Gabriel Figueroa

Chiesa

The essay centers the term noesis as a device to explore metaphysical and other abstract ways of apprehending ontological questions. A term derived from Plato and taken up today to varying effects, I found noesis to be a compelling and largely unexplored term to describe feelings of profound, poetic, and intuitive understanding. I draw on Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, and Catherine Malabou to sketch a theory of image as understanding beyond rational answers, as well as Reiner Schürmann and Friedrich Nietzsche to address questions of dissolution and ontological anarchy. Braided between these theoretical designs is a story about my bond with a loved one. Before entering high school, my beloved Great Aunt took me to Italy, as we had always bonded on the history of ancient Rome and the Renaissance. The moment of noesis occurred as we entered a random church, and I looked up at the ceiling. To my amazement, the ceiling seemed to hold this other-worldly movement within it. This optically enthralling image – which provided not an answer, but an intuitive feeling of something ineffable – provoked my love of the real, but magical, and allowed me to become what I am happy to be today.