Medieval philosophy is often thought of as a dark age, but Augustine’s ideas about the inner life, mind, senses, memory, reason, and will centered on God are still relevant to modern philosophy and scientific research.
Introduction
The medieval period in the West is often referred to as the “Dark Ages” by many people. The word “dark” has a negative connotation, perhaps because of the predominance of Christianity in the Middle Ages, which led to many wars during this period. However, this is just a ‘preconceived notion’ and many medieval thinkers and their ideas are still debated, questioned, and studied to this day. When I first encountered medieval philosophy, my first thought was, “Isn’t this a time period that can be explained by one word: God?” But as I learned more about medieval philosophy, I began to rethink what “God” meant to people at the time. I also began to think about why they developed their ideas centered on God. I also realized that ideas were developed in various fields other than the idea of God. Among these medieval philosophers, I would like to talk about Augustine and his ideas about the mind and soul.
What is the inner life according to Augustine?
Augustine argues that humans have an inner and an outer life. This distinction is not necessarily a distinction between the mind (soul) and the body, since some mental faculties, such as the senses and the memory of sensations, are also possessed by animals as well as humans. The inner part must be uniquely human, which can be defined as the faculties that are uniquely human, such as the mind, rational judgment, and intellectual contemplation. Augustine also considered the inner part to be higher than the outer part because he was an introverted philosopher who valued the inner part more.
The external part, on the other hand, includes the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, commonly referred to as the five senses. Of these, Augustine saw sight as the epitome of the senses, and considered it to be the most complete and representative of the senses.
Augustine’s sense of sight
To see something, we need three things. The object to be seen, the action of seeing, and a mental orientation. According to Augustine, only the mental orientation is a mental activity. The sight itself, which is necessary to see an object, is a bodily sensation because it is accomplished through a physical part called the eye. This physical sense only works in that situation, but the mental component can work even when we are not looking, such as when we think of or are reminded of something.
Augustine described vision as “the result of both the object and the senses”. This means that when we look at an object, it creates an image in our senses, which we call sight, and that image is similar to the object we see. For example, when we see an apple, we perceive it through our vision, but we also recognize that the object is an apple because we have a mental image of it in our head. Augustine saw the actual object and the mental image as similar, but not identical. He emphasized that the two are so closely connected that it’s hard to tell them apart, but they are in fact different.
To explain this similarity a bit further, Anthony Kenny’s book Medieval Philosophy explains that when we look at an object, our senses create an image of it, and this image bears a similarity to the object we see. For example, if you put your hand in water and then take it out, the water refills, but the space that your hand occupied in the water remains as a reminder of its existence. This shows that there is a difference between the form of the object we see and the impression it leaves on our eyes. However, Augustine believes that the two are so closely connected that they are not easily distinguishable.
What is memory according to Augustine?
As mentioned earlier, we can say that we ‘see’ something because of the similarity between the object itself and its form. The shape is formed by ‘memory’, which Augustine considered very important. He argued that the reason we can recognize something is because we have memory. In other words, we can recognize something because of the information that already exists in our memory. For example, if you were asked to imagine the house where a singer lives, someone who has been to the house would be able to recall the exact shape, but someone who hasn’t would have a hard time recognizing it without relying on memory.
Augustine’s philosophical analysis of memory is similar to that of vision. If sight consists of the object seen, the sight itself, and the mental orientation, then memory consists of the recollected memory, the recollection itself, and the thought. He further argues that mental orientation and thought are the result of an “act of the will. This will can manifest itself through the outer eye and the inner eye, and if we choose the inner eye, it produces such vivid similarities that even the rational mind cannot distinguish between what it sees externally and what it conjures up internally. For this reason, we are capable of realistic imagination, but this imagination is not completely under our voluntary control.
What is reason according to Augustine?
According to Augustine, reason is divided into two: the higher reason and the lower reason. The higher reason is accessible only through the intellect and is concerned with eternal and immutable truths. The lower reason, on the other hand, deals with temporary and material things, and sometimes acts as a proxy for the higher reason. The higher reason is called sapientia and the lower reason is called skeentia, with sapientia meaning wisdom and insight and skeentia meaning learning and science.
Sapientia is the contemplation of true and immutable truth, and while contemplation in this life is of eternal truth, in the life of the divinely illumined it leads to contemplation of God. Skeptia, on the other hand, is the awareness of the temporal and variable things that are necessary in this life.
What is Augustine’s will?
Augustine’s Confessions reveal that he was a deeply religious man, and he explored the will in depth. While he emphasized the grace of God, he also insisted on the complexity of the human will and saw the human will as accountable before God; in other words, he emphasized the importance of both divine grace and human will. In doing so, Augustine viewed the will as a power of the soul, where intellect and desire are distinct, overturning the ancient view of the will as a mere act of desire.
Augustine identified memory, intellect, and will as the three highest elements of the divine image. Memory is the ability to think all kinds of thoughts, while intellect is the ability to assent to the truth of theoretical ideas through sapientia. Finally, the will is the ability to agree on a plan of action, for example, “I’m going to study from now on” is the will. There are similarities and differences between introverted and extroverted philosophers regarding the will. The similarities include: first, that the pursuit of happiness is at the root of all human choices; second, that individual decisions to act are a choice of means to an end; and third, that both philosophers were concerned with the possibility of not following the commands of the will or practical reason.
The difference is that Augustine saw no cause for the evil will; he argued that the evil will is the cause of evil acts, but that the evil will itself has no cause. The first man, Adam, committed an evil act, but there was nothing that caused him to have an evil will. This is where the concept of “anti-causal freedom” comes in, which means the freedom to make contrary choices despite the direction in which the agent’s will is inclined. In other words, the will has room to make decisions that are contrary to its own will.
Conclusion
Augustine was a deeply religious man who believed in God, and the need for God is frequently mentioned in his thought. In the Mind and Soul, he had many divine references, and in the Will, he had a human-centered view. This shows that medieval philosophers did not unconditionally incorporate God into their philosophy.
In addition, the question raised in the introduction, why medieval philosophers believed in God, seems to be answered to some extent by Augustine’s ideas. At the time, the existence of God was considered a matter of course, and philosophers like Aquinas attempted to prove it in a rational way. Although the mind and soul are now being studied scientifically, I think there is still a lot of philosophical research that needs to be done. Augustine’s views on the mind and soul are still relevant today.
