- "Contra acadmicos", libro III;

- "Confesiones", libros VII, VIII, X y XI (el resto del libro es la vida de Agustn,
cmo fue cambiando de opiniones filosficas, pasando por el maniquesmo
hasta encontrarse con el neoplatonismo y, luego, el cristianismo; para eso
pueden buscar un resumen en internet o ver una pelcula que hay -o habaen YouTube);
- "Soliloquios", libro II;
- "La ciudad de Dios", libros V (s o s), XI, XII.
- "La verdadera religin" no lo he ledo, y a simple vista me parece que
habra que leer los captulos I-XII, XIV, XXX-XXXII y XXXVII.
Les aprovecho tambin de mandar (para los que lean en ingls) el "The
Cambridge Companion to Augustine", es buensimo en cuanto profundidad y
sntesis. Para preparar la prueba, tendran que leerse los artculos de Mann
(Augustine on evil and original sin, pp. 40-48) Knuuttila (Time and creation
in Augustine, pp. 103-113), Matthews (Knowledge and illumination, pp. 171185), O'Daly (The response to skepticism and the mechanisms of cognition,
pp. 159-167), Wetzel (Predestination, Pelagianism, and foreknowledge, pp.
49-57) y un prrafo chico que trata sobe la memoria y el tiempo en las
Confesiones (pp. 154-155). En mi criterio, quien lea todo eso (dndole
especial nfasis a los de Mann, Knuuttila y Matthews), puede perfectamente
sacarse una buena nota sin haber estudiado mucho las fuentes originales.
Les recuerdo tambin -para los que no lean ingls- que les dej el texto de
Cristoph Horn ("Agustn de Hipona: Una introduccin") en la fotocopiadora
de Carlitos. Resume muy bien su filosofa, y es ms completo y preciso que
Copleston (lo que s le falta, es una descripcin biogrfica ms amplia de
Agustn).
Si tienen dudas puntuales, pueden preguntarme cuando me vean en la
Facultad o bien mandndome un correo (benjamin.figueroa@ug.uchile.cl).
Saludos y que estn bien,
Benjamn.
P.D. Anoten esta informacin en alguna parte, ya que no utilizo Facebook y
entre hoy y maana lo cerrar nuevamente.

Agustn y el pecado.

Antes del cristianismo, concepcin de Dios como incorruptible,

inviolable, inmutable.
Dos tipos de maldad: 1) objetos fsicos imperfectos, as como las
cosas vivientes que mueren y se degeneran. 2) Los seres que tienen
almas corrompidas y que tienden al mal comportamiento.
El problema del mal radica en cmo puede existir en un mundo donde
tambin existe un Dios supremo que puede erradicarlo
Solucin temporal del dualismo materialista maniqueo, donde el bien
y el mal igualan fuerzas y constituyen las cosas. En esa propuesta,
Dios intenta erradicar el mal lo mejor que puede, enfrentando un
oponente igual de fuerte que l.
Despus de la conversin al cristianismo, Agustin entiende que la
solucin del problema del mal no puede estar con la propuesta
maniquea. Abandono de la concepcin corporal de Dios por la
espiritual.
Si Dios ahora es un espritu creador omnipotente, que creo el mundo
de la nada, y todo lo que el crea es bueno, de dnde proviene el
mal? Augustine deploys his answer in two stages. First, although
every creature is good, some creatures are better than others. The
lowest, most depraved soul is better than light, the noblest of
corporeal things.
The word evil, when predicated of creatures, refers to a privation,
an absence of goodness where goodness might have been. First,
creatures have a natural tendency towards mutability and corruption,
an unavoidable liability of their having been created ex nihilo.
Secondly, we are subject to perspectival prejudices, failing to see how
local privations, especially the ones that affect us, contribute to the
good of the whole.
Agustn y el tiempo

Augustine regarded God as being itself (ipsum esse) and anything

less than
God as less existent. The scale of the degrees of existence overlaps
the scale of
the degrees of goodness. God is perfectly good (De civ. Dei 12.12).
The created
beings are more or less good but they are all good because otherwise
they would
not exist.
Some second-century Christian apologists could still accept a literal
Platonic interpretation of the Timaeus to the effect that the universe
had a temporal beginning and was built out of pre-cosmic
matter.10Augustine stated that the Christians should not understand

the universes being created as its being dependent upon God

without a temporal beginning (De civ. Dei 11.4).
Augustine held that all human beings were seminally in Adam, though
their individual forms were not yet existent (De civ. Dei 13.14, 22.24).
Augustines answer to the arguments against the temporal beginning
of the world is based on a sharp distinction between time and
timelessness. Time depends on movement, and since God is
unmoving, there is no time before creation (Conf. 11.13.15; De civ.
Dei 11.6). The creation is an actualization of Gods eternal and
immutable decision: to will a change does not imply a change of will.
There is no sudden new decision in Gods mind (Conf. 11.10.12; De
civ. Dei 11.4, 12.15, 12.18, 22.2). Similarly the questions Why not
sooner? or Was God idle before? make no sense when God does
not precede the created world in any temporal sense.
Augustine stresses that even though Gods immense power is not
comprehensible to human minds, Gods works are not irrational (ibid.
21.5). Augustine asserts an eternal system of mathematical,
dialectical, and metaphysical principles based on the archetypal
forms or stable and unchangeable reasons of things, which are not
themselves
Like Aristotle and the Stoics, Augustine assumed that time is an
infinitely divisible continuum (Conf. 11.15.20); that there would be no
time if there were no motion and no souls (De Gen. ad litt. 5.5.12; De
civ. Dei 11.6, 12.16); and that time and motion are distinct even
though time is not independent of motion (Conf. 11.24.31, 12.11.14).
In criticizing the view that time is the motion of a celestial body,
Augustine states that time would still pass if the sun stood still, and it
would not be affected if the heavenly bodies were accelerated. Time
as duration is not dependent on any specific motion, but if nothing
passed or arrived or existed, there would be no past, future or present
times (11.23.3024.31; cf. 11.14.17). Augustine also thought that we
measure the temporal length of something by comparing it to
something, basically to the number of fixed parts of a regular motion
serving as measurement units (Conf. 11.16.21, 11.24.31).
How can something which does not exist be long or short? The
present, which is actual, is without duration. It is not long or short
(Conf. 11.15.1820). Even though time moves backwards so that the
present continuously ceases to be present and becomes a part of the
past, there is no store out of which the future is issuing to become the
present and then be stored again in the past (11.17.2218.23).
Nevertheless, we are conscious of intervals of time and measure
them. Augustine argues that the practice of the measurement of time
is based on the fact that human consciousness functions by
anticipating the future, remembering the past, and being aware of the
present through perception. Through this distension of the soul
(distentio animi) we have in our memory images of things which were
present and which we expect to be present. Therefore we have in the

soul a present of past which is memory and a present of future which

is anticipation or expectation (11.20.26, 11.26.33). In this sense time
exists as a distension of the soul.41
Our ability to measure times and evaluate temporal lengths is based
on our ability to memorize experienced durations. We become aware
of time through experiencing temporal extension. Contrary to what
has often been maintained, Augustine does not offer any
philosophical or theological definition of time in Book 11 of the
Confessions. He tries to explain how we are aware of time and how
its existence could be explained from the psychological point of view