The Confessions of Saint Augustine For Philosophy 111

Book 10 Prof. I. Valero

As reported by GUBAT, Bennet A.

Summary

Book 10 of Augustine’s Confessions is divided fourfold – primarily, he declares his motivation and
the course that his investigations into the nature of God will take him:

I shall know you, my knower, I shall know you, even as I am known (Conf. 10.1.1.)

Secondly, he undertakes an investigation of memory that is overlaid with his epistemology and his
view of reality. The third part sees Augustine detailing his shortcomings with regards to the three
chief kinds of iniquity:

… lust for power, of the eyes, or of sensuality (Conf. 3.8.16)

or

… the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the ambition of the
world (Conf. 10.30.41)

In the hopes that this will bring him closer unto the peace of God. The book concludes with
Augustine’s realization that he is still mired in his old habits and will remain mired in this life
unless through a mediator which will bridge the gap between man and God.

Commentary

Taken as a whole, Book 10 of the Confessions describes Augustine’s epistemology, philosophy of

mind, and notion of reality, in which we find he brings to bear a combination of Platonic and
Aristotelian views. The method, as defined by the title of the book itself, is through exhaustive
self-examination – the purpose of which is to bring him closer to God by confessing before [him]
in secret exultation and trembling (Conf 10.4.6) or in rejoicing with trembling (Conf 10.30.42). It is
tempting to consider the entire book as denoting a sort of incarnational epistemology because
Augustine’s process to attain knowledge of Truth ≈ God is to require the services of the
incarnation as a mediator. Augustine however, does not deny that a empirical knowledge is
possible. We will attempt to address the finer points of his epistemology piecemeal and in so
doing hope to attain a better grasp of the whole.

Objective Reality and Sense-Perception:

Augustine rejects the Platonic notion that the outside world is merely a shadow of another
dimension – an imperfect image. Objective reality exists and contains things in themselves which
are knowable through the senses:

… I… project the radiant messengers of my eyes and those bodily messengers reported back
answers of heaven and earth and all things that are in them (Conf. 10.6.9)

These objects in reality are in themselves beautiful and not deceptive, contrary to the Platonic
view. In fact, all objective reality speaks with one voice, with one appearance, and that is of
beauty. This beauty points the viewer only to one other thing and this the man of judgment may
obtain from them – the reality of God. This he basically pulls out of Paul:
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by
the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
(Rom. 1:20)

The reason why this truth can sometimes be obscured is because people, through love for such
things become subjected to them (Conf. 10.6.10). It is not temporal affects on the senses that
must be explored in order to know God but their internal or shall we say spiritual analogue:

What is it then that I love when I love [God]? ... a light, a voice, an odor, a food, an embrace for
the man within me. (Conf. 10.6.8)

Take note that Augustine here uses eyes as an analogue for all of his senses, for by means of the
word “seeing”

We also apply this word to other senses when we set them to the acquisition of knowledge (Conf.
10.35.54)

In his discussion on sensation also, Augustine presents a theory of man’s organic unity.
Augustine’s ego, similar to the Aristotelian concept of anima, adheres to the body and fills it with
life and the capability to perceive by means of the sense organs. Here however, is where he
detaches from Aristotle as the sense organs do not actualize the perceived object but instead
serve as a portal from which sense qualia penetrate:

Each is brought in through its own proper entrance; as light and all colors and bodily shapes
through the eyes; all varieties of sound through the ears; all odors by the portal of the nostrils; all
tastes by the portal of the mouth; and, by the sense diffused throughout the whole body, what is
hard, what is soft, what is hot or cold, smooth or sharp, heavy or light... (Conf. 10.8.13)

Memory and its contents:

Key to Augustinian epistemology is his philosophy of memory. Memory contains all the images
brought about by sense perception. By manipulation of these images, presaging Hobbes and his
line of empiricists, Augustine is able to arrive at knowledge by which he can determine future
actions and predict future events.

Unlike Hobbes however, Augustine recognizes that images are not all that are contained in
memory. He takes into consideration abstract concepts such as those used in the liberal arts and
the principles of numbers. With these concepts, not the images but the things themselves (Conf.
10.9.16, Conf. 10.10.17) are stored in memory. Augustine here presents a form of the semiotic by
maintaining that there are things in themselves signified by these sounds and visual
representations, things that have themselves an objective reality, and these objects are what are
retained in memory.

I retain the images of the sounds out of which these words have been fashioned, and I know that
they passed with ordered sound through the air, and that they no longer exist. But as to the things
themselves which are signified by those sounds, I neither attained to them by any bodily sense
nor did I descry them anywhere except in my mind, yet I stored away in my memory not their
images but the things themselves. (Conf. 10.10.17)

and

by means of all the bodily senses I have perceived the numbers that we enumerate, but those
numbers with which we enumerate are something different. They are not the images of the other
ones, and yet they truly exist.
Memory is a receptacle not just of all the products of sense-perception, things in themselves such
as the principles of numbers and learning of the arts, and passions of the mind. It also contains all
there is possible to know about everything, perhaps a hangover from the Platonic notion of
anamnesis. Sense experience merely gives occasion to remember what is already stored in
memory. We are able to recognize things as truth:

Because they were already in memory, but so removed and pushed back as it were in more
hidden caverns that, unless they were dug up by some reminder, I would perhaps have been
unable to conceive them. (Conf. 10.10.17)

and

we find that to learn such things… …by acts of thought we gather together and collect as it were
things that memory contained here and there and without any order, and then observe them and
see to it that they be placed near at hand (Conf. 10.11.18)

Truth and knowledge:

Therefore by these acts of thought and processes of memory, empirical and abstract knowledge
is possible; truth with a small “t” so to speak, because Augustine also consider a higher form of
Truth, a Truth by which all is made true. Augustine in fact warns against wallowing in empty
curiosity and frivolous interests, or seeking knowledge for knowledge’s sake – a sin he considers
even greater than that of pleasure for:

pleasure seeks things that are beautiful, melodious, fragrant, tasty, and soft while curiosity seeks
even their opposites, with a view to trying them out, not in order to suffer disgust but out of a
desire for experience and knowledge. (Conf. 10.35.55)

Augustine equates Truth with God, for You are the truth who preside over all things. (Conf.
10.41.66) and by this Truth are other truths known. However, as we have said, this can be
obscured when something other than Truth is loved above it, such that men fall victim to the three
dangerous sins which mislead them in their quest for the happy life. But as long as humans
remain human they are unable to attain sure knowledge of that Truth, that one true happy life,
due to their own infirmity. If this is perfected in me, it will be something, I know not what, that will
not belong to this life. But under my burdens of misery I sink down to those other things, and I am
drawn back again by former ways and held fast by them. (Conf. 10.40.65)

If this is the case, then surely it is a recipe for despair, for how are we to know anything if by
attempting to know, temptations lead us astray? We need not do so, however, as Augustine here
presents his mediator, embodied in Jesus in the final chapter of the text, but actually interspersed
in the text as modes of divine intervention, without which he could discern nothing of these things.
(Conf. 10.40.65), thereby implying that without any form of divine intervention, there will be no
knowledge at all.

Sources:

Rouse, W.H.D.,trans. Meno, The Great Dialogues of Plato, Signet 1970

Rouse, W.H.D., trans. Phaedo, The Great Dialogues of Plato, Signet 1970
Ryan, John K., trans. The Confessions of Saint Augustine, Doubleday 1960