[‘ Originally: the branch of learning that deals with the mind or thinking; (occas.) a work on this subject (now hist.). Later (also): the study of the spiritual or distinctively human aspects of humanity.']
Pronunciation: Brit. /nəʊˈɒlədʒi/, U.S. /noʊˈɑlədʒi/
Etymology: < ancient Greek /νόος/ nous n. + -logy comb. form. Compare post-classical Latin /noologia/ (1666). Compare noological adj., nooscopic adj., nooscopics n. (also earliest in Bentham).
Originally: the branch of learning that deals with the mind or thinking; (occas.) a work on this subject (now hist.). Later (also): the study of the spiritual or distinctively human aspects of humanity.
1817 J. Bentham /Chrestomathia/ ii. 196 Alegopathematic, or say Alego-æsthetic Pneumatology has, for its single-worded synonym, the not unexpressive appellation Noology.
a/1832 J. Bentham /Ess. Logic in /Wks./(1843) VIII. 289/1 The field of the corresponding branch of science may be termed the field of noology.
/a/1856 W. Hamilton /Lect. Metaphysics/(1859) I. vii. 123 We have several deservedly forgotten treatises, of an older date, under the inviting name of Noologies.
1893 /Mind/ *2* 385 Empirical Psychology must be supplemented by Noology. This however is not to be understood as if the Absolute Idea were to be grasped by an intellectual effort.
1915 A. C. Mason tr. H. Höffding /Mod. Philosophers/ 207 The philosophy of religion does not need a special method of its own, and ‘noology’ is itself but a via media between speculation and practical belief.
1956 M. H. Moore tr. A. A. Cournot /Ess. Found. Knowl./ xxii. 494 Somatology is broken up into the science of quantities (posology, mathematics) and the science of qualities (poiosomatology); while pneumatology is subdivided into noology (logic and ideology) and anoopneumatology, which includes pathoscopy and ethics.
1991 /Amer. Hist. Rev./ *96* 822/2 Universal history, for Bonnaud, must build on noology, the ‘science’ of the ‘noosphere’..which refers to the specifically human realm of thought, action, and activity and which is present..throughout human evolution.