There is No Searching for the Self: Self-Knowledge in Book Ten of Augustine’s De Trinitate

Phronesis ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 280-300
Author(s):  
Mateusz Stróżyński
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
De Trinitate ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Mind

Abstract This article explores the conception of self-knowledge in book 10 of Augustine’s De Trinitate. Augustine starts from the worry in Plato’s Meno that one cannot search for something entirely unknown and engages with Plotinus, Ennead 5.3 in developing his own understanding of the mind’s self-knowledge. He concludes that this knowledge is paradoxical in nature: it is necessary and, at the same time, futile; and it is separated from the knowledge of God. Augustine reaches this point by rejecting the Aristotelian identity of the knower with the known, as well as by grounding self-knowledge in the fact of the mind’s intimate presence to itself. Ultimately, self-knowledge appears to be an ‘objectless’ knowledge, a knowledge that the mind exists rather than knowledge of what the mind is.

Who Do You Think You Are?

2020 ◽  
pp. 51-57
Author(s):  
Nicolas Bommarito
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
What Works ◽  
Special Challenge ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Tools And Methods

This chapter explores self-knowledge, which is critical for solving the practical problems involved in getting through life. An awareness of your own quirks, character, and preferences is important for figuring out what works for you. However, self-knowledge is also tricky because it is especially elusive. People commonly learn about themselves only indirectly; often it is only by reading the reactions of others that people can see how harsh, kind, or annoying they are. It is also because when trying to know the self, the thing the individual is trying to see is the very thing that does the looking. Buddhism offers many evocative images to illustrate this special challenge: Just as a knife cannot cut itself, the mind cannot be directed toward itself. This makes knowing the self, especially in a deep way, an especially difficult task. Knowing the self thus requires special kinds of tools and methods. The chapter then considers the concept of Buddha Nature.

El sentido de la confessio en los Soliloquia y en las Confessiones

Augustinus ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-296
Author(s):  
Enrique Eguiarte ◽  
Mauricio Saavedra ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Reading Strategies ◽  
Saint Augustine ◽  
The Self ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Sacred Scripture ◽  
Self Knowledge

In this article, some parallels between the Soliloquia and Confessiones are revealed, particularly as concerning the self-knowledge (nouerim me) and the knowledge of God, two elements that the article links to the augustinian concept of confessio, in its different meanings, such as confessio laudis, confessio fidei, confessio peccatorum, confessio amoris, as well as the implications that this confessio has with other elements, such as the petitio considerationis, that is, the request made by Saint Augustine to God to be heard. The presence of the petitio considerationis has been analyzed not only in the text of the Soliloquia, but also within the text of the Confessiones, following its traces through four psalms where this petitio considerationis has left its marks, to indicate the various elements in which St. Augustine invites us to reflect, and highlighting, in particular, the importance that the Sacred Scripture has for St. Augustine. Finally, the presentation of the reading strategies and the implicit readers that St. Augustine presents both within the Soliloquia and within the Confessions is discussed.

scholarly journals “The Golden Age of Patristics”: Hellenophonic Patristic Discourse in the 4th–6th Centuries

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 22-30
Author(s):  
Д. С. Верланов
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
True Knowledge ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Church

In the early 4th century the Roman Empire suffered a number of important socio-political changes. TheEdict of Milan (313), having recognised in full the existence of the Church and its rights for worship, declaredreligions toleration, and put the end to the era of persecutions, but at the same time actualised and reinforced thestruggle of ideas between Christians and pagans. This controversy between Christians and pagans contributedimmensely to process of the becoming of Christian intellectual culture. In order to answer the most burningquestions and challenges of the time, the fathers of the Church deepened understanding and interpretation ofthe message of the Bible, created a large moral and ascetic literature, designed the dogmatic system. The mainpurpose of the present study is to specify the origins and main directions of patristic thought. In order to dothis I examine how fathers of the Church solve complex philosophical and theological issues, focusing on theepistemic aspect of the issue.According to the patristic tradition, the first step to acquire the true knowledge is to cleanse the self fromevery impurity of sin and passions. It is attained through keeping God’s commandments and maintaining asceticefforts. The sign of correct spiritual growth is a specific ability to penetrate into nature of things, which thefathers call “διάκρισις”. The fathers of the Church and Christian writers of the epoch recognise this ability asa religio-intuitive. One who receives this gift of divine grace becomes able of self-knowledge, distinguishingbetween good and evil, and understanding of the will of God. A Christian who possesses it becomes fully awareof personal spiritual condition, and as a result becomes capable to make the right choice of the way of salvation.There are two sources of the knowledge of God: natural (from the experience of being into the world) andsupernatural (divine revelation). The cognitive process therefore has two major aspects: sensual and speculative.The senses allow knowing God from his creation, as the mind or intellect enables man to contemplating ofincorporeal. The latter aspect enables one to self-knowledge or introspection and contemplation of the mind orsoul, which has been created in the image and likeness of God.The clarification of the Hellenophonic patristic discourse in 4th–6th centuries, on a large scale, allowsreconstructing another important phenomenon of this period, known as the “Golden Age” of Patristics.

Practical Authority and Self-Knowledge

2021 ◽  
pp. 32-57
Author(s):  
Michael Sevel
Keyword(s):  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Reason For Action

This paper develops an account of practical authority with a view to understanding why obeying authority is somehow problematic. While an authoritative directive may provide a reason for action, as is often thought, it also supplies the content of an intention to act. In this sense, an authority is the author of the content of a subject’s practical knowledge, the knowledge with which the subject acts when obeying. As a consequence, under modestly idealized conditions, a person in authority has knowledge of the mind of the obedient subject in a way that breaks down the self-other asymmetries the subject has to her own mind vis-à-vis others, the sort of asymmetries which philosophers have taken as central to the concept of a person. This consequence suggests a novel explanation of why practical authority is problematic and the obstacles to achieving its legitimacy.

XL—Troilus and Criseyde, a Study in Chaucer's Method of Narrative Construction

PMLA ◽  
1896 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-322
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Price
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Human Vision ◽  
Narrative Construction ◽  
Troilus And Criseyde ◽  
Creative Genius ◽  
Classical Poetry ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Mind

It has been among the results of Dr. Lounsbury's noble work on Chaucer to make the mind of the poet for us, as never for any generation before us, discoverable in his poetry. Since that work appeared, each of Chaucer's poems, read now through the light of that illumination, seems to kindle into fresh meaning in its revealed association with the mind and purpose of the writer. And from the union of all the poems into one image, there seems to come a somewhat clear revelation of the poet's range of human vision and of his method of poetry. This revelation reaches, I think, its highest point of truth in that eighth chapter which forms the crown of Dr. Lounsbury's book, the chapter on Chaucer as Literary Artist. “About Chaucer's method of work,” he says, “there is nothing of that blind creative inspiration, which, acting without reflection, characterizes, or is supposed to characterize, the poets of the earliest periods. He has all the self-consciousness of the creative genius that has mastered his art” (Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, III, 324). “He knows precisely what he is aiming to accomplish.” Here is, I think, the true word spoken about Chaucer's mental character, about his poetical method, and, by inference, about his rank and special place among the classical poets. For the essence of classical poetry is self-knowledge and self-restraint, the artistic calculation of proportions, and the aesthetic calculation of effects. It is my purpose, therefore, to show in the Troilus and Criseyde, which I take to be Chaucer's most perfect poem, the evidence of Dr. Lounsbury's summary of Chaucer's poetical character, the evidence of deliberate and careful calculation, of cool, self-conscious, almost infallible skill.

scholarly journals San Agustín: interioridad, reflexividad y certeza

2001 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Agustín UÑA JUÁREZ
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
De Trinitate ◽  
Methodological Question ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Mind

The present article researches into two main problems in St. Augustine's well known arguments of certainty, against the sceptics. Really, both problems are two different sides or levels of the same "methodological" question: the interiority of the knowledge (and the truth), and the reflection of the mind, as a way of certainty. A main conclusion of the present study is that both sides are correlative: reflection presupposes interiority, and interiority demands reflection, as a way of certainty. But, what is reflection for Augustine? The last part of this paper examines the Augustinian doctrine of reflection, in the context of his «philosophy of the mind». At this point, the present enquiry tries to show that our thinker supposes along his works (specially in De Trinitate and in Cmzfessiones) three main kinds of reflection, according to three different modes of self-knowledge of the human mind: "llotitialis", "cogitativa", and "phenomenological".

scholarly journals Macbeth and the passions' "proper stuff"

Sederi ◽  
2010 ◽  
pp. 71-101
Author(s):  
Zenón Luis Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
The Self ◽  
Outward Appearance ◽  
Early Modern Philosophy ◽  
Bodily Sensations ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Shakespearean Tragedy

This essay examines early modern conceptions and representations of the passions in relation to issues of self-knowledge in texts ranging from Renaissance psychology to Shakespearean tragedy –with a particular focus on Macbeth. Considered in essence processes of the mind, the passions were believed to manifest themselves through material symptoms such as bodily effects, facial gestures and discourse. Accordingly, the early modern philosophy of man saw in the study of these material manifestations a vehicle to access the soul. By tracing the methodologies for translating the material side of human experience –words, gestures, bodily sensations and signals– into less material truths, early modern philosophy and theatre explored the certainties about inwardness as a necessary dimension of the self, as well as the uncertainties about the ultimate essence of such interiority. In this, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, for its constant focus on outward appearance and rhetoric, stresses the need to focus on matter as a vehicle to explore interiority. And yet –and in keeping with the principles of earlier Renaissance humanists– the play acknowledges the utter impossibility to know the ultimate essence of the inward self.

The Importance of the Will to the Cognitive Process in Augustine's De trinitate

Dialogue ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-350
Author(s):  
Mariana Paolozzi Servulo da Cunha
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Process ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
De Trinitate ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
The Will ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Will Self ◽  
Shed Light

AbstractThe objective of this article is to show Augustine's originality in ascribing a key role to will in the cognitive activity. For him, knowledge is influenced by both will and love, and cannot be grasped without will. Grounded primarily on De trinitate, the article focuses on three kinds of knowledge that shed light on his peculiar view on will: self-knowledge, knowledge of God, and the knowledge of bodies.

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