Abstract
Traditionally, two claims have been made about Augustinian views on self-knowledge: firstly, that according to Augustine the soul is fully transparent to itself, meaning that it has an unmediated access to its essence; secondly, that medieval Augustinians retained this unmediated access to the essence of the soul by itself, thus opting for a view alternative to authors of an Aristotelian hue for whom the soul knows itself only by means of knowing its acts. In the first part of my paper, I argue that the traditional reading of Augustine is correct with the qualification that such transparency is proper to the human mind, which means that it does not apply to the soul of non-rational animals. Sensory self-awareness in non-rational beings must be understood in the restricted sense of awareness of the state of their sense organs. In the second part of my paper, I investigate how the principle of the soul’s transparency is understood by a sample of late medieval thinkers with the aim of showing that the traditional distinction between Augustinians and Aristotelians on self-knowledge is progressively blurred.
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Notes
- 1.
De trin. 10.3.5, 297 (unless otherwise noted, I refer to McKenna’s translation). Another formulation of the principle is found in De trin. 10.9.14, 308: “every mind knows and is certain concerning itself”. The author would like to acknowledge the funding from the European Research Council under the ERC grant agreement n. 637747.
- 2.
“For certainly something cannot be loved unless it is known” (De trin. 10.1.2,293).
- 3.
De trin. 10.10.16. PT fails to accommodate one important aspect in Augustine’s theory, which B does not, namely the justification for absolute knowledge. As spelled out in B, the mind loves itself completely because it knows itself completely. There is something in B that is dear to the medieval approach to epistemology, which is never taken as an end in itself: knowledge is never self-justifiable but we know in order to fulfill our nature, adapt to the environment, or survive.
- 4.
De musica VI, 37.
- 5.
This is an interesting and clever distinction between what the mind is inherently capable of – absolute and immediate, direct knowledge of itself – and the mode of self-knowledge the mind exercises in the post-Fall human practice. A question arises, however, when it comes to self-awareness at the sensory level: what kind, if any, of awareness is the soul capable of during the process by which it comes to know external things, objects and their properties?
- 6.
De trin. 10.8.11, 305.
- 7.
Later on, an Augustinian such as Gerard of Abbeville can claim along the same lines that only when liberated from the consideration of external things can the soul turn upon itself and know itself (Quodlibet IV, q. 1, 26).
- 8.
- 9.
Silva (2014).
- 10.
This is very different from the question of knowledge of the self. On this issue, see Remes (2008).
- 11.
Brittain (2002).
- 12.
De trin. 10.3.5; 14.10.13; see also Hölscher (1986), 129.
- 13.
De trin. 10.8.11. This is the distinction between the interiority and exteriority of mental presence to which Hölscher (1986, 129) alludes.
- 14.
De Genesi ad litteram 12.16.33.
- 15.
De musica VI.10.25, 61 (emphasis added).
- 16.
“We do not by the same sense distinguish the form of the body which we see and the form which arises from it in the sense of the one who sees because the connection between them is so close that there is no room for distinguishing them. But by our reason we conclude that it would have been utterly impossible to perceive anything, unless some image of the body that was seen arose in our sense” (De trin. 64).
- 17.
De libero arbitrio 2.3.9, 39.
- 18.
I therefore disagree with Juhana Toivanen’s claim that Augustine attributes “the awareness of oneself as a living being to animals” (Toivanen [2013a], 357). I think Augustine is committed to a weaker version of self-awareness, which is the awareness of the state of the sense organs, that is, only to the idea that “animals perceive the functions of their bodily parts” (idem, 366). I certainly agree with Toivanen about the teleological nature of self-awareness for Augustine.
- 19.
On this conclusion, see Hölscher (1986), 83.
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
On this, see Cory (2014), 17–29.
- 23.
Quaestiones disputate de cognitione 5, 12, 295.
- 24.
Quaestiones disputate de cognitione 5, 5, 293. Interestingly enough, Matthew also uses Avicenna (and his flying man argument) to argue for the opposite view that the soul has direct knowledge of itself (Questiones disputate de cognitione 5, 12, 312).
- 25.
Quaestiones disputate de cognitione 5, 12, 295.
- 26.
Quaestiones disputate de cognitione 5, 14–15, 313.
- 27.
Quaestiones disputate de cognitione 5, 306. Matthew repeats the same point in his Quaestiones disputatae de anima beata, q. 8, 346. For a detailed examination of Matthew’s doctrine of self-knowledge, see Putallaz (1991).
- 28.
Pecham talks of the eye of the intellect or mind, which is a typical Augustinian expression to describe the understanding or grasping of a certain content by the mind, a mental analogue of corporeal vision. On this, see e.g. De trin. 11.7.11-9.16; 12.14.23; and Miles (1983).
- 29.
“… intelligit se per actum suum in quantum intelligit se intelligere” (Quodlibet IV, q. 27, 236).
- 30.
“Cum tamen nulla virium sensitivarum super se ipsam reflectatur, quia tamen apprehensivae sunt, anima sensitiva sentit se sentire, sensu enim communi sentit se sentire sensu particulari” (Tractatus de anima, ch. 12, 2, 42).
- 31.
“Nullus enim imaginatur se imaginari, nec aestimat se aestimare” (ibid.).
- 32.
James states clearly that these are two consecutive acts: the soul first perceives the external thing, then it becomes aware of itself as perceiving the external thing (“anima … ducatur primo in cognitionem alterius a se; et per illius cognitionem venit in cognitionem sui ipsius”, Disputatio prima de Quodlibet, q. 14, 196 [emphasis added]).
- 33.
“… ab ipsa producitur” (Disputatio prima de Quodlibet, q. 14, 197).
- 34.
Disputatio prima de Quodlibet, q. 14, 197.
- 35.
“… cognitio indistincta et imperfecta” (Disputatio prima de Quodlibet, q. 14, 196).
- 36.
Ibid.
- 37.
“Quod autem non intelligat specie edita a se, arguebatur, quia non potest speciem edere a se nisi gignendo ipsam suo actu intelligendi et sic prius intelligeret quam speciem qua intelligere debet gigneret; et de illo actu intelligendi priori posset esse quaestio an ipso intelligit specie edita a se; et procedet in infinitum aut erit status quod intelligit sine specie edita a se” (Quodlibet I, qq. 12–13, 78). Henry presents a similar argument about the species of species in Quodlibet IV, q. 7. In this section, all translations are mine, unless otherwise noted.
- 38.
Henry remarks that Augustine’s statement in De trinitate that the soul has direct or unmediated access to itself is meant to apply to this disembodied state.
- 39.
On Vital du Four, see Lynch (1972). I take Vital’s theory to be an example of what I would like to call “the intellectualization model” of late medieval Augustinian philosophy of perception. I cannot go into the details of this strand of Augustinianism here; I will simply state that it brings back something that sits at the heart of Augustine’s Neo-Platonism, namely the conception of the soul as a unified entity that in the case of human beings is rational all the way down. Further studies will allow us to evaluate the central commitments of this model and its popularity in the late medieval period.
- 40.
“Dico quod, cum dicitur quod intellectus omnibus potentiis cognoscitivis in sua actualitate tamquam causa universalis creata influit, praesens est et cooperatur causis particularibus, non est intelligendum quin causae particulares sine influx superioris aliquid operarentur, dummodo in sua actualitate conservarentur et patiens approximatum esset. (…) Sed dico quod omnes apprehensiones sensitivae, seu sensuum particularium seu phantasiae, omnes sunt perfectae in genere cognitionis, sed monstruosae, nisi per intellectum perficiantur” (Huit questions, q. 1, II.1, 167; see Lynch [1972], 42).
- 41.
“Item, intellectiva anima in quantum intellectiva est forma hominis, ut patuit in quaestione de hoc disputata; omnis autem forma comunicat actum suum materiae vel saltem composito, ut ibi fuit ostensum; ergo necessario intelligere, quod est actus intellectivae, toti coniuncto communicabitur” (Huit questions, q. 1, 1, 157).
- 42.
“Item, ostensum est in quaestione De potentiis animae quod potentia intellectiva situm non habet in corpore, quia nullo organo utitur, sed est in omni parte corporis ut ibi ostensum fuit, quia illud in quo est, scilicet substantia animae, est in toto corpore” (Huit questions, q. 1, II.1, 166).
- 43.
“not fit per organa sensuum, sed est in organis” (Huit questions, q. 1, II, 164).
- 44.
“in ratione perficientis in ratione cognitive” (Huit questions, q. 1, II.1, 165).
- 45.
“Sicut igitur sol perficit actiones virium inferiorum, sic intellectus perficit praesens actiones omnium virium cognitivarum, cum in toto minori mundo sit causa universalis in cognoscendo sicut sol in generando” (Huit questions, q. 1, II.1, 168).
- 46.
“Unde, sicut virtus solis, dum coniungitur agentibus particularibus, contrahitur et determinatur, pote virtute huius arboris vel illius, et applicatur actioni particularis et efficitur una actio numero cum ea, sic virtus intelectiva, quae est universalis in cognoscendo, dum coniungitur et applicatur virtutibus particularibus sensitivis, quod fit dum intelligit et cognoscit actualem existentiam rei sensibilis extrinsecae, particularizatur et determinatur et contrahitur” (Huit questions, q. 1, II.1, 168).
- 47.
It may be that such properties are thereby also recognized as attributable to a certain kind of thing, but this is highly speculative.
- 48.
Huit questions, 169.
- 49.
In what follows I do not add anything new to Lynch’s detailed presentation of Vital’s arguments, but I do give systematic emphasis to what seems original in Vital’s theory of self-knowledge: his insistence on the first-person perspective and the certitude this brings to cognition.
- 50.
Huit questions, 163.
- 51.
“per actus suos intimos, quos experitur in se (…) devenit in sui notitiam et quia est et quid est” (q. 4, 242).
- 52.
He also refers to it as the “interior spiritual experiential (experimentante) sense” (q. 4, 247).
- 53.
“In hoc igitur residet huius quaestionis inquisitio, quod anima unita cognoscit se esse et corpori inesse per actus suos intrinsecos vel extrinsicos, absque specie; illos autem actus cognoscit absque specie, sola mentis experimentatione, ut, dum volo, sensus ille interior mentis certissime cognoscit et experitur me velle. Nec anima in hac vita naturali cognitione potest habere tantam certitudinem de aliquo quantam habet de illis actibus suis intrinsecis: scit enim se velle certissime, dum vult” (Q. 4, 247).
- 54.
Huit questions, 253.
- 55.
Lynch (1972), 128.
- 56.
For the explicit reference to Aristotle’s Physics, see q. 4, 250.
- 57.
For a comprehensive account of Sutton’s arguments, see Putallaz (1991), 191–257.
- 58.
“Utrum visio corporalis sit idem quod species rei visae” (Quodlibeta, q. 13, 264–269).
- 59.
“Ideo informatio medii per speciem non est cognitio, sed informatio sensus est cognitio, quamvis non agat sensus aliquid in sentiendo, sed tantum patiatur, sicut et medium non agit, sed patitur. Et propter hoc illa informatio licet non sit operatio vitalis, prout est in medio, tamen est operatio vitalis, prout est in sensu, quamvis sensus non agat ad illam operationem. Et quia species in sensu non accipitur sub ratione imaginis, nisi per intentionem animi sensus dirigatur ad sensibile et coniungatur et detineatur in illo, ideo informatio sensus per speciem non est sensatio, non est operatio vitae sine intentione animi sic coniungente” (Quodlibeta II, q. 13, 267).
- 60.
Quodlibeta II, q. 14, 178.
- 61.
Putallaz (1991), 204, notes that the assumption about the distinction between the powers of the soul and its essence is in the background of Sutton’s arguments against the Augustinian view.
- 62.
“Ex hoc etiam patet causa, quare anima non convertit se ad intelligendum se per suam essentiam. Oportet enim quod virtus cognoscitiva quaecumque ad illam partem se convertat in omni sua cognitione, ex qua parte animae est suum obiectum sibi proportionatum” (Quodlibeta II, q. 14, 282). Sutton makes this explicit when he says that the intellect knows when (and only when) it turns towards a phantasm, not towards the essence of the soul (Quodlibeta II, q. 14, 279), the object of the intellect being the essence of a material thing (quidditas rei materialis) (See also Putallaz [1991], 207). A power needs one object upon which to turn itself, and one is led to conclude that the object cannot be the whole soul. Sutton takes this impossibility – in contrast with the angels’ knowledge of themselves – as axiomatic and grounded on the connection with the body.
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Silva, J.F. (2016). Self-Awareness and Perception in Augustinian Epistemology. In: Kaukua, J., Ekenberg, T. (eds) Subjectivity and Selfhood in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26914-6_11
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