Yet more on The Confessions (400 CE), this time on books 10–13. What is memory and how does it relate to time and being? Augustine thinks that memory is a storehouse, but it contains not just the sensations we put in it, but also (à la Plato's theory of recollection) really all legitimate knowledge. It's our route to God, to real Being. Mark, Wes, and Dylan also discuss Continue Reading …
Episode 122: Augustine on Mind and Metaphysics (Citizen Edition)
A second discussion on The Confessions (400 CE), this time on books 10–13. What is memory and how does it relate to time and being? Augustine thinks that memory is a storehouse, but it contains not just the sensations we put in it, but also (à la Plato's theory of recollection) really all legitimate knowledge. It's our route to God, to real Being. Memory also solves the Continue Reading …
Episode 121: Augustine on Being Good (Citizen Edition)
On The Confessions (400 CE), books 1–9. The question is not "What is virtue?" because knowing what virtue is isn't enough. The problem, for Aurelius Augustinus, aka St. Augustine of Hippo, is doing what you know to be right. However, we shouldn't expect our capacity to know to be operating well unless we're already oriented correctly, which for Augustine means toward God. Continue Reading …
Topic for #121 and #122: Augustine’s “Confessions”
On 7/16 and then 7/28, we forayed into the Middle Ages for only the second time (our first being Maimonides), hitting the first of the big-time church fathers in the philosophical tradition, Aurelius Augustinus, aka St. Augustine of Hippo, reading his most popular work (then and now), Confessions, from around 400 CE. It's known as the first autobiography, and in our first Continue Reading …