Augustine's Invention of the Inner Self The Legacy of a Christian Platonist

by Cary, Phillip

• ISBN13: 9780195158618
• ISBN10: 019515861X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In this book, Phillip Cary argues that Augustine invented the concept of the self as a private inner space-a space into which one can enter and in which one can find God. Although it has often been suggested that Augustine in some way inaugurated the Western tradition of inwardness, this isthe first study to pinpoint what was new about Augustine's philosophy of inwardness and situate it within a narrative of his intellectual development and his relationship to the Platonist tradition. Augustine invents the inner self, Cary argues, in order to solve a particular conceptual problem. Augustine is attracted to the Neoplatonist inward turn, which located God within the soul, yet remains loyal to the orthodox Catholic teaching that the soul is not divine. He combines the two emphasesby urging us to turn "in then up"--to enter the inner world of the self before gazing at the divine Light above the human mind. Cary situates Augustine's idea of the self historically in both the Platonist and the Christian traditions. The concept of private inner self, he shows, is a development within the history of the Platonist concept of intelligibility or intellectual vision, which establishes a kind of kinshipbetween the human intellect and the divine things it sees. Though not the only Platonist in the Christian tradition, Augustine stands out for his devotion to this concept of intelligibility and his willingness to apply it even to God. This leads him to downplay the doctrine that God isincomprehensible, as he is convinced that it is natural for the mind's eye, when cleansed of sin, to see and understand God. In describing Augustine's invention of the inner self, Cary's fascinating book sheds new light on Augustine's life and thought, and shows how Augustine's position developed into the more orthodox Augustine we know from his later writings.

Author Biography

Dr. Phillip Cary is Director of the Philosophy Program at Eastern College in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, where he is also Scholar-in-residence at the Templeton Honors College.

Table of Contents

Note on Quotations and Citations	xvii
Introduction	3	(6)
PART I. PLATONISM: A TRADITION OF DIVINITY WITHIN
The Kinship of Soul and Platonic Form	9	(11)
Seeing the Good in the Soul	9	(2)
The Other World	11	(2)
Enlarging the Soul	13	(2)
Problems of Intelligibility	15	(2)
Intellectual Vision	17	(3)
Identity From Aristotle to Plotinus	20	(11)
Aristotle: Knowledge as Identity with God	20	(1)
Alexander's Interpretation of Aristotle	21	(3)
Identity in Plotinus's Hierarchy	24	(2)
Unity and Division	26	(2)
Turning into the Inside	28	(3)
Augustine Reads Plotinus	31	(14)
Augustine's Early Period	31	(2)
A Central Issue in Augustine Scholarship	33	(2)
Augustine on ``the Books of the Platonists''	35	(1)
Some Plotinian Readings	36	(2)
In Then Up	38	(2)
Inner Vision and Faith	40	(5)
Problems of Christian Platonism	45	(18)
Life-giving Flesh	45	(2)
``Inner Man'' Language	47	(2)
Christ in the Heart	49	(2)
Wisdom by Another Name	51	(2)
Ideas in the Mind of God	53	(2)
The Intelligibility of God	55	(2)
The Incomprehensibility of God	57	(1)
Consequences of Nicaea	58	(5)
PART II. AUGUSTINE: INVENTING THE INNER SELF
Inward Turn and Intellectual Vision	63	(14)
A Turning of Attention	63	(3)
A Philosophical Project	66	(1)
Problems of Nature and Grace	67	(4)
The Experience of Insight	71	(2)
Education for Vision	73	(4)
Explorations of Divine Reason	77	(18)
Who Is Reason?	77	(3)
Ciceronian Point of Departure	80	(2)
Cicero's Turn to the Soul	82	(2)
The Superiority of Soul in Cicero	84	(1)
Divinity in the Soul before Plotinus	85	(4)
A Program of Education	89	(2)
The Self-examination of Reason	91	(4)
An Abandoned Proof	95	(10)
An Astonishing Argument	95	(3)
The Bizarre Identification	98	(2)
Immutable Things in the Mind	100	(2)
A Diagnosis	102	(3)
Change of Mind	105	(10)
Inseparably in the Soul	105	(2)
Voluntary Separation?	107	(2)
Immutable Good Will	109	(2)
Soul as Creature	111	(4)
Inner Privacy and Fallen Embodiment	115	(10)
Soul as Mutable	115	(2)
The Varieties of Dualism	117	(1)
Resurrection Avoided Then Accepted	118	(2)
Falling into Division	120	(1)
Original and Final Unity	121	(1)
Locke's Dark Room	122	(3)
The Origin of Inner Space	125	(15)
Memory as Inner World	125	(2)
Places in Memory	127	(1)
The Art of Finding	128	(2)
The Location of the Soul	130	(2)
Powers of the Soul	132	(2)
The Size of the Soul	134	(2)
The Lesson of Geometry	136	(1)
What Is Found in Memory	137	(3)
Conclusion: The Inner, the Outer, and the Other	140	(7)
Appendix 1: Chronology of Augustine's Writings	147	(2)
Appendix 2: Two Key Texts of Augustine's Ontology	149	(2)
Notes	151	(44)
Bibliography	195	(12)
Index	207