Expert: Maria - 1/19/2011

Question
Thank you for responding but now I’m confused. I understand the Greek term nous poiētikos (‘maker mind’) is synonymous with the term poiésis, if so then Aristotle uses it in the context of the psychē, meaning the ‘actual’ or  real world of technical objects were previously in the makers mind firstly as ‘potential’ technical objects. So wouldn’t this make poiésis exclusively the conceptual invention concerning technical subject matter and not the practicum or technē of physical construction/fabrication of a ship or hand writing a poem or score of music?
This seems to be in line with one authors writing I found that says: “The notion that there is a mind which creates the world by thinking the ideas of all things has a rich history in Western philosophical thought, from the earliest of post-classical thinkers such as Albinus, through the Middle Ages, through Berkeley and Leibniz, and up to such modern philosophers as Fichte and Hegel.”
Would it be wrong of me to advocate the idea that poiésis was a common art theory all Greeks artisans were guided by in the creation of their works?

Answer
Hello,

First of all I have to point out again that such a question has to do with the categories  Ancient Greek, NOT with Ancient/Classical History, as I’ve already said in my previous answer to your question regarding “poiēsis”.  

Anyway please note that the adjective ποιητικός -transliterated as “poiētikós“ - means “capable of making”, “creative”, “productive” and has the same origin of the noun “Ποίησις” (“poiésis”) as they both derive from the verb ποιέω (poiéo) meaning "I  make".

In Aristotle’s On the Soul III.5 the expression “νοῦς ποιητικός" -transliterated as  “nous poiētikos” - means exactly ‘maker mind’, ‘agent intellect’, since the noun “νοῦς” transliterated as  “nous” means “mind”/”intellect” and “ποιητικός” / poiētikos”  corresponds literally to ”creative” and thus “maker/agent”.

In short, “nous poiētikos”  can be synonymous with the term “poiésis” only in the sense that “since in every class of things, as in nature as a whole, we find two factors involved, (1) a matter which is potentially all the particulars included in the class, (2) a cause which is productive in the sense that it makes them all (the latter standing to the former, as e.g. an art to its material), these distinct elements must likewise be found within the soul. And in fact mind as we have described it is what it is what it is by virtue of becoming all things, while there is another which is what it is by virtue of making all things”, as we read in On the Soul III.5 [Greek Περὶ Ψυχῆς (Perì Psūchês), Latin “De Anima”].

Finally, with regard to any philosophical / psychological argument, I have to tell you that not only this philosophical / psychological matter lies outside my expertise, but also does not refers to Ancient/Classical history, i.e. to this category.

So, look for an expert in that area.

Best regards,
Maria