Augustine of Hippo/Augustine's Theory of Knowledge2

Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge
1. Augustine’s position versus the Skeptics
  1. Augustine flirted with skepticism after rejecting Manicheanism and before embracing Christianity.
  2. The issue for Augustine is “that truth exists and that man can know it.” (Nash, 12) This is a very serious matter for him, “one relating to life itself and, in some way, to the hope of a happy soul.” (CA III, 9, 18) His repudiation of radical skepticism is set forth primarily in Contra Academicos, a dialogue among several of his friends that takes place in a villa shortly after Augustine’s conversion to Christianity.
  3. These Skeptics were the “New Academy,” the successors to Plato. Particularly, Augustine attacks the position of Carneades as mediated through Cicero’s Academica.
    1. That position was actually a defense against Stoic empiricism as expressed by Zeno of Citium. (CA II, 6, 14)
    2. These Academicians nevertheless used Zeno’s definition of truth: “That can be apprehended as true which has been so deeply impressed upon the mind from the source from which it came, that it could not proceed from that from which it did not come” or “truth can be grasped by those signs which whatever is false cannot have.” (CA II, 5,11) Truth is that “which is of such a nature that it has no notes in common with what is false.” (CA III, 9, 18) “That that could be apprehended which presented itself in such a way that it could not appear as false.” (CA III, 9,21) Mary Garvey puts it succintly, “a true impression is attained when the mind ‘seizes upon’ an object in such a way that it is rightly apprehended. The result is an irresistable conviction in the mind of the perceiver, which is the only criterion of truth.” (p. 38) Gilson: “a thing is understood... as true when no sign of error is found therein.” (p. 39)
    3. To that definition, Carneades added the conclusion “that inasmuch as there is no such knowledge, no certitude is possible.” (Gilson, p. 39) Arcesilaus: “Nothing is apprehended [because] no such thing can be discovered.” (CA III, 9,21)
    4. The Academics avoided the charge that suspension of assent would lead to moral paralysis by advocating probability, i.e., granting that something resembles truth. On this basis, they held that the wise man was the one who was always seeking truth while never finding it. (CA II, 5, 12)
  4. Augustine proposes ad hominem arguments against skepticism in Contra Academicos.
    1. On probability, it is ridiculous to say, “Indeed, we do not know truth, but this which we see is like that which we do not know.” (CA II, 8,20) Licentius finally understood, “As for you, since you say that you do not know the truth, on what basis do you strive after this likeness of truth?” (CA II, 12,27)
    2. By the very definition of a wise man as one who knows wisdom and the axiom that no one can know what is false, either wisdom is nothing or the Academics must admit that the wise man knows truth. (CA III, 3,5) The Academics were trapped when they asserted with equal force “both that man can be wise and yet that knowledge cannot fall to the lot of man.” (CA III, 4,10) It is perverse to say “that a man is wise and that, at the same time, he does not know wisdom.” (CA III, 9,19)
    3. The Academics suspend assent on the basis of the definition of Zeno. Yet, one who knows that definition to be true gives assent to it. If one does not give assent to the definition, the ground of their position is destroyed. (CA III, 9,18)
    4. If the foolish man told one to refute the definition and show that it can even be false, to fail to do so is to apprehend the definition. To succeed in refuting it frees you to apprehend with certitude. Further, either the definition is true or it is false. That disjuction itself is something to apprehend with certitude. “For we know that it is either true or false; we do not therefore know nothing.” (CA III, 9,21)
    5. He goes on in that book to defend sense experience as valid insofar as it gives an appearance. “Do not give assent any further than to the extent that you can persuade yourself that it appears true to you, and there is no deception.” (CA III, 9,26)
  5. Augustine’s strongest argument in the form of si fallor, sum is in a number of other works, e.g., Soliloquies II, 1; De libero arbitrio II, 3, 7. The best expression of it is in De Cititate Dei, XI, 26: “I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the Academicians, who say, ‘What if you are deceived?’ For if I am deceived, I am.” (BWOA, II, 68)
  6. So Augustine, having refuted the radical skepticism of the Academics, established the possibility of certitude. Gilson indicates the importance of this accomplishment in that, “by saving the mind from despair, the Contra Academicos cleared the threshold of philosophy and set its door ajar.” (p. 38)
2. Levels of knowledge and being
  1. Ontological levels
    1. God (Confessions I, 4; XI, 4f)- corresponding rationes aeternae
      1. equivalent of Plato’s forms
      2. contained in God’s intelligence (Nash, p. 6)
    2. Souls - corresponding ratio hominis
      1. ratio inferior
      2. ratio superior (DT XII, 15, 24f)
    3. Bodies - corresponding rationes seminales (“seed-like principles that exist in the nature of the world’s elements” - Nash, p. 6)
  2. Epistemological levels (upward ascent of reason) - Three levels of perception/vision (DT XII, 2, 2)
    1. Corporeal Vision - In common with animals, humans have
      1. Sense perception
      2. Memory
      3. Response to positive and negative reinforcement
    2. Spiritual Vision - Rational functions peculiar to humans are
      1. Deliberate memorization as well as refreshing memory
      2. Rearranging physical reality in the imagination
        scientia defined
        
        ratio inferior as a function of mind
    3. Intellectual Vision - The capacity to judge physical reality in terms of supersensible reality (forms)
      1. Ratio superior a function of same mind
      2. Sapientia is possible as the forms are “subjoined to the mind” while still above the mind
  3. Ontological status of ideas not clarified
    1. Ideas reside in the mind of God, a position held within Neo-platonic thought (Plotinus and Philo)
    2. Ideas somehow subjoined to the human mind. This causes difficulty in that the soul, by apprehending the ideas, apprehends the very mind of God and hence the divine essence.
    3. Augustine can be read either way, which leads to two interpretations.
      1. Ideogentic interpretation

Copleston and Gilson maintain that “the ‘light’ which comes from God to the human mind enables the mind to see the characteristics of changelessness and necessity in the eternal truths.” (Cop. p. 61)

1. 1. 1. 1. Ontologistic interpretation

Nash uses the same texts to propose “that in some way man can have a direct knowledge of the divine ideas, that man ‘sees’ the ideas that subsist in the mind of God.” (p.102) He qualifies this ontologism as pertaining only to the immutable and eternal truths as opposed to that of Malebranche where even knowledge of the sensible world is given by intuition of the divine. (p.103f)

1. Theory of illumination
  1. Needed because mind is mutable and truth is eternal

How could Augustine hold that the ideas are ontologically higher than the human intellect and yet accessible to it, somehow subjoined to it? If the ideas were on a par with human intellect which is mutable, they could not be immutable. If they were lower than mind, the mind could not use them as standards of judgment, but must instead judge them! So the ideas are above the mind, but how, then, can there be any congress between them? The answer is that God illumines man’s intellect.

1. 1. 1. This is not the agent intellect of Thomas. It really is something outside of human mind that makes possible judgments based on the ideas.
    2. Nor is this to make of God an ontologically separate agent intellect, i.e., infusing the ideas directly into a passive human mind. (Cop. p. 64 & Nash p. 97)
    3. Refers to quality of judgment

“The function of the divine illumination is to render visible to the mind the element of necessity in the eternal truths.” (Cop. p. 64)

1. 1. The role of memory in illumination
    1. A “storehouse” memory
    2. Learning is simply discovering what is there in the presence of God
2. Augustine compared with Plato

1. Shared assumptions (Cop. p. 58) a) The only valid object of knowledge is the unchangeable b) Leads to a depreciation of sense objects c) Practical knowledge is necessary for life, but not really valued d) Theoretic contemplation is valued highly e) Purification of the soul, liberation from the senses is a prerequisite to epist. ascent 2. Different goals a) Plato’s is to attain to the Good. b) Augustine’s is to attain to a personal God. 3. Plato’s levels of knowledge and being a) In Book V of the Republic, Plato has his character, Socrates, draw out the distinction between knowledge which corresponds to what is and opinion which corresponds to the manifold between what is and what is not. His assumption is that ignorance corresponds to non-being. b) Using the simile of the line in Book VI, Plato develops further this correspondence between ontology and epistemology. (1) A line is divided into two parts, one representing the visible world, the other the intelligible. The former is the realm in which opinion obtains while the latter constitutes the domain of knowledge. (2) Each part of the line is again divided. (a) The visible into shadows or reflections and sense objects. (b) The intelligible into reasoning from hypotheses to conclusions and reasoning from hypotheses up to first principles. (3) There is an increasing level of knowledge at each higher level of being. c) In the parable of the cave, Plato describes again the increase in knowledge as one moves toward that which is more real. In this story he also alludes to his doctrine that there is no such thing as “learning” from a teacher and to the requisite conversion and purification for the soul to attain knowledge of the highest reality. 4. Illumination vs. reminiscence a) The sun (Rep., 514-518) is for Plato the visible image of this highest reality, the Good. According to Plato, sunlight both illuminates objects in the world and enters the eye to provide sight of those objects. In the same way, the form of the Good both gives ideas their truth and empowers the intellect to discern that truth. “It is the ontological basis of truth and the epistemological basis of the knowledge of truth.” (Allen, p. 47) b) It is Plato’s doctrine of reminisence, however, that explains how human reason connects with the forms in the first place. (1) In Phaedo (Reader, p. 5a-6a) Plato defends this doctrine of recollection. (a) Questions put to a person can evoke true answers which the person did not know he knew. (b) The judgment of some quality in terms of the perfection of that quality, a perfection not found in the sensible world, infers knowledge of perfection from the supersensible world. (c) Here also he says learning is a process of recovering knowledge. c) In Plato’s Meno there is an example of the first justification (from questions). A boy questioned about geometry “replied in such a way as if he were proficient in this branch of learning.” (DT XII, 15, 24) d) The difference between something glimpsed in the past (previous existence) and something uncovered in the present [Nash talks about this on p. 83f.]

References above are to the following works:

Allen, Diogenes, and Eric O. Springsted, eds. Primary Readings in Philosophy for Understanding Theology. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992.

Allen, Diogenes. Philosophy for Understanding Theology. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985.

Augustine, Aurelius. Against the Academicians. Translated with an introduction by Mary Patricia Garvey. Milwaukee, WS: Marquette University Press, 1942. [referred to above as CA, for Contra Academicos.]

________. Basic Writings of Saint Augustine. Edited by Whitney J. Oates. Volumes I & II. New York: Random House, 1948. [referred to above as BWOA]

________. The Confessions of St. Augustine. Translated by Rex Warner. New York: New American Library, 1963.

________. The Trinity. Translated by Stephen McKenna in The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, vol. 45. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1963. [referred to above as DT, for De Trinitate]

Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy. Volumes I & II. New York: Doubleday, 1962. [sometimes referred to above as Cop.]

Gilson, Etienne. The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine. Translated by L.E.M. Lynch. New York: Random House, 1960.

Nash, Ronald H. The Light of the Mind: St. Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1969.

Plato. The Republic: Book V. Public Domain Translation and Introduction by Benjamin Jowett. Published in Boston University Coursepacket #0014, Fall 1995.

________. Phaedo. Public Domain Translation by Benjamin Jowett. Published in Boston University Coursepacket #0014, Fall 1995.