek terminology of the time, things with a soul ("psychē"). Anaxagoras wrote:


title: Nous

text: Concerning cosmology, Anaxagoras, like some Greek philosophers already before him, believed the cosmos was revolving, and had formed into its visible order as a result of such revolving causing a separating and mixing of different types of chemical elements. "Nous", in his system, originally caused this revolving motion to start, but it does not necessarily continue to play a role once the mechanical motion has started. His description was in other words (shockingly for the time) corporeal or mechanical, with the moon made of earth, the sun and stars made of red hot metal (beliefs Socrates was later accused of holding during his trial) and "nous" itself being a physically fine type of matter which also gathered and concentrated with the development of the cosmos. This "nous" (mind) is not incorporeal; it is the thinnest of all things. The distinction between "nous" and other things nevertheless causes his scheme to sometimes be described as a peculiar kind of dualism.


title: Nous

text: Anaxagoras' concept of "nous" was distinct from later platonic and neoplatonic cosmologies in many ways, which were also influenced by Eleatic, Pythagorean and other pre-Socratic ideas, as well as the Socratics themselves.


title: Nous

text: In some schools of Hindu philosophy, a "higher mind" came to be considered a property of the cosmos as a whole that exists within all matter (known as buddhi or mahat). In Samkhya, this faculty of intellect (buddhi) serves to differentiate matter (prakrti) from pure consciousness (purusha). The lower aspect of mind that corresponds to the senses is referred to as "manas".


title: Nous

text: Xenophon, the less famous of the two students of Socrates whose written accounts of him have survived, recorded that he taught his students a kind of teleological justification of piety and respect for divine order in nature. This has been described as an "intelligent design" argument for the existence of God, in which nature has its own "nous". For example, in his "Memorabilia" 1.4.8, he describes Socrates asking a friend sceptical of religion, "Are you, then, of the opinion that intelligence ("nous") alone exists nowhere and that you by some good chance seized hold of it, while—as you think—those surpassingly large and infinitely numerous things [all the earth and water] are in such orderly condition through some senselessness?" Later in the same discussion he compares the "nous", which directs each person's body, to the good sense ("phronēsis") of the god, which is in everything, arranging things to its pleasure (1.4.17). Plato describes Socrates making the same argument in his "Philebus" 28d, using the same words "nous" and "phronēsis".


title: Nous

text: Plato used the word "nous" in many ways that were not unusual in the everyday Greek of the time, and often simply meant "good sense" or "awareness". On the other hand, in some of his Platonic dialogues it is described by key characters in a higher sense, which was apparently already common. In his "Philebus" 28c he has Socrates say that "all philosophers agree—whereby they really exalt themselves—that mind ("nous") is king of heaven and earth. Perhaps they are right." and later states that the ensuing discussion "confirms the utterances of those who declared of old that mind ("nous") always rules the universe".


title: Nous

text: In his "Cratylus", Plato gives the etymology of Athena's name, the goddess of wisdom, from "Atheonóa" (Ἀθεονόα) meaning "god's ("theos") mind ("nous")". In his "Phaedo", Plato's teacher Socrates is made to say just before dying that his discovery of Anaxagoras' concept of a cosmic "nous" as the cause of the order of things, was an important turning point for him. But he also expressed disagreement with Anaxagoras' understanding of the implications of his own doctrine, because of Anaxagoras' materialist understanding of causation. Socrates said that Anaxagoras would "give voice and air and hearing and countless other things of the sort as causes for our talking with each other, and should fail to mention the real causes, which are, that the Athenians decided that it was best to condemn me". On the other hand, Socrates seems to suggest that he also failed to develop a fully satisfactory teleological and dualistic understanding of a mind of nature, whose aims represent the Good, which all parts of nature aim at.


title: Nous

text: Concerning the "nous" that is the source of understanding of individuals, Plato is widely understood to have used ideas from Parmenides in addition to Anaxagoras. Like Parmenides, Plato argued that relying on sense perception can never lead to true knowledge, only opinion. Instead, Plato's more philosophical characters argue that "nous" must somehow perceive truth directly in the ways gods and daimons perceive. What our mind sees directly in order to really understand things must not be the constantly changing material things, but unchanging entities that exist in a different way, the so-called "forms" or "ideas". However he knew that contemporary philosophers often argued (as in modern science) that "nous" and perception are just two aspects of one physical activity, and that perception is the source of knowledge and understanding (not the other way around).


title: Nous

text: Just exactly how Plato believed that the "nous" of people lets them come to understand things in any way that improves upon sense perception and the kind of thinking which animals have, is a subject of long running discussion and debate. On the one hand, in the "Republic" Plato's Socrates, in the Analogy of the sun and Allegory of the Cave describes people as being able to perceive more clearly because of something from outside themselves, something like when the sun shines, helping eyesight. The source of this illumination for the intellect is referred to as the Form of the Good. On the other hand, in the "Meno" for example, Plato's Socrates explains the theory of "anamnesis" whereby people are born with ideas already in their soul, which they somehow remember from previous lives. Both theories were to become highly influential.


title: Nous

text: As in Xenophon, Plato's Socrates frequently describes the soul in a political way, with ruling parts, and parts that are by nature meant to be ruled. "Nous" is associated with the rational ("logistikon") part of the individual human soul, which by nature should rule. In his "Republic", in the so-called "analogy of the divided line", it has a special function within this rational part. Plato tended to treat "nous" as the only immortal part of the soul.


title: Nous

text: Concerning the cosmos, in the "Timaeus", the title character also tells a "likely story" in which "nous" is responsible for the creative work of the demiurge or maker who brought rational order to our universe. This craftsman imitated what he perceived in the world of eternal Forms. In the "Philebus" Socrates argues that "nous" in individual humans must share in a cosmic "nous", in the same way that human bodies are made up of small parts of the elements found in the rest of the universe. And this "nous" must be in the "genos" of being a cause of all particular things as particular things.


title: Nous

text: Like Plato, Aristotle saw the "nous" or intellect of an individual as somehow similar to sense perception but also distinct. Sense perception in action provides images to the "nous", via the ""sensus communis"" and imagination, without which thought could not occur. But other animals have "sensus communis" and imagination, whereas none of them have "nous". Aristotelians divide perception of forms into the animal-like one which perceives "species sensibilis" or "sensible forms", and "species intelligibilis" that are perceived in a different way by the "nous".


title: Nous

text: Like Plato, Aristotle linked "nous" to "logos" (reason) as uniquely human, but he also distinguished "nous" from "logos", thereby distinguishing the faculty for setting definitions from the faculty that uses them to reason with. In his "Nicomachean Ethics", Aristotle divides the soul ("psychē") into two parts, one which has reason and one which does not, but then divides the part which has reason into the reasoning ("logistikos") part itself which is lower, and the higher "knowing" ("epistēmonikos") part which contemplates general principles ("archai"). "Nous", he states, is the source of the first principles or sources ("archai") of definitions, and it develops naturally as people gain experience. This he explains after first comparing the four other truth revealing capacities of soul: technical know how ("technē"), logically deduced knowledge ("epistēmē", sometimes translated as "scientific knowledge"), practical wisdom ("phronēsis"), and lastly theoretical wisdom ("sophia"), which is defined by Aristotle as the combination of "nous" and "epistēmē". All of these others apart from "nous" are types of reason ("logos").


title: Nous

text: Aristotle's philosophical works continue many of the same Socratic themes as his teacher Plato. Amongst the new proposals he made was a way of explaining causality, and "nous" is an important part of his explanation. As mentioned above, Plato criticized Anaxagoras' materialism, or understanding that the intellect of nature only set the cosmos in motion, but is no longer seen as the cause of physical events. Aristotle explained that the changes of things can be described in terms of four causes at the same time. Two of these four causes are similar to the materialist understanding: each thing has a material which causes it to be how it is, and some other thing which set in motion or initiated some process of change. But at the same time according to Aristotle each thing is also caused by the natural forms they are tending to become, and the natural ends or aims, which somehow exist in nature as causes, even in cases where human plans and aims are not involved. These latter two causes (the "formal" and "final") encompass the continuous effect of the intelligent ordering principle of nature itself. Aristotle's special description of causality is especially apparent in the natural development of living things. It leads to a method whereby Aristotle analyses causation and motion in terms of the potentialities and actualities of all things, whereby all matter possesses various possibilities or potentialities of form and end, and these possibilities become more fully real as their potential forms become actual or active reality (something they will do on their own, by nature, unless stopped because of other natural things happening). For example, a stone has in its nature the potentiality of falling to the earth and it will do so, and actualize this natural tendency, if nothing is in the way.


title: Nous

text: Aristotle analyzed thinking in the same way. For him, the possibility of understanding rests on the relationship between intellect and sense perception. Aristotle's remarks on the concept of what came to be called the "active intellect" and "passive intellect" (along with various other terms) are amongst "the most intensely studied sentences in the history of philosophy". The terms are derived from a single passage in Aristotle's "De Anima", Book III. Following is the translation of one of those passages with some key Greek words shown in square brackets.


title: Nous

text: ...since in nature one thing is the material ["hulē"] for each kind ["genos"] (this is what is in potency all the particular things of that kind) but it is something else that is the causal and productive thing by which all of them are formed, as is the case with an art in relation to its material, it is necessary in the soul ["psychē"] too that these distinct aspects be present;


title: Nous

text: the one sort is intellect ["nous"] by becoming all things, the other sort by forming all things, in the way an active condition ["hexis"] like light too makes the colors that are in potency be at work as colors ["to phōs poiei ta dunamei onta chrōmata energeiai chrōmata"].


title: Nous

text: This sort of intellect [which is like light in the way it makes potential things work as what they are] is separate, as well as being without attributes and unmixed, since it is by its thinghood a being-at-work ["energeia"], for what acts is always distinguished in stature above what is acted upon, as a governing source is above the material it works on.


title: Nous

text: Knowledge ["epistēmē"], in its being-at-work, is the same as the thing it knows, and while knowledge in potency comes first in time in any one knower, in the whole of things it does not take precedence even in time.


title: Nous

text: This does not mean that at one time it thinks but at another time it does not think, but when separated it is just exactly what it is, and this alone is deathless and everlasting (though we have no memory, because this sort of intellect is not acted upon, while the sort that is acted upon is destructible), and without this nothing thinks.


title: Nous

text: The passage tries to explain "how the human intellect passes from its original state, in which it does not think, to a subsequent state, in which it does" according to his distinction between potentiality and actuality. Aristotle says that the passive intellect receives the intelligible forms of things, but that the active intellect is required to make the potential knowledge into actual knowledge, in the same way that light makes potential colours into actual colours. As Davidson remarks:


title: Nous

text: Just what Aristotle meant by potential intellect and active intellect - terms not even explicit in the "De anima" and at best implied - and just how he understood the interaction between them remains moot. Students of the history of philosophy continue to debate Aristotle's intent, particularly the question whether he considered the active intellect to be an aspect of the human soul or an entity existing independently of man.


title: Nous

text: The passage is often read together with "Metaphysics", Book XII, ch.7-10, where Aristotle makes "nous" as an actuality a central subject within a discussion of the cause of being and the cosmos. In that book, Aristotle equates active "nous", when people think and their "nous" becomes what they think about, with the "unmoved mover" of the universe, and God: "For the actuality of thought ("nous") is life, and God is that actuality; and the essential actuality of God is life most good and eternal." Alexander of Aphrodisias, for example, equated this active intellect which is God with the one explained in "De Anima", while Themistius thought they could not be simply equated. (See below.)


title: Nous

text: Like Plato before him, Aristotle believes Anaxagoras' cosmic "nous" implies and requires the cosmos to have intentions or ends: "Anaxagoras makes the Good a principle as causing motion; for Mind ("nous") moves things, but moves them for some end, and therefore there must be some other Good—unless it is as we say; for on our view the art of medicine is in a sense health."


title: Nous

text: In the philosophy of Aristotle the soul (psyche) of a body is what makes it alive, and is its actualized form; thus, every living thing, including plant life, has a soul. The mind or intellect ("nous") can be described variously as a power, faculty, part, or aspect of the human soul. For Aristotle, soul and "nous" are not the same. He did not rule out the possibility that "nous" might survive without the rest of the soul, as in Plato, but he specifically says that this immortal "nous" does not include any memories or anything else specific to an individual's life. In his "Generation of Animals" Aristotle specifically says that while other parts of the soul come from the parents, physically, the human "nous", must come from outside, into the body, because it is divine or godly, and it has nothing in common with the "energeia" of the body. This was yet another passage which Alexander of Aphrodisias would link to those mentioned above from "De Anima" and the "Metaphysics" in order to understand Aristotle's intentions.


title: Nous

text: Until the early modern era, much of the discussion which has survived today concerning "nous" or intellect, in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, concerned how to correctly interpret Aristotle and Plato. However, at least during the classical period, materialist philosophies, more similar to modern science, such as Epicureanism, were still relatively common also. The Epicureans believed that the bodily senses themselves were not the cause of error, but the interpretations can be. The term "prolepsis" was used by Epicureans to describe the way the mind forms general concepts from sense perceptions.


title: Nous

text: To the Stoics, more like Heraclitus than Anaxagoras, order in the cosmos comes from an entity called logos, the cosmic reason. But as in Anaxagoras this cosmic reason, like human reason but higher, is connected to the reason of individual humans. The Stoics however, did not invoke incorporeal causation, but attempted to explain physics and human thinking in terms of matter and forces. As in Aristotelianism, they explained the interpretation of sense data requiring the mind to be stamped or formed with ideas, and that people have shared conceptions that help them make sense of things ("koine ennoia"). "Nous" for them is soul "somehow disposed" ("pôs echon"), the soul being somehow disposed "pneuma", which is fire or air or a mixture. As in Plato, they treated "nous" as the ruling part of the soul.


title: Nous

text: Plutarch criticized the Stoic idea of "nous" being corporeal, and agreed with Plato that the soul is more divine than the body while "nous" (mind) is more divine than the soul. The mix of soul and body produces pleasure and pain; the conjunction of mind and soul produces reason which is the cause or the source of virtue and vice. (From: “On the Face in the Moon”)


title: Nous

text: Albinus was one of the earliest authors to equate Aristotle's "nous" as prime mover of the Universe, with Plato's Form of the Good.


title: Nous

text: Alexander of Aphrodisias was a Peripatetic (Aristotelian) and his "On the Soul" (referred to as "De anima" in its traditional Latin title), explained that by his interpretation of Aristotle, potential intellect in man, that which has no nature but receives one from the active intellect, is material, and also called the "material intellect" ("nous hulikos") and it is inseparable from the body, being "only a disposition" of it. He argued strongly against the doctrine of immortality. On the other hand, he identified the active intellect ("nous poietikos"), through whose agency the potential intellect in man becomes actual, not with anything from within people, but with the divine creator itself. In the early Renaissance his doctrine of the soul's mortality was adopted by Pietro Pomponazzi against the Thomists and the Averroists. For him, the only possible human immortality is an immortality of a detached human thought, more specifically when the "nous" has as the object of its thought the active intellect itself, or another incorporeal intelligible form.


title: Nous

text: Alexander was also responsible for influencing the development of several more technical terms concerning the intellect, which became very influential amongst the great Islamic philosophers, Al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes.


title: Nous

text: Themistius, another influential commentator on this matter, understood Aristotle differently, stating that the passive or material intellect does "not employ a bodily organ for its activity, is wholly unmixed with the body, impassive, and separate [from matter]". This means the human potential intellect, and not only the active intellect, is an incorporeal substance, or a disposition of incorporeal substance. For Themistius, the human soul becomes immortal "as soon as the active intellect intertwines with it at the outset of human thought".


title: Nous

text: This understanding of the intellect was also very influential for Al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, and "virtually all Islamic and Jewish philosophers". On the other hand, concerning the active intellect, like Alexander and Plotinus, he saw this as a transcendent being existing above and outside man. Differently from Alexander, he did not equate this being with the first cause of the Universe itself, but something lower. However he equated it with Plato's Idea of the Good.


title: Nous

text: Of the later Greek and Roman writers Plotinus, the initiator of neoplatonism, is particularly significant. Like Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius, he saw himself as a commentator explaining the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle. But in his "Enneads" he went further than those authors, often working from passages which had been presented more tentatively, possibly inspired partly by earlier authors such as the neopythagorean Numenius of Apamea. Neoplatonism provided a major inspiration to discussion concerning the intellect in late classical and medieval philosophy, theology and cosmology.


title: Nous

text: In neoplatonism there exists several levels or "hypostases" of being, including the natural and visible world as a lower part.


title: Nous

text: This was based largely upon Plotinus' reading of Plato, but also incorporated many Aristotelian concepts, including the unmoved mover as "energeia". They also incorporated a theory of "anamnesis", or knowledge coming from the past lives of our immortal souls, like that found in some of Plato's dialogues.


title: Nous

text: Later Platonists distinguished a hierarchy of three separate manifestations of "nous", like Numenius of Apamea had. Notable later neoplatonists include Porphyry and Proclus.


title: Nous

text: Greek philosophy had an influence on the major religions that defined the Middle Ages, and one aspect of this was the concept of "nous".


title: Nous

text: Gnosticism was a late classical movement that incorporated ideas inspired by Neoplatonism and Neopythagoreanism, but which was more a syncretic religious movement than an accepted philosophical movement.


title: Nous

text: In Valentinianism, Nous is the first male Aeon. Together with his conjugate female Aeon, Aletheia (truth), he emanates from the Propator Bythos ( "Forefather Depths") and his co-eternal Ennoia ( "Thought") or Sigē ( "Silence"); and these four form the primordial Tetrad. Like the other male Aeons he is sometimes regarded as androgynous, including in himself the female Aeon who is paired with him. He is the Only Begotten; and is styled the Father, the Beginning of All, inasmuch as from him are derived immediately or mediately the remaining Aeons who complete the Ogdoad (eight), thence the Decad (ten), and thence the Dodecad (twelve); in all, thirty Aeons constitute the Pleroma.


title: Nous

text: He alone is capable of knowing the Propator; but when he desired to impart like knowledge to the other Aeons, was withheld from so doing by Sigē. When Sophia ("Wisdom"), youngest Aeon of the thirty, was brought into peril by her yearning after this knowledge, Nous was foremost of the Aeons in interceding for her. From him, or through him from the Propator, Horos was sent to restore her. After her restoration, Nous, according to the providence of the Propator, produced another pair, Christ and the Holy Spirit, "in order to give fixity and steadfastness () to the Pleroma." For this Christ teaches the Aeons to be content to know that the Propator is in himself incomprehensible, and can be perceived only through the Only Begotten (Nous).


title: Nous

text: The Ophites held that the demiurge Ialdabaoth, after coming into conflict with the archons he created, created a son, Ophiomorphus, who is called the serpent-formed Nous. This entity would become the serpent in the garden, who was compelled to act on behest of Sophia.


title: Nous

text: A similar conception of Nous appears in the later teaching of the Basilideans, according to which he is the first begotten of the Unbegotten Father, and himself the parent of "Logos", from whom emanate successively "Phronesis", "Sophia", and "Dunamis". But in this teaching, Nous is identified with Christ, is named Jesus, is sent to save those that believe, and returns to Him who sent him, after a Passion which is apparent only, Simon of Cyrene being substituted for him on the cross. It is probable, however, that Nous had a place in the original system of Basilides himself; for his "Ogdoad", "the great Archon of the universe, the ineffable" is apparently made up of the five members named by Irenaeus (as above), together with two whom we find in Clement of Alexandria, "Dikaiosyne" and "Eirene", added to the originating Father.


title: Nous

text: The antecedent of these systems is that of Simon, of whose six "roots" emanating from the Unbegotten Fire, "Nous" is first. The correspondence of these "roots" with the first six "Aeons" that Valentinus derives from "Bythos", is noted by Hippolytus. Simon says in his "Apophasis Megalē",


title: Nous

text: To Nous and "Epinoia" correspond Heaven and Earth, in the list given by Simon of the six material counterparts of his six emanations. The identity of this list with the six material objects alleged by Herodotus to be worshipped by the Persians, together with the supreme place given by Simon to Fire as the primordial power, leads us to look to Iran for the origin of these systems in one aspect. In another, they connect themselves with the teaching of Pythagoras and of Plato.


title: Nous

text: In Mandaic, "mana" () has been variously translated as "mind," ""nous"," or "treasure." The Mandaean formula "I am a "mana" of the Great Life" is a phrase often found in the numerous hymns of Book 2 of the Left Ginza.


title: Nous

text: During the Middle Ages, philosophy itself was in many places seen as opposed to the prevailing monotheistic religions, Islam, Christianity and Judaism. The strongest philosophical tradition for some centuries was amongst Islamic philosophers, who later came to strongly influence the late medieval philosophers of western Christendom, and the Jewish diaspora in the Mediterranean area. While there were earlier Muslim philosophers such as Al Kindi, chronologically the three most influential concerning the intellect were Al Farabi, Avicenna, and finally Averroes, a westerner who lived in Spain and was highly influential in the late Middle Ages amongst Jewish and Christian philosophers.


title: Nous

text: The exact precedents of Al Farabi's influential philosophical scheme, in which "nous" (Arabic "ʿaql") plays an important role, are no longer perfectly clear because of the great loss of texts in the Middle Ages which he would have had access to. He was apparently innovative in at least some points. He was clearly influenced by the same late classical world as neoplatonism, neopythagoreanism, but exactly how is less clear. Plotinus, Themistius and Alexander of Aphrodisias are generally accepted to have been influences. However while these three all placed the active intellect "at or near the top of the hierarchy of being", Al Farabi was clear in making it the lowest ranking in a series of distinct transcendental intelligences. He is the first known person to have done this in a clear way. He was also the first philosopher known to have assumed the existence of a causal hierarchy of celestial spheres, and the incorporeal intelligences parallel to those spheres. Al Farabi also fitted an explanation of prophecy into this scheme, in two levels. According to Davidson (p. 59):The lower of the two levels, labeled specifically as "prophecy" ("nubuwwa"), is enjoyed by men who have not yet perfected their intellect, whereas the higher, which Alfarabi sometimes specifically names "revelation" ("w-ḥ-y"), comes exclusively to those who stand at the stage of acquired intellect.


title: Nous

text: This happens in the imagination (Arabic "mutakhayyila"; Greek "phantasia"), a faculty of the mind already described by Aristotle, which al Farabi described as serving the rational part of the soul (Arabic "ʿaql"; Greek "nous"). This faculty of imagination stores sense perceptions ("maḥsūsāt"), disassembles or recombines them, creates figurative or symbolic images ("muḥākāt") of them which then appear in dreams, visualizes present and predicted events in a way different from conscious deliberation ("rawiyya"). This is under the influence, according to Al Farabi, of the active intellect. Theoretical truth can only be received by this faculty in a figurative or symbolic form, because the imagination is a physical capability and can not receive theoretical information in a proper abstract form. This rarely comes in a waking state, but more often in dreams. The lower type of prophecy is the best possible for the imaginative faculty, but the higher type of prophecy requires not only a receptive imagination, but also the condition of an "acquired intellect", where the human "nous" is in "conjunction" with the active intellect in the sense of God. Such a prophet is also a philosopher. When a philosopher-prophet has the necessary leadership qualities, he becomes philosopher-king.


title: Nous

text: In terms of cosmology, according to Davidson (p. 82) "Avicenna's universe has a structure virtually identical with the structure of Alfarabi's" but there are differences in details. As in Al Farabi, there are several levels of intellect, intelligence or "nous", each of the higher ones being associated with a celestial sphere. Avicenna however details three different types of effect which each of these higher intellects has, each "thinks" both the necessary existence and the possible being of the intelligence one level higher. And each "emanates" downwards the body and soul of its own celestial sphere, and also the intellect at the next lowest level. The active intellect, as in Alfarabi, is the last in the chain. Avicenna sees active intellect as the cause not only of intelligible thought and the forms in the "sublunar" world we people live, but also the matter. (In other words, three effects.)


title: Nous

text: Concerning the workings of the human soul, Avicenna, like Al Farabi, sees the "material intellect" or potential intellect as something that is not material. He believed the soul was incorporeal, and the potential intellect was a disposition of it which was in the soul from birth. As in Al Farabi there are two further stages of potential for thinking, which are not yet actual thinking, first the mind acquires the most basic intelligible thoughts which we can not think in any other way, such as "the whole is greater than the part", then comes a second level of derivative intelligible thoughts which could be thought. Concerning the actualization of thought, Avicenna applies the term "to two different things, to actual human thought, irrespective of the intellectual progress a man has made, and to actual thought when human intellectual development is complete", as in Al Farabi.


title: Nous

text: When reasoning in the sense of deriving conclusions from syllogisms, Avicenna says people are using a physical "cogitative" faculty ("mufakkira, fikra") of the soul, which can err. The human cogitative faculty is the same as the "compositive imaginative faculty ("mutakhayyila") in reference to the animal soul". But some people can use "insight" to avoid this step and derive conclusions directly by conjoining with the active intellect.


title: Nous

text: Once a thought has been learned in a soul, the physical faculties of sense perception and imagination become unnecessary, and as a person acquires more thoughts, their soul becomes less connected to their body. For Avicenna, different from the normal Aristotelian position, all of the soul is by nature immortal. But the level of intellectual development does affect the type of afterlife that the soul can have. Only a soul which has reached the highest type of conjunction with the active intellect can form a perfect conjunction with it after the death of the body, and this is a supreme "eudaimonia". Lesser intellectual achievement means a less happy or even painful afterlife.


title: Nous

text: Concerning prophecy, Avicenna identifies a broader range of possibilities which fit into this model, which is still similar to that of Al Farabi.


title: Nous

text: Averroes came to be regarded even in Europe as "the Commentator" to "the Philosopher", Aristotle, and his study of the questions surrounding the "nous" were very influential amongst Jewish and Christian philosophers, with some aspects being quite controversial. According to Herbert Davidson, Averroes' doctrine concerning "nous" can be divided into two periods. In the first, neoplatonic emanationism, not found in the original works of Aristotle, was combined with a naturalistic explanation of the human material intellect. "It also insists on the material intellect's having an active intellect as a direct object of thought and conjoining with the active intellect, notions never expressed in the Aristotelian canon." It was this presentation which Jewish philosophers such as Moses Narboni and Gersonides understood to be Averroes'. In the later model of the universe, which was transmitted to Christian philosophers, Averroes "dismisses emanationism and explains the generation of living beings in the sublunar world naturalistically, all in the name of a more genuine Aristotelianism. Yet it abandons the earlier naturalistic conception of the human material intellect and transforms the material intellect into something wholly un-Aristotelian, a single transcendent entity serving all mankind. It nominally salvages human conjunction with the active intellect, but in words that have little content."


title: Nous

text: This position, that humankind shares one active intellect, was taken up by Parisian philosophers such as Siger of Brabant, but also widely rejected by philosophers such as Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Ramon Lull, and Duns Scotus. Despite being widely considered heretical, the position was later defended by many more European philosophers including John of Jandun, who was the primary link bringing this doctrine from Paris to Bologna. After him this position continued to be defended and also rejected by various writers in northern Italy. In the 16th century it finally became a less common position after the renewal of an "Alexandrian" position based on that of Alexander of Aphrodisias, associated with Pietro Pomponazzi.


title: Nous

text: The Christian New Testament makes mention of the "nous" or "noos", generally translated in modern English as "mind", but also showing a link to God's will or law:


title: Nous

text: In the writings of the Christian fathers a sound or pure "nous" is considered essential to the cultivation of wisdom.


title: Nous

text: While philosophical works were not commonly read or taught in the early Middle Ages in most of Europe, the works of authors like Boethius and Augustine of Hippo formed an important exception. Both were influenced by neoplatonism, and were amongst the older works that were still known in the time of the Carolingian Renaissance, and the beginnings of Scholasticism.


title: Nous

text: In his early years Augustine was heavily influenced by Manichaeism and afterwards by the Neoplatonism of Plotinus. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism (387), he developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and different perspectives.


title: Nous

text: Augustine used Neoplatonism selectively. He used both the neoplatonic "Nous", and the Platonic Form of the Good (or ""The Idea of the Good"") as equivalent terms for the Christian God, or at least for one particular aspect of God. For example, God, "nous", can act directly upon matter, and not only through souls, and concerning the souls through which it works upon the world experienced by humanity, some are treated as angels.


title: Nous

text: Scholasticism becomes more clearly defined much later, as the peculiar native type of philosophy in medieval catholic Europe. In this period, Aristotle became "the Philosopher", and scholastic philosophers, like their Jewish and Muslim contemporaries, studied the concept of the "intellectus" on the basis not only of Aristotle, but also late classical interpreters like Augustine and Boethius. A European tradition of new and direct interpretations of Aristotle developed which was eventually strong enough to argue with partial success against some of the interpretations of Aristotle from the Islamic world, most notably Averroes' doctrine of their being one "active intellect" for all humanity. Notable "Catholic" (as opposed to Averroist) Aristotelians included Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, the founder of Thomism, which exists to this day in various forms. Concerning the "nous", Thomism agrees with those Aristotelians who insist that the intellect is immaterial and separate from any bodily organs, but as per Christian doctrine, the whole of the human soul is immortal, not only the intellect.


title: Nous

text: The human "nous" in Eastern Orthodox Christianity is the "eye of the heart or soul" or the "mind of the heart". The soul of man, is created by God in His image, man's soul is intelligent and noetic. Saint Thalassius of Syria wrote that God created beings "with a capacity to receive the Spirit and to attain knowledge of Himself; He has brought into existence the senses and sensory perception to serve such beings". Eastern Orthodox Christians hold that God did this by creating mankind with intelligence and noetic faculties.


title: Nous

text: Human reasoning is not enough: there will always remain an "irrational residue" which escapes analysis and which can not be expressed in concepts: it is this unknowable depth of things, that which constitutes their true, indefinable essence that also reflects the origin of things in God. In Eastern Christianity it is by faith or intuitive truth that this component of an object’s existence is grasped. Though God through his energies draws us to him, his essence remains inaccessible. The operation of faith being the means of free will by which mankind faces the future or unknown, these noetic operations contained in the concept of insight or "noesis". Faith ("pistis") is therefore sometimes used interchangeably with "noesis" in Eastern Christianity.


title: Nous

text: Angels have intelligence and "nous", whereas men have reason, both "logos" and "dianoia", "nous" and sensory perception. This follows the idea that man is a microcosm and an expression of the whole creation or macrocosmos. The human "nous" was darkened after the Fall of Man (which was the result of the rebellion of reason against the "nous"), but after the purification (healing or correction) of the "nous" (achieved through ascetic practices like hesychasm), the human "nous" (the "eye of the heart") will see God's uncreated Light (and feel God's uncreated love and beauty, at which point the nous will start the unceasing prayer of the heart) and become illuminated, allowing the person to become an orthodox theologian.