nous: indemonstrable knowledge and aristotle's epistemic hexis

in the last chapter of his posterior analytics, aristotle raises two questions about the archai of knowledge (epistêmê) that are to be answered by nous, the key concept which must be illustrated itself before getting the answers. while in both of these answers, as in some other passages, nous is introduced as the hexis of the soul, it is the second answer where nous is considered as one of the stages and degrees of knowledge. having discussed aristotle's second question and its answers in the first part of this paper, we are going to recognize, in the second part, three substantial senses of hexis. based on these senses, the third part aims to challenge some commentators' view of dunamis as the only sense of hexis throughout posterior analytics. the first part of article ends with the explanation of this problem. the second part of article will examine what is nous.