Augustine's Contribution to Epistemology - Essay Example

? Augustine’s Contribution to Epistemology Augustine’s Contribution to Epistemology Epistemology is the studyof erudition and vindicated principle. The focus of the paper is to present and to discuss the contributions of St. Augustine of Hippo to epistemology. Augustine delved into epistemology for the essential intent of grasping its part in the pursuit of attaining bliss. He asserted that human knowledge would be unachievable if God did not lighten up the human intellect and thereby permit it to perceive, realize or comprehend ideas. Augustine deems the course by which the psyche progresses from the fixation with the object towards deliberation that of the divine as a constitutive part of the cleansing and refinement that is salvation, and as arising in the two-natured Christ, through partaking in Christ’s body.1 Augustine devoted his life to the fundamental quest for truth.2 The epistemological groundwork of his hermeneutic is originated in this expedition for truth.3 Augustine recognizes that Scripture will be understood by a man who possesses an intellectual core. Every human spirit comprehends through the means of enlightenment by a heavenly luminosity. Some men are bestowed with the grace of seeing ideas more clearly while others less clearly. Hence, in the usual course of events, the human intellect does see the divine facts moderately, not immediately in his life.4 The very character of substance hinders the human psyche from the absolute wisdom of the understandable. Augustine adopted the doctrine dated back from the time of the philosophers, Aristotle and Plato, that certain factors thwarts the soul in his search for truth and knowledge. In reference to the bible, Augustine supposes that matter deters the exact forethought for veracity. Moreover, he believes that being endowed with the birthright of original sin from Adam and Eve hinders humans to be guided by the divine light, which, in turn, will help them clearly perceive reality. Original sin darkens the path of human intellect towards certainty. Augustine believes that the corruptible body impedes the quest for knowledge and the main vice that dominates the soul is pride.5 Humility, through the Incarnation and the words of the Holy Scripture, heals pride. The Incarnation facilitates the dialogue between humans and God. Philosophical and biblical reasons predominate Augustine’s speculations of his works. However, the human psyche does not perceive truth directly. Augustine gave emphasis that the human inability to see the truth precisely in his life renders God and truth ineffable; hence, his theology accentuated that God is known better by not knowing him.6 Furthermore, celestial origin is beyond description and human words are simply unsuccessful in clearly describing it. Men utilize remarks, unsuitable they may be, just to say something rather than nothing.7 Moreover, Augustine highlights that such events can never be known.8 Beliefs an individual has known cannot be modified by a more complex fact unless that individual views that reality with his own eyes. Thus, faith continues an individual’s pursuit for wisdom. This insinuation of reliance is astonishing for Christians since their religion is rooted in a variety of historical occurrences. Now and then, some people believed that Augustine’s great contribution to epistemology is to rescue the cognitive status of belief.9 Although substandard to wisdom, it is nevertheless essential to human life in general, but especially in religion.10 For the reason that Christianity is founded on the works of authors from long ago that individuals in this present time barely even know, what they only did was to believe in what they have written. Augustine associates ontology to epistemology for the reason that teaching and learning are spliced into being.11 For instance, language is often already a part of being, and such it is inseparable to its mnemonic function—teaching and learning.12 Thus, in Augustine’s perspective, the core of being is analogous to the essence of knowing. Moreover, by the climbing the ladder of reason or the epistemic ladder, one comes closer to the form of thought the angels employ and by going up that steps, one simultaneously ascends to the ontological ladder, moving closer in being with God.13 Augustine’s works are remarkably multi-faceted in nature; within one theory, he incorporates aspects from ancient philosophy, the Bible, the arts and sciences of his day and Christian writers before him.14 It appears uncomplicated, his works are arduous to infer. In his writings, Augustine suggests that the function of illumination is five-fold; it serves as the source of cognitive capacity, cognitive content, and help with the process of recognition, certitude and knowledge of God.15 Therefore, facts of reality can be duly recognized and comprehended by humans if something else is aiding them to understand. Hence, the most significant means of addressing misconceptions about the truth is to tackle it directly.16 Following the nature of the paradigm objects of knowledge, Augustine highlighted that truth is perceptible only by the mind or reason, and not by sense perception.17 Since all objects of the senses are contingent and mutable, individuals cannot gain knowledge through perception.18 People distinguish logical things precisely by moving within the immaterial soul away from sense perception and the material world.19 Individuals are able to perceive reality once someone or something aids them in viewing it. Hence, it has also been stressed that to know the truth, one should be acquainted with it and experiences it. Augustine identifies truth itself with God, who is himself, necessary, immutable and eternal, and hence maintains that our knowledge of truth rests on divine illumination.20 However, Augustine made it obvious that the nature of God is unlike the nature of any other thing that human beings know.21 On contrary to material beings that come into existence at a particular period and progressively mature into the predetermined beings that they were destined to be, God is an immortal being that never changes; he is not constituted by parts but is one thing, which is all that is virtuous all the time: never-ending and undying.22 Therefore, God is austere and it is his austerity that makes him enigmatic to those creatures that dwell in the domain of varied objects he has formed. Augustine acknowledges that some find the notion of divine simplicity difficult to reconcile with the Catholic teaching that God is Triune or Trinity.23 In response to those who presumes that this principle poses a peril for the oneness of the heavenly being and marvelous action, Augustine contends that the involvement of the Three Persons is exactly what generates the opportunity to assert that there is one God who constantly performs one thing, which is to recognize and proclaim his own magnificence and splendor. In giving details to this allegation, Augustine made a distinction between the essence of God and the liaisons in God. He also stated that the three Persons execute actions as one as they exist in a variety of ties. Augustine discriminates between principles established in this sort of rational foresight and notions substantiated in other means. The former sort constitutes paradigm or strict knowledge and when a belief is founded that way, persons are deemed to gain understanding; whereas, the latter involves mere belief or knowledge only in a general aspect.24 Acquiring comprehension of a proposition necessitates proof that is inherently associated with the proposition itself, so that one holds veracity of the proposition; hence, one can only see the truth if that individual grasps its essence. Augustine emphasized that a considerable number of our principles rest on the testimony of others and that, despite the fact that beliefs based on testimony lack the paradigm sort of justification provided by intellectual vision, nevertheless, individuals are epistemically justified in holding many beliefs of this sort.25 Augustine’s renowned suggestion tackled that for one to be able to comprehend, one must first have faith. The testimony of the Scripture and the Church sufficiently grounds proposition of Christian doctrine so that people are justified in accepting them.26 Nonetheless, individuals who are able to think logically can recognize the quintessence of the propositions to some extent. All in all, Augustine is widely recognized for his involvement in Epistemology for his ingenious versions of conviction and power, his principle of knowledge and illumination, his emphasis upon the significance and centrality of the will, and his concentration upon a contemporary approach of formulating and appraising the trend of human chronicle. References Ayres, Lewis. “A Christological Epistemology,” Augustine and the Trinity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Dancy, Jonathan, Ernest Sosa and Matthias Steup, A Companion to Epistemology, Second Edition. West Sussex: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2010. Harris, Mitchell Munroe. Rise to Thought: Augustinian Ethics in Donne, Shakespeare and Milton. United States: ProQuest LLC, 2008. Hoitenga, Jr., Dewey J. Faith and Reason from Plato to Plantinga: An Introduction to Reformed Epistemology. New York: State University of New York Press, 1991. Schumacher, Lydia. Divine Illumination: The History and Future of Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2011. Van Fleteren, Frederick and Joseph C. Schnaubelt, Augustine: Biblical Exegete. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2004. Read More