2. Augustine's The Teacher

hello and welcome this is a history of medieval philosophy I'm mark Doris me and today we'll be discussing same Agustin's dialogue the teacher so welcome back but I hope you're doing well just as a quick reminder this is in our last video I can't just a brief overview of what some of the major figures within medieval philosophy are there will be covering throughout this video series well today we're going to sort of begin in earnest by taking a look at one of the mammoth thinkers of the medieval period particularly the early period is st. Agustin and/or Agustin of Hippo but I want to talk a little bit before we get going to that a little bit about the early medieval Christian philosophy and the role in the tension that existed between philosophy in the early Christian church and it's important you to remember historically that Christianity actually began as a small minority community in the pagan world and so and there was a philosophical dimension of the early church we see this in the philosophical terminology that's used by st. Paul and the Pauline writings we also noticed that in the Gospel of John in particular we see that there is a disturbs you z' of a notion of logos now logos in greek means time means word or means talk and it's discourse and we read in the first verse in the first chapter of the book of john which is one of the four Gospels that tells the story of Jesus Christ and if you're unfamiliar with Christianity here there's lots online you can learn about but Christian Jesus Christ is the very center of the Christian religion and Jesus is considered to be a the incarnation of God and Jesus had to sacrifice himself in order to allow salvation for people now the very fruit and there's four main Gospels for primary Gospels that are considered two nautical and that's Matthew Mark Luke and John and each of them are biographical insofar as they tell the story of who Jesus Christ was the but there's philosophical language particularly in the fourth gospel of the book of the Gospel of John the very first verse for instance says that in the beginning was the logos and the logos was with God and the logos was God now interestingly enough this book was actually written in the city of Ephesus emphasis was actually where Heraclitus was from and Heraclitus is an early pre-socratic philosopher who heavily emphasized the notion of logos today we might think that logos here could refer to reason for Heraclitus the idea was that the logos is essentially unifying principle for all nature and all of reality and ultimately this is let's through this principle that our knowledge of the world can originate or comes into being so logos is really essential and we see in this first book of john that early gospel writers who had already begun to recognize fit or import philosophical concepts or to some degree into their own language so we can say that the early medieval church or turn 30 medieval but the early church did have a philosophical did have some philosophical underpinnings but to be frank in the first two centuries of the Christian church there really is there's no systematic treatment early says none existing that tries to take into account how the how the teachings of the Christian religion ultimately can be explained through rational argumentation or through theological speculation so a senior is that Christian appears to manifest Greek philosophical ideas but that the relationship between Christianity Greek philosophy is also a source of hermeneutical conflict in fact we will see is that it will see this throughout our entire period is that some people who were hostile to the notion of philosophy and a philosophical evaluation of religious belief while others in their early Christian church towards support of it in this to this day this is still an element of tension within the various sects of the Christian religion but I do want to pull this quote from Adolphe hardik who said quote that the most important that ever happened in history of the Christian doctrines took place at the beginning of the second century on the day when Christian apologists laid down the equation that logos is Jesus Christ and so there's sort of emphasis toward talking about there and so that leads them really after 200 ad that is in the second after the second century of what we see is that thinkers begin to philosophize increasingly systematically about their faith now this as I mentioned there's sort of two camps that emerge and really still exist today it is the Pro philosophical camp which in the early Christian period Earwood was represented by Justin Martyr and in the seconds the anti philosophic camp who's actually represented by Justin's student Titian who argued against philosophy to a certain degree now there is many thinkers of this early period but some of them do you may want to research and learn more about that we're not going to discuss in this video but who are important to the development of early Christian philosophy leading up to gusted here is Anitha Goris and pollutants of various the nooses Felix are abuse of lactantius intership turtle Ian personally it is probably considered the most important of these and he's famous for saying that having this brilliant question what has Athens to do with Jerusalem in other words if Jesus comes from Jerusalem and grief loss becomes from Athens then what is the relationship between philosophy and the Christian faith what exactly does Athens have to do with Jerusalem this is a sort of question that in fact will get repeated again and again throughout the medieval period now some of the early thinkers from this after this early period or the people we would refer to as the Alexandrians because they lived in Alexandria City thought about and created Egypt now two of these major thinkers who fetches clement of alexandria who live from around 150 to 250 90 and his argument was that showed that there was a need for god of the men and that the logos is committed to all it is therefore in both religion and philosophy so clamed choice sought to show that even though greek philosophy was distinct from the christian religion that ultimately the two are harmonious because the logos of the logos is present throughout all of nature and they on the other hand the greek philosophers demonstrated but there had to be further explanation for things and that there had to be some sort of God in order to explain things were some some sort of unified principle another one of these thinkers is broken and healing for what 85 throughout 254 BC and he actually is one of the first earliest thinkers to articulate the important distinction between the literal and the allegorical senses of interpreting Scripture so for instance if someone if you look in the Bible you'll see that the bow is composed of books and they each book is composed of chapters seems normal and they each chapter is composed of verses but there's question here as there's many times where there's splits and stories in the Bible and the question is how should we interpret those are those mineral or are they simply allegories to teach us a deeper meaning yeah or again and we're not going to try to answer that here and out of this video I'm certainly not but we can see that this distinction between the literal the allegorical is extremely important to contemporary hermeneutics to the contemporary urban DivX of Bible or and of course it's not just the Bible here this distinction applies equally really to all texts by the early fourth century a major of that occurs with food changes everything and that's that Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire and so this method at this point the political structure of the church began to develop and with that political structure we see the rise of if you will an institutionalization of the church which will which would eventually allow for a more systematic evaluation philosophical evaluation of church teaching now some of these early fourth century theologians include new Sophia's Gregory of Nazi Oats of basil the great nemesis and also great really deep Mesa now Gregory of nice says also one of the more important figures of this period because he was really the first to present rational arguments for all of the teachings of the church and he actually sought to have explanations for what today are considered the mysteries of the faith which include the idea that God has made or the idea that there you can have a virgin birth and so on and so forth and but Gregory sought to systematically evaluate these and noteworthy it's no worthy here that he utilized a form of platonic philosophy in order to articulate these so it so the very first major systematic attempt to submit your teachings to a rational system was done so by using Plato's philosophy and we'll see a Gustin actually is going to do something similar but we won't said too much of today's discussion of the teacher but we will see you later but martini another important thinker here we've mentioned our last video here's pseudo-dionysius and we say pseudo here because the text that we have for this thinker we know are not authentic texts they we do believe that evidence is existed so there's a question here at their relationship but down you see someone will read this later we see that there's a threefold division in terms of the epistemological theology of God we neither know God in a positive sense we know got into the negative sense we to know what God is not and we also have no God in its superlative sense appraised where they said it's David so there so we see what sue no time you see us here a further distinction in evaluation of the epistemological conditions for doing theology now epistemology here refers here theory of knowledge so what I say when I say something like the epistemological conditions for knowing God what I mean there is what were the conditions which had to be met in order to say that certain types of knowledge can be gained about God so for instance if I say God is immortal that that is actually a positive characteristic of God but how could I gave that knowledge probably third negation so it's sort of we see with pseudo-dionysius this first sort of further articulation into the evaluation of God we've seen this dog trigger this tgp that comes through dad easiest in which God creates the world through illumination and the idea here is that God makes these prototypes or divine ideas but that with the Lycians of predestination the God ultimately articulates a created structural order to the world and so you see then with that pseudo-dionysius matalin's you have an evaluation of God but you also have a larger discussion of the relationship between faith and philosophy in terms of for instance cosmology in metaphysics and so it's not just about what do we talk about the philosophers in the Christian world we're not just talking about people who just and only submitted their theology to a rational interrogation but also people who are concerned not only with theology but with classic philosophical problems so the both are going on now I should say is that there's other thinkers here we could talk actually for a lot of time on this we've got a whole video on this but let's just say here is that really after the sixth century the dark agents occur in which the learning and education of the Latin world essentially dries up and it consequently we see the Christian philosophy tends to go dormant until around 800 AD when Charles the great is proclaimed had the Charlemagne's empire begins so it's sort of interesting really from 600-800 really lights go out and we don't see a lot of new original work so let's go back here at these early Christian thinkers before the dark ages here who's the most important of them all and that's a safe and Dustin hippo I love this painting of Agustin but here's a sort of straight up shot of what you may have looked like he lived from 350 for 430 BC right at the end dirt of the collapse of the road so it's interesting he's not it's probably not proper to say that he's a good evil philosopher but without him there would have not been individual philosophy he's either the first mutable philosophy or the last classical philosopher but since he's Christian we usually just tie him in Knievel's now he's considered really to be the most important of the early church fathers and his teachings dominated Christian philosophy until the rise of Aristotelian ISM in the late 12th century and this is where we're gonna see San Agustin is essentially the thinker who's linked with Plato and then then when we get to the 12th century would see that st. Thomas Aquinas and because the thinker is linked with Aris top at least with them to the Ark of Christian philosophy so and again you may want to go back and review or do a little bit of research and reading on the difference between Plato and Aristotle because it's extremely helpful you won't really need that to understand what a Gonstead is writing about in the teacher but it is helpful to understand what Agustin's overall perspective is and that's where I talked a little bit here before we start getting into the actual dialogue because Gustin was known as an early or he was known as a meal plate Tunis or a new plate owest right so essentially he would Christianize Plato's philosophy and using that sort of Christian Christian Christian ization will essentially be able to articulate a whole spectrum of teachings for the ancient church yeah potential church now he or she had mentioned something a little bit about epistemology I mentioned to give it a pistolas refers to a theory of knowledge that how things are known Agustin was well aware that there are many skeptical problems related to our perception so for instance I've seen if you're recording this video I have a cup of water here but how do I know that this cup is really in my head and here for instance you can immediately think of what sort of classic philosophical objections to our knowledge about cups my feet but I could say that my experiencing the cup but the experience is actually just an idea how my head so how could I ever do that my idea actually matches with the cup so in other words just because I have a perception that there's a cup how does that ever what conditions could I say that that perception really is a representation of an actual cup it's a difficult philosophical question and it's one that Augusta was well aware of and he does have this basic epistemology here which is that he thinks no knowledge sure our knowledge begins brows with our perceptions were our perceptions our sensations but our perceptions are not just sensations they are actually rather sensations combined with a rational judgment so in other words you get sort of this formula two custards work here which is to say that when we talk about perception perception is really a combination between our senses and our reason and this is important because ultimately as a meal platon is it Plato as a duelist right so he thought that you had a body there the soul but that ultimately your soul is what does the knowing about the body and in that same sense of custom follows along he said he says yeah we have perception but remember our perception is actually reveals an element regarding the activity of the soul now an object for instance can be another thing here about epistemology is okay will we see the object that's beautiful we see a in one sense we just see the object writing able to see it and on the other hand not only do we have a sense of the object but in recognizing that object is being beautiful we also somehow make a judgement that it references some other external absolute standard for what counts is beautiful so for instance would I see this beautiful sunset and if you've ever been on the beach you've seen the sunset Ede right yeah hopefully you're struck by the beauty things before you it's it's awe-inspiring right it's a sort of amazing awesome sight but how is it that you're able to recognize that it's beautiful obviously have sensations but if I'm looking at a garbage dump I also have sensations right the idea is they make a judgment with my by but where was that judgment a curved frog well I must have some external standard of what beautiful is by which I can judge and calibrate how beautiful this is as opposed to this so for instance this sunset may not be as beautiful as one that you've seen but the reason you can make that judgment according to Agustin is because you're referencing some sort of external standard it saw how it sort of picture year of the French meter here's a meter alright here it down here here's a meter so you could always see you know how the meter is but essentially you have to have some standard to judge things by and that's Agustin's basic inside here and of course what is that standard it's also bigger to do this Platonic ideal the rest with God so in there here's another way in which so what we see the general put Gastonia there agustinia perspective here is a Platonic idea and that's namely that the soul is the seat of our infinity our reason in our sensation not the body which means that knowledge is gained by looking inward V not by looking outwardly so if we're gonna put Agustin in any sort of category we could say that Agustin is essentially a rationalist because he thinks that ultimately knowledge is gained through introspection of reason they they that God illuminates to us through our conceptual exploration and so forth but strictly speaking epistemological E it's not the body that does the work it's the bind now so therefore that meets that knowledge to have knowledge at all needs to have knowledge of the beautiful ideas or to have knowledge of forms when we read the City of God here in a couple weeks you're gonna see that come through in much stronger terms and bits were explicitly but I think it's important here in our introductory video of Agustin to talk about this we'll also see that the search of truth for Gustin finds its goal in God because God is true so that means that ultimately if if philosophy is literally seeking truth then that means that philosophy must also be seeking God you can see just to the way I phrased that I have reanimated the classic synthesis medieval synthesis between philosophy and theology now another major problem of Augusta that he's interested articulated worried about is what we call the problem of evil the argument is simple if God is all-knowing it all good and God created all things and God is incapable of doing people then why is there evil in the world because after all the world has been created by God apparently but if that's the case and I certainly do seem to see evil of the world then is God really God is God powerful enough to not create an evil world he's God unable to or in Scott actually evil himself it actually chooses to create an evil world and so this problem of evil actually motivated san agustin throughout his entire life both before he was a Christian as well as after and he has a very interesting discussion edge which will come to you I'm not going to talk too much about it but I want this to sort of put this on your radar screen as we read this and of course the to the main work that we're gonna look at in a couple videos here's the City of God in which Agustin really articulates a dualism here the dualism between God and the dudes in between man now in terms of his biography I mean there you should read a biography because kids you really want to learn more about it cuts to it in detail but he was boarded to GOST a new media which is modern-day Tunisia on November 13 354 his mother was a Christian but his father was not though his father would eventually convert to Christianity he actually studied rhetoric in Carthage so he was trained and rhetoric so his trained and articulating to making arguments now while he was in Carthage he actually gave up Christian became a manichaean now maybe Keon ISM was a religion that held that there's two central principles unlike principled a dark pencil of evil and a good it came from the profit of money hence the term body Qian ISM and he actually became you know an important figure and apologists for mating comunism walk while he was living in Carthage at this time he also had a mistress and his son who was added to at tests cutter if this Hobbit and Carthage but I did the odd says actually the main character besides Agustin and the dialogue we'll be looking at today in the teacher now eventually got gusting gala because manikyam isn't he moved to Rome and then eventually something long other then eventually new go to hippo so he traveled quite a bit but during this period he became influenced by the new academy that is by the neoplatonist and wall there he had a conversion experience that he became a Christian again and he also studied the poorly under was baptized by Ambrose was a very very important feature for this burly for the late Roman period and important Christian secret I've got some we eventually go to co-pastor and then through the church who debates becomes the Bishop of Hippo where he would actually enrich he ran a church in the city so he actually would eventually he was born in Africa and you would eventually move back to Africa now he was an extremely prolific writer he actually started writing really an earnest around 385 and he wrote many many works here's just a quick laundry list of some of them right you wrote against the academics I'm too happy life a bit more time to solve this it could soliloquies the teacher he wrote on music Christian doctrines but the key text of his ability confessions in the City of God but he wrote many many works this is just the major ones many others still survive so if you're interested against him there's lots to read about now what I want to do before I start did it to you some of the nitty-gritty details of Agustin's text the teacher I want to talk a little bit just about today's topic and also give you a quick summary of what Augustus essentially gonna be arguing now one of the first major questions that we need a thing like here's how its dollars acquired how do we actually gave knowledge and it's pretty clear that knowledge not all dogs but much of our knowledge actually comes through language now that's not a fully that's not a full and a sufficient answer to the question of how we gain knowledge but that's one important piece is that we gain it through language so then how is it possible the language can convey knowledge about the world exactly because after all language isn't exactly real what do I mean by that well language the words I'm saying or actually just sound so consider it right now if you're watching this video then you're hearing sounds are making these these sounds if my tongue and there's air I mean it's sort of disgusting we think about my lungs are squeezing air through this little little pipe in my neck and the way in which my tongue moves the way in which my muscles constrict and the mucus and all that stuff goes about these sounds protect these sound waves protect out but somehow those sound waves will they hit your ear they actually convey knowledge about the world right so if I tell you that I'm holding a cup right and that I am holding the cup you can see that my language told you something about the world but notice here how is it possible that these guttural sounds actually convey meaning you know kids often will repeat you repeat a word over it over and over and tell if you get to this meeting I'm sure you've done that if you have it you can write just pick any word like top and safe cup cup cup cup cup cup cup top the long you say it eventually it's as if the meaning of the word just drains out and you're just left with these sounds the don't seem to have really any meaning so you can sort of ask this question if we're going to talk about epistemology and our knowledge is gained in the world then it's clear in language as an important element to that there's this sort of paradox these puzzles regarding the nature of language that we want to take a look at now how and you can see you can ask the question well how exactly do our words signify things now for agustin we're gonna see that for him to talk about a word is to talk about a side a side right well on the one hand puts to a thing but are then in here the side has its own symbols or or what we could say is its side so for instance if I say the word cat I've used his side and then spell the symbol here at CAT that's the side but the thing that the word cat refers to well is actually this cute little fluffy kitten right here right so you can see here that the words refer to things so this important distinction you that we're going to come back to the thing is the res in the side is called the Signum fur of Augustan importantly notice here that's it in order for us to make sense of what a side is this requires understanding by someone right so that's the first thing in is just breaking down the two basic components of language now are there different types of sides now we don't see Agustin talk about this too much of this dialogue at least not in the excerpts that were combined even with you today but our reading but we can say is the other one in their natural size and a natural signer turn at Trulia it is a sign that signifies automatically so for instance if you see smoke in a room then you will naturally think that there's something that's causing that smoke so where there's smoke there's fire so here you can say is that for some sides the meaning is as it were inherent to the site itself that's not most Desai's we're really talking about the signs where the puzzle comes into play here are what we call given signs or you might say signs of convention a Latin Agustin use the term Sigma dot F and this is the notion that these signs are arbitrary right that we of intelligence human intelligence provides the meaning to the side right so you have here the letters the alphabet for English in green you can see here that they're all arbitrary squiggles of paper on a piece of paper but that they have meaning the meaning is simply given through the agreement that we have with each other when supporting yours then we talk about these signs signs like words right then the meaning is not actually apparent to the side itself so then how does language communicate exactly because we can notice I'm the one here they're in communication there has to be a mind by the relationship somehow late which convey is meeting you know the other hand there's also systems of convention between people in which there isn't there must be an agreement among these minds regarding how these symbols are to be understood so you can see her state perhaps what you didn't expect is that Agustin just in terms of our general sort of overlooked here the axis provided systematics or evaluation know some of the things that we're gonna see here is that for Agustin assigned causes us to think of something that's made something being the impression made right something made the impression on us so it's not cause us to think about about not the sensation we're having till we might think of that but it causes us to think about the object of this and of the sensation and here there's a great essay pie here to loot mouth means from 1882 I don't think called gusted on language which really lays this out quite nicely I encourage you to take a look at it we're also gonna see the words to more than simply croft want to learn and then it's an activity of the one who teaches within that enables size to have their meeting for learning so we're gonna see that a got students gonna have this idea that ultimately with thinness we have a logos and that that logos is really it's the divided intellect it's God and that God is teaching us without the use of science how to understand what the sides are so there's the sudden recognition will see and Agustin that obviously sides enable us to learn but they besides themselves to put us right sides allow us to learn but it's not the signs themselves that do the learning something else is required so in other words learning requires something prior to language okay so this sort of brings us finally to the teacher which is Augustine's dialogue or the teacher and it's a dialogue between Agustin and his son Atia Dantas that the father I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name correctly but it is where it is but I also love well the things I really like about about this dialogue is its on the question of what TR language but in the context of how he gave knowledge so it's called the teacher but it's also between a father and his son and in a father not a father as the person who's supposed to teach their son so does this interesting dynamically between these two in the dialogue I mean we'll also see that even though Augusta clearly is the stronger thinker in the dialogue that his son that he's also extremely charitable to his son and so to really I think the dialogue is a sort of beautiful example of how philosophy should be conducted though I think that I think that for those of you who read this those tanks you will probably find that there are times like sort of kind of the technical and a sophisticated way in which he approaches the sides it can become very complex and it's very easy to lose track of yourself through the dollar or lose track of what when he's arguing but it's also important to know that a custom even says that and I actually I'm closer than later I'll show you it's sort of gift to the heart of it so let's sort of start here what's the purpose of language right what exactly is the goal when someone speaks a language now this is important work so we're asking what is the goal of speech now to begin with adding on cents at the audio dock des he argues that well on the one hand we speak in order to teach others but on the other hand we speak in order to learn so this is how t this how that question of speech and teaching gets sort of all related together with this very first question of agustín's now it's interesting because the constant immediately criticizes this view it says okay I agree with you it comes to teaching but we're talking about learning it seems kind of weird how is it that we learn something by just saying words and of course a Deodato says well we use questions right and it's interesting because the gusts in so what's been going to say no I doesn't think that that's actually about learning he thinks them we ask questions we're actually teaching others what we don't know so for a Gustin to begin with language is always the host function and purpose of the propulsive nature if you will have language is teach its pedagogy this is very very interesting no there's other questions is that really right though because you can sort of ask is well what about when someone's seen they're singing to themselves or right and I have this example here I forgot this guy's name whoops she I think is named James Corbin sorry writing of this guy right here I forgot his name but he's famous for there's Justin Bieber is the convenient in their code their drive and sing along and so question is where people are seeing and what you're see in your car to yourself you could ask yourself right if a customs right then I'm teaching some out what does that mean and a constant or gives a hint he thinks that the type of teaching is that we're teaching ourselves to remember something so but he doesn't really go through it fully so at least none of the experts we'll be looking at today so here's the opening thesis right is that speaking is teaching and that singing is actually kind of reminding it's a kind of memory process we can remember things but his son says that's not why I see I see because it pleases me I like the way it sounds and here Agustin says okay when you're talking about is the melody of the songs and so now regards singing really is distinct from speaking in this sentence right we read this quote anyone who asks gives an external side of his will by means of an articulated sound yet God is supposed to be sought and entreated in the hidden parts of the rational soul which is called the inner man for he wanted those parts to be his temples now there's a verse in the bottle that Agusta merely quotes where Jesus says the body is the temple that our hearts are the temple right that God doesn't things have to exist in a physical temple building but that he exists within the inner soul of a person right that's our guns to save here so you can see here that this will become important later because we're gonna see ultimately there's this inner man ultimately that does the work of learning it's not the language itself that conveys the meaning it's always takes place in the inner man so but he recognizes this sort of inner outer distinction of this problem that will come back again to which i think is quite interesting now we get another question that's good grades here is where do you think the sacrifice of Justices offered up but in the temple of the mind and in the bed chambers of the heart right so Gus instincts here in can then ultimately it's not just it's the inner that has the preference not the outer so there's a courtly no need to speak when we pray right for a custard why because we'll the words in our prayers are not for God but they're for people God does it need the words if people that need the words so for instance that question gets rain stairs what about the Lord's Prayer what about what Jesus teaches people how to pray right he says of our Father learn heaven how lon hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as in heaven it's so on and so forth right that's the Lord's Prayer and so a question gets transmitted we'll wait a second if God does if God's in the inner heart it God doesn't need our words and we don't need to use words while we pray then why did God teach us to pray did he teach us to use those words and a custom says no right for a Gustin the idea is that is that if you taught not the words but the things themselves but means of the words it's we have a very important distinction here which is the meat the word that what Jesus teaches for a Gustin is not the words that we have to say for a prayer but he teaches the idea is that the words are talking about so we see is sadly a very important philosophical station this is the difference between the sides and the things in themselves I feel like right there we shall soon sound-effect identity' right sides versus things in themselves and you can see this goes back to report discussion even in plato's work on the role of suds and representation and things in and of themselves so these questions are very old but it is particularly a bit evil approach here because we see that laced through all of it is a discussion about the Christian religion in the way which was Agustin one can consistently understand scripture given the philosophical insights than here to think through argumentation so we see sort of both things going on so it's bit evil really because it's just but this way is the philosophy the religions really all intertwined a big stuff together those reasons the question about okay what are the nature of science how can we understand outsides word right can aside be inside if it has nothing to signify for instance and so think about it words are signs and they point us in the direction of things well can aside the aside if it doesn't signify anything so consider this sentence there's a sense he actually gives his son to consider the Gustin says if nothing from so great a city is is it pleases the gods beloved right connections the first part of the sentence and there's 13 words in there and the question begins that he doesn't do it all the way through he begins by sort of asking a DA Dantas to explain each of these words because if each of these are words or they've clearly are then that means each of these are sides but if each of these are signs and signs have to refer to something but what are these things refer to so the first is if so the word if what does that refer to and Adi a dentist his reply as it refers to some sort of doubt but a hypothetical over a conjecture of some time in the customs it totally pleased with that answer but he accepts it and says okay let's keep going and then a do-deca says well but maybe we put the questions but what is the word nothing referred to and the answer is well it must refer to that which doesn't exist but wait a second if the word refers to is a side and the side the sides have to refer to some and nothing refers to that which is easy which is no thing right there is no sub thickness when it comes to nothingness then that means that we have a case all of a sudden in which words seem to refer to things that Ernie that don't exist are things that are not sides so this raises a really sort of important question and it's an old philosophical question I've got all the way back to your pre-socratic philosopher Parmenides right it looks like either not all of our words or science or not all of our sons actually signify right so we're not sure how to make sense of this nothing problem it we'll see we'll see how how us to refer response and what he said is that nothing must not refer to a thing like a substance something you can point to but it must refer to a state of love to way of singing and with in fact it's very very interesting because if we left to head into 20th century existentialist philosophy jean-paul sartre argue something similar when you're using the negation nothing this is actually a function of consciousness and it's an essential feature I don't like you doing all that but I want to emphasize and show you here that many of the contemporary context of modern philosophers they're actually recognized already by undusted in a long time ago ok let's get back to that sentence we're not the word from well from this being out of fright comes out of something but but here his set also recognized that when we say that something someone's from something that also seems to signify that there's a separation between live and the place or the thing out of which they're derived or for where they're from where they came out of as it were and this one have raised a really sort of interesting question which is well wouldn't you have a person who who's from somewhere but that place was destroyed so Troy's a good example the city of Troy was destroyed the Trojan civilization was wiped off the face of the earth so what if there was a person who survived all that you said he's from Troy so there you have a weird car where okay in that case you have it looks like the object of the Sun it exists but did we say earlier that the side has to refer to something so it can refer to a something that doesn't exist or it doesn't have to be as something which does exist so in other words sides have a side can refer to an object that it signifies a res and it uses a word like Troy or Road and if that object either exists or doesn't exist so this is kind of a quick little sketch of the structure of the way which Gustav started to break down what its sides are but there's a problem which is namely that it looks like no matter what we do words we're trying to explain words with still other words right so words were getting explained by means of words is that sufficient to actually explain anything right so imagine for instance if I was swimming and I wanted to explain how does and you asked me to explain how to swim and I responded by continuing to swim would that be sufficient it doesn't look like it or at least it doesn't make total sense so the first sort of example is okay how exactly do words explain things and so if we're to try to understand what a wall is for instance what will we do maybe we do it just point our finger at the wall right and this is known as an ostensible definition and by the way I want to quickly pause here and let you know that a very important philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in the twentieth century actually discusses and attacks the idea of ostensible definitions and in a much later period and in fact the philosophical investigations the thinking cenred's quotes Agustin in the beginning so interesting but we'll actually see in the dialogue here that Agustin also rejects ostensible definitions because he doesn't think that the pointing that makes the word meaningful rather he's going to let me say it's the in it's the hidden logos within that does not know what does that mean exactly anyway well we will come to that throughout the chorus again and again so but this question first is okay there's a wall you can explain it by pointing to it and saying the word wall is that thing right there right where I could say here's a so what's a phone but what does the word phone mean it means back right so you can use on sensible definition but the problem is that doesn't really make a lot of sense ultimately because what about things that don't have bodies in space not in the proper sense for instance what about color if I say something's red you can see here's a kid here are two deaf children talking to each other in this child he has red shirt on so if I if someone said what is the word red me maybe they've that don't speak English and I just pointed this kid will that be enough to explain what red is doesn't seem like it seems like just pointing doesn't may actually explain so and of course consider the use of suds for the death and in fact it's interesting because a Gustin specifically mentions the death he says death people they use a whole range of signs to articulate what they mean and they do it well and they don't mean words so is that also a type of complaining what does that mean exactly what is the function of the Sun and it's a very interesting sort of question so so it's here we suddenly see another question gets raised which is agustin work is which I called the walk and walking which is agustin asked his senses they actually disagree with each other because a Gustin at this point that where they play that dialogue thinks that science will only point to other signs and Adi Adi a doctor's thinks that science can only refer I'm sorry % again Agustin thinks that signs cannot only point to other signs but that at the end of the day they have to point to things themselves whereas Adi a dentist thinks that a little science only refers still to other sides now does that make sense we're gonna see that of course Agustin's presumed position wolf will prevail but he does so in a very interesting way right he says do all things require that there has to be a sign in order for those things to be shown to be seen so for instance if I asked you what walking means you might stand up and start walking a point to another eventually help me feel the connection with that word that sound of the syllables noises and somehow linked it to the motion of walking but then Agustin says well what if I ask what walking is while we're walking well how are you gonna explain that exactly because while we're walking right there's nothing you can point to because I'm already walking so you the only way you can explain this by dates I'm doing something other than walking but if you're doing something other than walking how exactly is one supposed to connect the word walking with the activity of walking and so you can see there's a little bit of a conundrum here and this eventually brings Agustin as well as the ADI attacked us to the fundamental division of sides so when a question is raised about certain signs these signs can be exhibited by means of other signs um right so I can if you ask me what the word epistemology means I'll give you words and return when I'm using those words to help explain it but number two is what a question is raised about things that are not sighs these things can be exhibited either by a doing them after the query has been made or by giving signs with which they may be brought to one's attention so there's a different way in which our signs seem to emerge now one of the first considerations here because we might call science by means of other signs so anyway so there's two sorts of relations to be clear on the one hand we're gonna see at first at customs looking a question of okay you know signs that refer to other signs and then you have other signs which refer to things so for instance imagine if I say the word word word refers to other things which are signs right whereas if I say the word stone it refers to an object so we see here is that words are not the only signs that we can have right I can use my this is my hand here just like I'm doing now I can use my hand to signal things to you right so words are just one type of signs but not all signs or words now if we're just going to talk about words his language is composed of words what we can say is the words designate either either other sounds or they designate non sign like the stone Branson for instance so damn it so the next point here is that names signify something but what exactly do name signifies so for instance I'll use my phone as an example so I have a phone but I've named my phone actually typed it in so that way when I log under my computer I can see which phone it is as opposed to someone else's phone the name of my phone is Jeju commode right so since names signify something for what exactly it looks like names signify really just other signs right things which can be signified but are not yet we can call signify a bowl so not everything has a sign or not everything has a name but if they could in principle receive one is called signifying and number five written science and in agustín's view are signs of other spoken signs so in Augustus is view and then the dialog view is that ultimately there's a priority with the oral speech before writing comes speech and right and so that's another important point so smitten signs are just so the word CAT is just something written for the speech utterance that I make and the speech utterance is a sign of the cat that goes me out right so written signs or signs of spoken signs and spoken signs are signs of things in the world are these they could be there because they could be signs of other signs and they could keep going to now go back to names all the names are words but are all the words and names so for instance if a word is they're really difference between what a name is and what a sign is because isn't it's a sign the name of something as it were so what exactly is the difference between the word and a son and here we read this quote from a do donto since that or his suggestion is initials or gestures that well the difference is mainly the difference between the sign of a sign that signifies no other signs and the sign of a sign that turns that in turn signifies other signs so either eventually there's a sign is referred to there's not a sentence referring to take for instance the word animal and tape bringing up into three syllables to her help remind yourself that it's nearly just as phonetic guttural noise that we made animal animal now notice that when I say animal the word does not signify and nimble right the word doesn't signify the site itself right there's a long discussion here about what names are and eventually the conclusion here is that well okay you have words which seem to be kind like natives but names seem very particular we also have pronouns too so a pronoun is like saying key to your hip for instance those are all pronouns but when I say let's say so the name of the photos too to come though right the word we might say it's both the name is tutu kueh the pronoun is it right it stopped working right now here you notice that it looks like pronouns do something similar to names except they're less exact right so the it here doesn't tell me much but it helps me point in the direction of which thing is being signify so it looks like there is still a similar consistent structure across the board between our words our names are pronouns and there's other words and in fact a Gustin goes through sort of systematically almost painfully so about some of the different you know distinctions here between verbs and pronouns and basic grammatical distinctions and grammatical categories but back to it I don't want to get it lost in that discussion because it's quite complex it's easier to read than hard for me to explain to you is that we see is the words when we do talk about where it's words consist of sounds and letters but to use a word isn't to signify the sounds and the letters themselves like we learned with that example of animal but rather their respective objects with respect to things that they are they're Reds so we can say is that to say that something has virtue for example is not the same thing as saying that the words and sounds virtue are in that thing so if I say so for instance if I on the student I say this student is a very audit student I'm not saying that the words bought us that the sign is what's in this person but rather than the act the honesty the object the character trait is what's there so it's important to recognize here is that Agustin is always worrying orienting us away from away from the idea that signs just just refer to still other signs ultimately a sign is only meaningful if it points outside of itself then it points to something that's extrinsic to itself so back to names if a part of speech is called something than its name and if it's named Shirley it is named by a name so for a Gustin all of the words are actually names and all the names can be known as terms so for a Gustin our words our names and the names we have can also logically just be called terms and that they all have the same fundamental structure now have a structure that represents towards something external now it doesn't have to be an object it does that be Coryell object or a visible object although that is discussed quite heavily so for instance we can treat this sort of quotation maybe I love this this from a cousin is where a Gustin is for some of you watching this video listening taking this class you may be thinking oh my gosh this is so tedious who cares who cares how the language works and guess what Agustin recognizes that you're going to think that he says maybe you think we're playing around they were diverting the mind from serious matters by some little puzzles that seem childish or that we're pursuing some result that's only a small or modest but if you suspect this distinction might issue at some important result and you want to know straight away what it is well I'd like you to believe that haven't had to work on mere trivialities in this conversation my pawns for the well spelling errors there so I wanted to include that too just to emphasize to you the way in which Agustin recognizes that you will see this as TV as he knows it is right now let's move here so that's about signs that refer to other signs which ultimately can only make sense so long they refer to something else so that brings us to the second part which is sign that refer to thins the Reds so when a word is spoken it refers to something so he Gustin gives the example of when someone says man now in Latin the word man is homo so homo has two syllables Oh mo right so imagine if I'm talking about homo and I'm talking about a person which means that the person hears the word thinks of the object not the syllables right so if I say imagine if they had a general said we've got we've got five men in the Battle of theatres right he doesn't mean that there's symbols or syllables that are in the battle theater he means it's actually the object of those syllables represented that's the first thing to recognize here and in the law reason he says that's implanted in our minds is ultimately what guides our understanding of these sides this is very important because it's very Neoplatonic because he doesn't think if it's where were the signs are guttural the signs earth of physical material things right so if the sign if we would look if teaching is done by signs and signs only referred to other signs then it doesn't make any sense but someone has to understand what those signs you mean so that means that there has to be something internal to us to make sense of that signification process and it's the law of reason it's the logos ultimately right being signified also should be valued more than their signs so the res has logical priority to the Signum in other words that the object that something represents is more important it's more valuable than the word that self is doing representing so words exist really for utilitarian reasons right they exist so that we can use them so what is taught is what is valued not the words that are used to teach so this is important right going back to the notion of teaching because in order for someone to learn they don't just learn words but they learned the object of what the words are about and so teaching is what it's the object I put it the lesson that we teach is what we value it's not the words we use to teach those lessons right the meaning of a word is not intrinsic to itself so that means the meaning is extrinsic right now a customer reminds us of some key questions here he says remember what's our goal here we want to understand whether anything can be taught without signs whether certain signs should be preferred to the things that they signify whether the knowledge of things is itself better than the signs and whether you think that these discover uncertain whether you think of these discovers in such a way that you can't have any doubts regarding them so there's a whole range of epistemological questions and I don't want you to be thinking about as we go through this and as you're reading this so can someone teach without signs right and here we get the example of the bird-catcher thought experiment and I don't know a lot about bird catchers at all but Agustin describes a bird catcher I mean says they have their tools and they have their techniques and they walk a certain way quietly to catch their birds and so forth and so we can say is that if you were to learn what a bird catcher is couldn't you just follow a bird attention round quietly just watching them and seeing what they do and then eventually at the end of the day you would know what a bird catcher was so the answer is will can something be done without signs yeah why can't it be right if I want to teach you how to pick up a fork I could just pick up a fork and do it over and over until you're able to do the same thing so it doesn't look like it doesn't look like teaching always requires language though much of language does require them require that so notice that this is important because if the sign can be learned and without I'm sorry if something can be learned without a sign and we discovered that sides should refer to things then that means that there's something external to the use of science that's responsible for learning this new Kias evidence or credence because notion that there must be within us a principle of reason that enables us to learn Augustine writes therefore a sign is learned when the thing is known rather than the thing being learned when the sign is the other thing so you just be hearing a word is not enough right you have to learn the objects of the world the knowledge of words is ultimately made complete once things are known so knowledge is very important you have to have knowledge before you can actually have the understanding of the language right because one does not learn from an external teacher according to Agustin but front but from the in from the inner teacher but logos within but he writes quote regarding each of the things we understand however we don't consult a speaker who makes sounds outside us but the truth that presides within over the mind itself though perhaps words prompt us to consult him what is more he was consulted he who is said to dwell the interment does teach Christ that is the unchangeable power and the everlasting wisdom of God which everything with which every rational soul does consult but is disclosed to anyone to the extent that he can apprehended according to his good or his evil will know there's a lot in that phrase but I really want you to focus on there is the notion that there's a there's an in there's an inner truth that we consult that enables us to gain knowledge that is one learns by consulting the inner truth by means of their reason so go back call them in a Heraclitus or discussing at the beginning of the video you see that the notion of logos is absolutely central to to Augustus account here and ultimately you see also here how a good demonstration of the way in which he's leaking in Christ Christianity with logos Greek philosophy so Agustin we see that that and we can say is that Gustin is one of these synthesizers right he's synthesizing Platonic philosophy and Christian teachings in a way which is coherent but in a way which in a circle which changes both right Agustin is not Plato and it's really a constant is not just giving us what's in the scriptures either we end up with a new third thing a synthesis out of the customer thing right now again who is the sinner teacher Agustin says there is one in heaven who is the teacher of all so the so the reasons we have in our mind that's not God but those reasons in some way emanate from this God are from God the one God so teaching is a result of the student and their private Oracle right and the ultimate idea here is that remember than the ancient Greek philosophy in Greece that the Oracle of Delphi and the Oracle was a place as a temple because a priestess was the Oracle and who would speak for the gods and ultimately since language works by means of science but those signs always been required something external then that means that learning itself is not a process that is linguistic but actually something is primordial earth or is comes off for your eye to language so where what is that it's this logos it's the reason and the teaching of the student is actually there's taught the student is the one who teaches themselves and so then you also have a certain sense in which Agustin is linking up the great Socratic inside of Socrates right that knowledge is something that is that is obtained by the individual right and instead of Plato's theory of recollection we have a different theory but very similar ok and that in general is the basic gist of what the teacher is about no there's a lot more in this dialogue that I haven't discussed but this video is not meant to go through and give you the full commentary in the play-by-play of everything that I gots to discusses but to give you an overall synopsis and in a sense for how for how to understand it's this early problem and it'll become very important because you're trying to learn Agustin and what's interesting is Agustin we're reading agustín's words so here we are reading words from the teacher but gustin's telling us that were the ones or the logos within us is actually the one doing the teaching not the words themselves okay thank you very much for watching this is medieval philosophy and our next video will be going back to San Agustin and we'll be jumping into some more of his more classic metaphysics thank you very much for watching I'll see you guys next time

Channel: Mark Thorsby

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Length: 64min 47sec (3887 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 03 2018