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 …