7/14/2023 0 Comments Idive st.augustine![]() However, Augustine supports the Platonic view that the lack of certainty and the relativity of judgement (the same thing can appear different to different people) that beset the senses make the objects of sense not suitable objects for true knowledge or knowledge proper. That the sens es deliver truths less certain than those of mathematics does not mean the sens es do not deliver truths at all. From the fact that we can sometimes err in our sense-based judgements (for example if we judge that a stick which appears bent in the water really is bent), and can on any particular occasion err, it does not follow that the senses cannot ever support true beliefs. These bulwarks against scepticism are in one way or another derived from introspection independently of the errors of the senses.Īugustine does not dismiss the senses as wholly deceptive. This anticipates Descartes‘ cogito but it is not used in the same way Augustine is not concerned to use it to prove the existence of the external world. ” If I err, I exist” (“ Si faIlor, sum“). (a) We know the law of non-contradiction, whereby if something is true, it cannot also be the case at the same time that the opposite is true. He is not aiming to use these known truths as the axiomatic foundation of the rest of knowledge, rather, if any of the examples are admitted as known truths, then knowledge is possible, and the absolute sceptic refuted. He points to a range of things we clearly know to be true, which the sceptic cannot possibly deny. First, however, Augustine sets about demolishing the sceptic who asserts that no knowledge at all is possible. The overall religious purpose is twofold: first, to show how we can become closer to God secondly, to emphasize the importance of God by showing how everything is closely dependent on God.Ī problem of particular concern to Augustine is how we come to know the universal necessary eternal truths described by Plato and the Neoplatonists. The question of whether we can know truths is generally assumed to be answered positively the chief question is how we can attain that knowledge. It is assumed that the wise man and the happy man are one, and knowledge of truths is part of the attainment of wisdom. ![]() This does not mean that what is true is crudely identified with whatever makes one happy it is rather the other way around: knowledge of truths will make one happy. The character of Augustine’s thought is distinctly religious, rather than purely philosophical the discussion of certain philosophical problems is not that of the disinterested academic, but has the overriding purpose of identifying the path to the attainment of blessedness or beatitude. In AD 410, Rome was sacked by the Goths in 429 the Vandals crossed to North Africa from Spain and laid siege to Hippo Augustine died in 430, aged seventy -five, a short time before Hippo fell. He never left North Africa for the last thirty-nine years of his life. Augustine eventually became Bishop of Hippo in AD 396. He soon founded his own monastic community in Thagaste but this lasted only a couple of years through hi s being forced into the Catholic priesthood. Initially Augustine found no difficulty in reconciling the dominant intellectual position of his day, Neoplatonism, with the demands of Christian scripture later he began to see greater problems in reconciling their basic concepts. He was then determined to enter the Church and renounced worldly pleasures. In Milan he was impressed by the teachings of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.Īugustine converted to Christianity in AD 386, and was baptized the following year. In AD 383 he moved to teach in Rome following financial problems, he accepted a teaching post in Milan, where he greatly augmented his knowledge of ancient Greek philosophy, in particular Neoplatonism. At the age of seventeen he became a student of the University of Carthage where he became a teacher of rhetoric and, while there, lived a life of extravagant pleasure-including sexual pleasure-which was to contrast starkly with his later monkish life. ![]() Augustine’s mother, Monica, was a Christian, but initially he did not accept the faith and adopted Manichaeanism, which embodied some elements of Christianity among elements from other religions. The eventual historical outcome in the eleventh century was the increased dominance of Christianity. Intellectually he straddles the gap between the philosophers of ancient Greece and those of medieval Christian Europe he lived through the decline of the Roman Empire, which led to the Dark Ages. Augustine (AD 354-430) was born in Thagaste and died in Hippo, both places in North Africa.
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