The Greek concept of "nous," as it relates to human beings, means that "by means of intuition [we] know the nature of the real" (class notes). This knowledge, if I am interpreting it correctly in the context of the nature of the accident, means that knowledge of the real happens in a logical space that is similar to that of the accident.
nous, (Greek: “mind” or “intellect”) in philosophy, the faculty of intellectual apprehension and of intuitive thought. Used in a narrower sense, it is distinguished from discursive thought and applies to the apprehension of eternal intelligible substances and first principles. It is sometimes identified with the highest or divine intellect. (Encyclopaedia Brittanica)
PURE REASON
Pure reason is a knowledge of what is necessary in the world: the movement of the stars, the cycle of life and death, etc. It is the surest kind of knowledge. Kant's in his "Preface to the First Edition" of the The Critique of Pure Reason states:
Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind.
It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic. (Trans. J. M. D. Meiklejohn, pars. 1-2)
PRACTICAL REASON
Practical reason is fundamentally rhetorical. It concerns human decision (politics/ethics) and is contingent on human action.
Practical reason is the general human capacity for resolving, through reflection, the question of what one is to do. Deliberation of this kind is practical in at least two senses. First, it is practical in its subject matter, insofar as it is concerned with action. But it is also practical in its consequences or its issue, insofar as reflection about action itself directly moves people to act. Our capacity for deliberative self-determination raises two sets of philosophical problems. First, there are questions about how deliberation can succeed in being practical in its issue. What do we need to assume—both about agents and about the processes of reasoning they engage in—to make sense of the fact that deliberative reflection can directly give rise to action? Can we do justice to this dimension of practical reason while preserving the idea that practical deliberation is genuinely a form of reasoning? Second, there are large issues concerning the content of the standards that are brought to bear in practical reasoning. Which norms for the assessment of action are binding on us as agents? Do these norms provide resources for critical reflection about our ends, or are they exclusively instrumental? Under what conditions do moral norms yield valid standards for reasoning about action? (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Ed. Edward N. Zalta, par. 1)
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