Pronoia

Quick meaning: Pronoia is a noun meaning (philosophy, theology) Divine providence, foreknowledge, foresight.

Meaning

(philosophy, theology) Divine providence, foreknowledge, foresight.

More Meanings

1. (psychology) A belief (sometimes regarded as irrational) that people conspire to do one good.
2. (historical, Byzantine Empire) An imperial grant to an individual of temporary fiscal rights in the form of land, incomes or taxes from land, fishing rights, etc., sometimes carrying with it an obligation of military service.

Example Sentences

The development of the Roman State, therefore, a world-process whose magnitude is truly wonderful, was not brought about as though a drifting mass of elements, by some outward force or inherent affinity became consolidated to revolve at random without any end or aim in that divine pronoia under which the ages move.

By 1270 Michael VIII had issued charters to two monasteries in eastern Thessaly near the Gulf of Volos (Makrinitisa and Neopetra), showing he had acquired that region. From these years imperial grants of pronoias and of tax exemptions to various notables of east Thessaly begin appearing. Thus probably in 1267/68 the Byzantines regained some or all of Thessaly's east coast.

Now Providence (which the Greekes call Pronoia) is an intellectuall knowledge, both fore-ſeeing, caring for, and ordering all things, and doth not onely behold all paſt, all present, and all to come, but is the cauſe of their ſo being, which Preſcience (ſimply taken) is not: and therefore Providence by the Philoſophers (ſaith S. Auguſtine) is divided into Memory, Knowledge, and Care: […]

Unlike fiefs, pronoiai were granted only by the emperor, and so they played no role in producing the subinfeudation and the hierarchical social and political structure characteristic of Western feudalism. Pronoia was a fiscal and administrative institution; the fief territorial and personal. The grant of a pronoia was primarily a grant of revenue expressed as a monetary sum (the posotes), not in terms of a quantity of property.

Word Forms

• pronoiae
• pronoiai
• pronoias

Antonyms for pronoia

Common opposites include paranoia.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include providence, forebelief, forethought, foreknowledge, foreseeing, prenotion.

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