Augustine

Augustine′s conversion to Christianity in A.D. 386 is a pivotal moment not only in his own life, but in Christian and world history, for the theology of Augustine set the course of theological and cultural development in the western Christian church. But to what exactly was Augustine converted? Scholars have long debated whether he really converted to Christianity in 386, whether he was a Platonist, and, if he adhered to both Platonism and Christianity, which dominated his thought. The debate of (...) the last thirteen decades spans an immense body of literature in multiple languages. In this literature, four major views on Augustine′s conversion may be discerned. The first view is associated with Gaston Boissier and Adolph von Harnack, and was famously championed by Prosper Alfaric: that Augustine in 386 converted to neo-Platonism but not to Christianity. Second, there is the view recently promoted by Catherine Conybeare: that Augustine in 386 converted to Christianity and rejected neo-Platonism. Third, there is the view that he converted to Christianity and was also a neo-Platonist; the most famous adherents of this view are Robert J. O′Connell and Pierre Courcelle. Finally, there is the view recently promoted by Carol Harrison: that Augustine committed to Christianity in 386, yet did not utterly reject neo-Platonism; rather, he aimed to develop a Christian faith that was informed by neo-Platonic insight. In this article, I first explain and distinguish these four general views, and then I explain why I prefer the fourth view. -/- More Info: This is the pre-peer reviewed version of Boone, Mark, "The Role of Platonism in Augustine's 386 Conversion to Christianity," Religion Compass 9.5 (May 2015), 151-61. This article has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rec3.12149/abstract. (shrink)

Augustine is commonly interpreted as endorsing an extramission theory of perception in De quantitate animae. A close examination of the text shows, instead, that he is committed to its rejection. I end with some remarks about what it takes for an account of perception to be an extramission theory and with a review of the strength of evidence for attributing the extramission the- ory to Augustine on the basis of his other works.

In De Trinitate 10, Augustine offers an argument that seemingly proceeds from certain premises about self-knowledge to the conclusion that the mind is incorporeal. Although the argument has sometimes been compared to later Cartesian arguments, it has received relatively little philosophical attention. In this paper, I offer a detailed analysis and original interpretation of Augustine's argument and argue that it is not vulnerable to some of the main objections which have been raised against it. I go on to argue that (...) while an important part of Augustine's argument does face several hitherto neglected objections, Augustine's ultimate case for the incorporeality of the mind is somewhat different and more successful than one might initially think. (shrink)

Theologians often reflect on the ethical uses and impacts of artificial intelligence, but when it comes to artificial intelligence techniques themselves, some have questioned whether much exists to discuss in the first place. If the significance of computational operations is attributed rather than intrinsic, what are we to say about them? Ancient thinkers—namely Augustine of Hippo (lived 354–430)—break the impasse, enabling us to draw forth the moral and metaphysical significance of current developments like the “deep neural networks” that are responsible (...) for some of the most remarkable achievements of the past few years. First, Augustine’s theology of the natural world’s rationes seminales makes sense of neural networks’ success by explaining the world as a kaleidoscopic refraction of divine Wisdom rather than as a collection of discrete objects standing in crisp relations. Second, his account of interpretive judgment as a moral act bound up with love reveals how our training and use of AI relates to the Christian’s assimilation to Wisdom. The contingent meaning of the neural network reveals AI’s potential either for standing between us and the world or in some sense facilitating a Christian’s regathering of the created echoes of divine Wisdom throughout his or her journey into the Trinity. (shrink)

Plato has identified Meno’s paradox as one of the most important theoretical challenges to learning. Meno’s paradox is that research and learning about what one does not know is impossible and about what one knows is useless. To solve this paradox, Plato proposed the Theory of Recollection. According to this theory, learning is the recollection of pre-existing knowledge that the human soul has forgotten in mixing with the body. Augustine does not find the Theory of Recollection convincing. Of course, the (...) relationship between Augustine’s position and Plato’s view that knowledge is a recollection is very vague. According to Augustine, learning is not simply the mere receipt of information, but the ability to recall what we already know. Contrary to the early days of his intellectual life, Augustine believes that the example of Socrates’ question and answer with a slave cannot show the correctness of the Theory of Recollection. Augustine’s reflections on the book of The Confessions also show that remembrance involves the a priori existence of the soul. But in the second half of his intellectual life, Augustine believes that divine light brings rational things to the mind and causes them to be known without the need for innate knowledge or the pre-existence of the soul in another world. Some commentators believe that the main reason for this approach is the difficulty of accepting the past life of the soul as the main component of the Theory of Recollection. But there is no consensus among them on the timing and quality of Augustine’s change of approach. According to Gilson, Augustine never categorically disproved the notion that the soul existed before the body, and never explicitly referred to where the soul existed before the body. According to Teske, in the second period of his intellectual life, Augustine retreated from the Theory of Recollection as he had put it in his earlier writings. From O’Daly’s point of view, nowhere in Augustine’s writings can one find an explicit comment on the past life of the soul. The research question is whether the subject of the pre-existence of the soul is the only way to understand Augustine’s position on the Theory of Recollection? In other words, is the only way to get closer to an optimal understanding of Augustine’s change of epistemological approach, to take another ontological position among other opinions? The research claims that the reading of Augustine’s philosophy of language and semiotics opens a new entrance to the theory of divine enlightenment as a novel solution to the Meno paradox. In fact, instead of ontologically, the focus of Augustine’s discussion is on the discussion of language and its ability to convey meaning, real teaching, and learning. According to this linguistic approach, nothing can be learned through words and questions and answers. Therefore, unlike Plato, he concludes that learning is not the same as recollection, but the understanding of knowledge and realities of the outside world is done with the help of the light of the inner teacher, God. Augustine called this thesis divine enlightenment. The purpose of this study is to analyze and explain this claim by emphasizing the treatise on Augustine’s “The Teacher”. In this treatise, he talks about the nature of language and its role in teaching and learning. In this treatise, he emphasizes that words are insufficient to transmit our thoughts and ideas to another, and therefore, the mind reaches the level of enlightenment and understanding of the world with the knowledge it has received from its inner teacher. As a result, enlightenment of the mind by God provides the best explanation for the Theory of Recollection. (shrink)

This paper is the submitted version. The published version of the paper is available using the DOI number 10.1111/heyj.14007.

One is occasionally reminded of Foucault's proclamation in a 1970 interview that "perhaps, one day this century will be known as Deleuzian." Less often is one compelled to update and restart with a supplementary counter-proclamation of the mathematician, David Lindley: "the twenty-first century would be a Bayesian era..." The verb tenses of both are conspicuous. // To critically attend to what is today often feared and demonized, but also revered, deployed, and commonly referred to as algorithm(s), one cannot avoid the (...) mathematical and philosophical legacies of probability. // But attending to these probabilistic or Bayesian legacies must include an undeniable theological legacy in which they remain entangled. // We are not, today, discovering quirky theological metaphors in contemporary technics. It's the other way around. The technologies are mere metaphors of past theologies. (shrink)

This paper questions the veracity of Ferdinand de Saussure's theory of the genitive absolute in Sanskrit as giving rise to his erroneous theories of language. The paper begins by reviewing the received opinions about the arbitrary relationship between a sign and what is signifies. Then engaging with the works of St. Augustine and Tantric texts and reading the works of Saussure, the paper shows how higher academia has bought into Saussure's polemics which have nearly destroyed authentic philosophizing. The first title (...) chosen for this essay was The Refutation of Saussure's the 'Genitive Absolute' as a Foundation for Interreligious Dialogue. This title was discarded because though this essay closely reads Saussure's monograph on the genitive absolute in Sanskrit, most readers would be more familiar with his General Course. But without reading his comments on the genitive absolute in Sanskrit, one cannot understand the gravity of his errors. (shrink)

Augustine’s interpretation of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus from Lk 16 shows how much the parables of Jesus are open to a variety of interpretations and applications depending upon which part of the parable is emphasised. In Augustine’s writings the second part of the parable only is commented upon to illustrate points about the afterlife and the fate of the soul. However, in his homilies we find him engaging with both sections of the parable. We can note (...) the dexterity with which Augustine handled diverse themes in the parable by selectively emphasising either the fate of the rich man in this life or the next or the fate of Lazarus in this life or the next. From these different perspectives Augustine could deal with questions of wealth and poverty either materially or spiritually. This research supports the notion that whatever Augustine had to say about almsgiving is to be understood within a soteriological context to urge his congregation to be rich in humility and poor in pride. (shrink)

New Blackfriars, Volume 102, Issue 1100, Page 595-597, July 2021.