Constantin Noica

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please
help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.
Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2014) (Learn
how and when to remove this template message)

Constantin Noica

Constantin Noica
Constantin Noica (Romanian: [konstantin nojka]; July 25 [O.S. July 12] 1909 4 December
1987) was a Romanian philosopher, essayist and poet. His preoccupations were throughout all
philosophy, from epistemology, philosophy of culture, axiology and
philosophic anthropology to ontology and logics, from the history of philosophy to systematic
philosophy, from ancient to contemporary philosophy, from translating and interpretation to
criticism and creation. In 2006 he was included to the list of the 100 Greatest Romanians of all
time by a nationwide poll.

Contents
[hide]

1Biography
2Philosophy
 3Books
4References
5External links

Biography[edit]
Noica was born in Vitneti, Teleorman County.
He studied at the Dimitrie Cantemir and Spiru Haret lyceums, both in Bucharest. At Spiru Haret
his math teacher was Dan Barbilian (pen name Ion Barbu, poet and mathematician). His debut
was in Vlstarul magazine, in 1927. Between 1928 and 1931 he attended courses of
the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, where he graduated in 1931
(thesis: "Problema lucrului n sine la Kant" / "The matter of thing-in-itself in Kant's philosophy").
Here he met as a teacher philosopher Nae Ionescu.
He worked as a librarian at the History of Philosophy Seminar and attended the courses of the
Faculty of Mathematics for one year (1933). He was a member of the Criterion Association
(19321934). His friends there, including Mircea Eliade, Mihail Polihroniade, and Haig Acterian,
later supported the fascist Legionnaire Movement.
After attending courses in France between 19381939 on a French government scholarship, he
returned to Bucharest where in 1940 he earned his doctor's degree in philosophy (thesis: Sketch
on the history of How is it that there is anything new, published the same year).
In October 1940 he left for Berlin as a reviewer at Sextil Pucariu's Romanian-German Institute,
returning in 1944, having stayed in Germany during most of World War II.
After the war, the Soviet army remained in Romania, backing the establishment of a communist
regime. Noica was harassed by the new regime.
In 1949 he was sentenced by the communist authorities to 10 years of forced residence
in Cmpulung-Muscel, remaining there until 1958. In December of that year, after making public
the book "Histoire et Utopie" by Emil Cioran (who had left for France), he was sentenced to 25
years of forced labor in the Jilava prison as a political prisoner, and all his possessions
confiscated. He was pardoned after 6 years as part of a general amnesty and released in August
1964.
From 1965 he lived in Bucharest, where he was the principal researcher at the Romanian
Academy's Center of Logics. In his two-room apartment he held seminaries on Hegel's, Plato's
and Kant's philosophy. Among the participants there were Sorin Vieru (his colleague at the
Center of Logics), Gabriel Liiceanu and Andrei Pleu.
In 1975 he retired and went to live in Pltini, near Sibiu, where he remained for the next 12
years, until his death on 4 December 1987. He was buried at the nearby hermitage, having left
behind numerous philosophical essays.
In 1988 Constantin Noica was posthumously awarded the Herder Prize, and in 1990, after the fall
of communism in Romania, he was accepted as a posthumous member of the Romanian
Academy.

Philosophy[edit]
The 20th century is thought to be dominated by science. The model of scientific knowledge,
which means transforming reality into formal and abstract concepts, is applied in judging the
entire environment. This kind of thinking is called by Noica "the logic of Ares", as it considers the
individual a simple variable in the Whole. The existence is, for this scientific way of considering
things, a statistical fact.
In order to recover the individual senses, the sense of existence, Noica proposes, in opposition
with "the logic of Ares", "the logic of Hermes", a way of thinking which considers the individual a
reflection of the Whole. The logic of Hermes means understanding the Whole through the part, it
means identifying in a single existence the general principles of reality. This way of thinking
allows one to understand the meaning of the life of a man oppressed by the quick present
moment.
Noica appreciates Greek and German philosophers, as well as several Romanian writers. He
recommends to read philosophy, to learn classical languages, particularly ancient Greek, and
modern languages, particularly German.[1]

Books[edit]
1934 Mathesis or simple pleasances ("Mathesis sau bucuriile simple")
1936 Open concepts in the history of philosophy in Descartes, Leibniz and Kant ("Concepte
deschise n istoria filozofiei la Descartes, Leibniz i Kant")
1937 De caelo. Essay around knowledge and the individual ("De caelo. ncercare n jurul
cunoaterii i individului")
1937 Life and philosophy of Ren Descartes ("Viaa i filozofia lui Ren Descartes")
1940 Sketch for the history of How is it that there is anything new ("Schi pentru istoria lui
Cum e cu putin ceva nou")
1943 Two introductions and a passage to idealism ("Dou introduceri i o trecere spre
idealism")
1944 Philosophical journal ("Jurnal filosofic")
1944 Pages on the Romanian soul ("Pagini despre sufletul romnesc")
1962 "Phenomenology of Spirit" by G.W.F. Hegel narrated by Constantin
Noica ("Fenomenologia spiritului de G.W.F. Hegel istorisit de Constantin Noica")
1969 Twenty-seven levels of the real ("Douzeci i apte trepte ale realului")
1969 Platon: Lysis
1970 The Romanian philosophical utterance[2] ("Rostirea filozofic romneasc")
1973 Creation and beauty in Romanian utterance[2] ("Creaie i frumos n rostirea
romneasc")
1975 Eminescu or Thoughts on the complete man of Romanian culture ("Eminescu sau
Gnduri despre omul deplin al culturii romneti")
1976 Parting with Goethe ("Desprirea de Goethe")
1978 The Romanian sense of being ("Sentimentul romnesc al fiinei")
1978 Six maladies of the contemporary spirit. The Romanian spirit at the conjuncture of
time ("ase maladii ale spiritului contemporan. Spiritul romnesc n cumptul vremii")
1980 Narrations on man, after Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit" ("Povestiri despre om")
1981 Becoming in-to Being,[3] vol. 1: Essay on traditional philosophy, vol. 2: Treatise
of ontology ("Devenirea ntru fiin", vol. 1: "ncercare asupra filozofiei tradiionale", vol. 2:
"Tratat de ontologie")
1984 Three Introductions to Becoming in-to Being[3] ("Trei introduceri la devenirea ntru
fiin")
1986 Letters on the Logic of Hermes ("Scrisori despre logica lui Hermes")
1988 De dignitate Europae (in German)
1990 Pray for brother Alexander! ("Rugai-v pentru fratele Alexandru")
1991 Journal of Ideas ("Jurnal de idei")
1992 Sunday essays ("Eseuri de duminic")
1992 Simple introductions to the kindness of our time ("Simple introduceri la buntatea
timpului nostru")
1992 Introduction to the Eminescian miracle ("Introducere la miracolul eminescian")
1997 Cmpulung manuscripts ("Manuscrisele de la Cmpulung")
1998 The spiritual equilibrium. Studies and essays (19291947) ("Echilibrul spiritual. Studii
i eseuri (19291947)")

References[edit]
 1. Jump up^ Iu, Mircia, "Conceptul de spirit la Constantin Noica raportat la Mircea Eliade" ("The
Concept of Spirit in Constantin Noica's and in Mircea Eliade's Vision"), in Manole, Georgic
(2010), Lumin lin, Luceafrul, Botoani [1]. Retrieved on 7 June 2016. ISSN 2065-4200: "Noica
talked to me about Greek philosophy, particularly Aristotle and Plato and about German
philosophy, particularly Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. I remember that
philosopher Noica highlighted that one cannot have a personality if one does not read these
authors. He said it, then he referred to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. His face brightened when I
had mentioned his name. The readings on Romanian culture are important, as well. Noica drove
my attention towards writers, such as: Mihai Eminescu, Titu Maiorescu and Lucian Blaga, and
particularly to authors who had been forbidden during the communist regime, such as the
following: Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran and Mircea Vulcnescu. He insisted on the need for learning
languages, emphasizing on the study of classical languages and especially ancient Greek, as well
as modern languages, out of which he warmly recommended German".
2. ^ Jump up to:a b The title is built on a word game: "rost" = sense, meaning, but "a rosti" = to
pronounce, translated here by to utter.
3. ^ Jump up to:a b Noica uses the old Romanian word "ntru" (< Lat. intro), now rarely used and
substituted in the current use of the language by "n" (= Eng. in). See here how Noica explains its
use:
"If a nourishing plant, that we can not find elsewhere, would grow on the Romanian soil, we should
have to answer for it. If words and meanings that can enrich man's soul appeared in our language,
but they didn't appear in others speech or thought, we should also have to answer for them.
Such a word is ntru; such a meaning appears to be that of beingness. Actually, our peculiar
understanding of beingness is, maybe, the result of the peculiar meanings of ntru, that came to
seemingly express the beingness from within, suggesting that to be means to be into /ntru/
something, that is to be, but not fully, in something, to rest but also to aspire, to close oneself but
also to open oneself. In this way the beingness was pulled out from stillness and shook. But if it
wouldn't be shaking, would it still be truly? What kind of beingness is the one that has no place for
neither a vibration, nor an advance?".

External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has
media related to Constantin
Noica.

(in Romanian) Noica's page at the Humanitas publishing house [2]

Doing Time. An anthology of Noica's works "for the benefit of the students that Noica was
never allowed to have", with the volume Brother Alexander translated into English by his wife,
Katherine Muston, and an introductory essay (Atitudinea Noica) by C. George Sandulescu,
the Contemporary Literature Press (Bucharest University) [3]
Noica Anthology. Volume Two: General Philosophy, edited by C. George Sandulescu,
Contemporary Literature Press (Bucharest University) [4]
Noica Anthology. Volume Three: Rostirea romneasc de la Eminescu cetire, edited by C.
George Sandulescu, the Contemporary Literature Press (Bucharest University) [5]
Counterfeiting Noica! Controversatul Noica rsare din nou!, edited by C. George Sandulescu,
Contemporary Literature Press (Bucharest University) [6]