1

HERMENEUTICAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND INTELLECTUAL VISION.

AUGUSTINE IN CONVERSATION Matthew William KNOTTS

University of Leuven & Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO)

matthew.knotts@theo.kuleuven.be

So much the rather thou Celestial light

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers

Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence

Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell

Of things invisible to mortal sight.

John Milton, Paradise Lost III.51-5.

Introduction

I shall use a brief passage from the forty-sixth question of Augusine’s De diuersis quaestionibus octoginta tribus in

order to frame the following two-part enquiry. In this passage, Augustine is discussing the tradition of the Platonic

ideas, thought to be formal principles constitutive of reality. Moving from a metaphysical to an epistemic focus,

Augustine writes,

Only the rational soul is able to see these things, by that part of itself by which it is excellent, that is, by the

mind and reason itself, as if by a certain countenance or interior and intellectual eye of its own.1

Augustine suggests a certain capacity for intellectual sight which is common to every anima rationalis. He

cautiously identifies the capacity for reason as a type of vision, though this assertion is hedged (quasi quadam). So

everyone has the capacity to see things which exceed the quotidian, that is, the objects proper to intellectual

perception. Hence we see the first aspect of this study, namely intellectual vision as a certain rational capacity for

perceiving intelligibilia.

However, not everyone possesses this capacity to the same degree. Just as some persons have excellent

eyesight, others’ eyes are weak, or hindered by cataracts, or some other obstruction. Continuing with the image

of vision, Augustine immediately proceeds with the following:

Yet indeed not any and every rational soul, but that which will be holy and pure, this is made to be fit for that

vision, that is, the soul which has that very eye, by which these things are seen, which is sound, one, serene,

and similar to these things which it intends to see.2

So on the one hand, there is a certain capacity for reason (ratione) which is common to all rational agents. Yet on

the other hand, these agents differ in their ability to actualise this potency. This constitutes our second focus,

namely whether and to what extent one sees in an intellectual sense, the degree to which one exercises one’s rational

faculty. As suggested by the apparent logical connection of these two facets of vision, they are not so much

1 diu. quaest. 46.2. Anima vero negatur eas intueri posse nisi rationalis, ea sui parte qua excellit, id est, ipsa mente

atque ratione, quasi quadam facie vel oculo suo interiore atque intellegibili. 2 Et ea quidem ipsa rationalis anima non omnis et quaelibet, sed quae sancta et pura fuerit, haec asseritur illi visioni

esse idonea, id est, quae illum ipsum oculum, quo uidentur ista, sanum et sincerum et serenum et similem his rebus, quas

uidere intendit, habuerit. (diu. quaest. 46.2.) The foregoing context makes clear that Augustine has the divine ideas in mind

(e.g., diuina intelligentia continentur).

2

separate faculties as two aspects of one and the same capacity. We see a similar pattern at work in many other

locations, such as conf. 7, in which Augustine discusses perceiving the light of God by an inner eye, and that this

vision allowed him to attain to truth, as it is mediated through creation. Nonetheless, Augustine’s vision is

inadequate, and he cannot sustain this theophanic sight for long. As Paul Helm notes, what is at work here is

either the same phenomenon viewed from two different perspectives, or two moments of the same experience.3

We also see this logical link in terms of how the analogy of eyesight provides an overarching theme in

which to understand reason as intellectual vision (oculo suo interiore).4 This use of vision is neither peculiar to

Augustine nor mere imagery; rather, I shall argue herein that Augustine, impelled by his specifically Christian

commitments, is forced to grapple with the problematic nature of our capacity for sight, as it is closely linked

with our capacity for knowledge and reason. Though Augustine appears to be suggesting some ‘parallel’ type of

vision, the result, as we shall see, is to challenge our conventional understanding of sight itself.

In what follows I engage in a sustained enquiry into the nature of sight and its relation to human reason.

The immediate framework is provided by Augustine's thought on this matter, which in turn is grounded in a

theology of creatio ex nihilo. In this reflection, Augustine sets the agenda and drives the colloquy, but he does not

monopolise the reader’s attention. Interventions from contemporary interlocutors will be entertained at

appropriate points and woven into the tapestry of the text, especially when their ideas are anticipated by or

resonate with those of Augustine. The three persons who will figure most prominently herein are Hans-Georg

Gadamer, Thomas Kuhn, and Charles Taylor, all of whom address in their own ways the problematic character of

human vision as it relates to knowledge. In pursuing such a programme, I shall also attempt, in the fashion of Cyril

O’Regan, to allow Augustine to ‘answer back.’

Conceptual Grounding

Plato’s cosmology is largely a matter of debate to-day as it was in antiquity, much of the argument revolving

around the proper interpretation of his Timaeus.5 He was operating according to a view which, loosely speaking,

posited a division, but not thereby an opposition, between the material and the immaterial. Over the course of

the inception of early Christianity, this Platonic demarcation was reconfigured subtly if significantly, such that the

ontological line came to be drawn between God and creation, the former being eternal and immutable, beyond

any categorisation, and the latter being by definition mutable and finite. One upshot of this conception of creation

was that the world itself came to be seen as a direct result of the creative activity of the divine wisdom, such that

the very fabric of the cosmos was imbued with meaning and value, and that one was therefore encouraged to seek

this intelligibility in the world around one.6 Augustine’s theological and confessional commitments set the stage

for several extended reflections on crucial issues related to knowledge and sight.

We see the result of themes of creation in a passage from a work of Augustine’s ghostly father, in which he

foreshadows Augustine’s own thought in striking ways:

Pulchritudo autem animae sincera uirtus et decus uerior cognitio superiorum, ut uideat illud bonum, ex quo

pendent omnia, ipsum autem ex nullo … Aduescamus oculos nostros, uidere quae dilucida et clara sunt, spectare

uultum continentiae et temperantiae omnesque uirtutes … Ipsum est bonum quod quaerimus, solum bonum;

nemo enim bonus nisi unus Deus. Hic est oculus qui magnum illum et uerum decorem intuetur. Solem nisi

sanus et uigens oculus non aspicit, nec bonum potest uidere nisi anima bona.7

3 Paul Helm, ‘Thinking Eternally,’ in Augustine’s Confessions: Philosophy in Autobiography (New York: Oxford

University Press, 2014) here 143-4. 4 Contra Ando: ‘Quo enim alio modo ipse intellectus nisi intellegendo conspicitur ?’ (Gn. litt. 12.24.50) 5 For more on this and the reception history of Plato’s Timaeus, see Alexandra Michalewski, La puissance de

l’intelligible (Leuven: University Press, 2014). 6 For more on this and similar themes, see Willemien Otten, ‘Nature and Scripture: Demise of a Medieval

Analogy,’ Harvard Theological Review 84:2 (1995) 257-84. 7 Ambrose, De Isaac uel de anima 8.78-9; emphases added.

3

Ambrose identifies the Beautiful (pulchritudo) with the source of all creation (ex quo pendent omnia … ipsum autem ex

nullo) and the Good (illum bonum). Thus the following points can be read within the context of a theology of creatio

ex nihilo. The imagery of the senses is clearly present, as Ambrose speaks of seeing the Good (uideat). This notion

of sight implies a spiritual sense, which Ambrose makes more explicit when he proceeds to discuss the necessity of

a healthy and clear vision in order to see. The analogy between physical sight and intellectual sight is made clear

by the relation of the eye (oculus) to the soul (anima). Ambrose speaks of this intellectual sight according, first of

all, to the capacity to see the good, presumably by means of the mind and reason, and secondly, to the degree to

which one is prepared for that sight. In other words, it requires a good soul, just as sight of the sun requires

healthy eyes. The upshot is a felicitous parallel with Augustine’s own nuanced understanding of incorporeal

vision.8

First and foremost, the logical trajectory of Augustine’s thought on the senses comes as a result of his

doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, which, as C. Tornau reminds us, is distinctively Christian and grounded in scriptural

exegesis.9 For the fathers, the Bible was no mere story book or collection of ‘Semitic folklore.’ As W. Otten

writes, Scripture was seen as a source of theological and philosophical content which stood to be further

elaborated and explicated. It provided a normative framework from which to identify, initiate, and execute

particular enquiries.10 As C. O’Regan has noted, Augustine’s exegesis of Genesis and the idea of creatio ex nihilo

determines the intellectual framework in which the latter theorises about a variety of aspects of human

experience.11 The attempt to think of God as eternal, whilst we are situated within time and space, occasions a

series of reflections on what it means to ‘see’ and how we can perceive apparently ‘non-empirical’ realities. In this

sense, one can view Augustine’s programme as an expression of the ‘scriptural imagination,’ or what K. Anatolios

calls ‘biblical reasoning.’12

In order for there to be a sense of sight, there must also be objects of that particular type of vision. The

res for thought are present in virtue of God’s creation in sapientia. Indeed, for Augustine, the creation of the world

is effected through God’s wisdom. Addressing God (the Father) in conf.,13 Augustine writes, ‘Fecisti caelum et

terram, in Verbo tuo, in Filio tuo, in Virtute tua, in Sapientia tua, in Veritate tua.’ Therefore the world is imbued

with the divine wisdom, it is an inherently logical structure which awaits the investigation of the rational mind in

order to disclose itself. It invites a certain ‘interrogation,’ a questioning enabled by one’s capacity to intuit

something worthy of examining further, with the expectation that it will yield some truth for which the human

mind has been made.14

We see this double aspect of intellectual vision again in relation to creation, and indeed, ‘re-creation.’

The creation of the human person is unique, as the person is made ‘to’ the image of God.15 The reflection of this

image is seen in particular in the mind, in its capacity for rational thought.16 In virtue of one’s creation in God’s

image, and thus one’s rational faculties, one can perceive the intelligible structure of creation. However,

Augustine also suggests that one’s epistemic faculties may be impeded, either because of one’s sheer finitude and

creatureliness, or in virtue of (original) sin, for which the remedy is the salvific action of Christ, who is Wisdom

itself. Those who participate in wisdom are renewed in the image of God. The soul’s capacity for intellectual sight

8 King, op. cit., 20-1. 9 Tornau, op. cit. 10 Otten, ‘Nature and Scripture,’ 257, 260. 11 O’Regan, ‘Answering Back,’ 136. 12 Anatolios, op. cit., 206. 13 11.9.1. 14 See conf. 10.6.9. 15 ep. 88: lux illa est aeterna sapientia. fecit autem te Deus, O homo, ad imaginem suam. 16 See, e.g., trin. 10.1; 12.7; 15.3; s. 88.

4

increases as it is (re-)conformed to the image of God, that image which is constitutive of the capacity for reason.17

Therefore in this Augustinian framework, we have God, the creator and condition of intelligibility, who creates

minds capable of knowing and understanding, but also creates the objects which provide one access to these

realities. This entire schema is initiated, sustained, and supported by God as the condition of intelligibility, the

lumen intellectuale.

I

Augustine’s understanding of illumination has a long and tortuous reception history. It is also a highly contested

question in the literature of the 20th century. Unfortunately, for all that has been said about illumination, the topic

is not any clearer. Bruce Bubacz captures something of the current quandary when he writes, ‘[I]t seems that

literature on illumination has grown like Topsy, so that we have Ronald Nash’s view of Gilson’s view of Aquinas’

view of Augustine on illumination.’ Additionally, I see the imposition of certain categories onto Augustine’s

thought as part of the source of the confusion. Is illumination ‘natural’ or ‘supernatural’? Is it a result of grace?18

These are the sorts of questions about which scholars have argued, but the questions themselves may not be

properly formulated. Indeed, figures such as I. Bochet and G. Madec have warned against anachronism in the

treatment of key aspects of Augustine’s thought. For instance, as the latter argues, the distinction scholastique is a

mediaeval construct which, though it has resonances in Augustine’s own works, is not felicitously applied to

them. So often, concepts such as ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’ or ‘nature’ and ‘grace’ are employed in treatments

of illumination, and my concern is that these terms may be unhelpful and even misleading.19

Hence part of my focus on Augustine’s understanding of intellectual vision can be seen in relation to the

state of illumination scholarship. Light implies sight, and so I propose to focus on vision, the other side of the

‘illumination token,’ which is just as enigmatic but less cluttered with secondary treatments. So in addition to

offering some clarification on the illumination literature, such an approach also promises to disclose other aspects

of Augustine’s thought which could be significant, whether for historians or systematicians. So without further

ado, let us turn to Augustine’s understanding of intelligible light with respect to human cognition.

A. Lux intelligibilis

In the Soliloquia, God is described as a light of his own sort, indeed, a sort of incorporeal light (suauissima

lux purgatae mentis sapientia),20 as well as an intelligible, intellectual light, which renders objects of thought

knowable (lumen intellectuale; lux intelligibilis).21 As Augustine states in s. 4, the divine light is qualitatively different

from the light of the sun, even though he envisions a certain heuristic analogy between the light of the Son and of

the sun, respectively.22 Such language is not ‘mere’ imagery; what Augustine means when he speaks of the

presence of the divine light to the soul is that it supplies one with the capacity and the concepts necessary for

normative judgement.23 One is enabled to identify and judge something as, e.g., good in light of the presence of

the Good within one.24 Illumination therefore consists in one’s capacity for knowing truth, for ‘true thought’

17 uera rel. 44.82; Giraud, ‘Delectatio interior,’ 207. See also conf. 7.6.2: sapientia mentis indigentes illuminans; cf.

serm. Dom. mon. 1.12.23. 18 For a recent full-length monograph concerning illumination in Augustine, its reception history, and

contemporary philosophical issues, see Lydia Schumacher, Divine Illumination: The History and Future of Augustine’s Theory of

Knowledge, Contemporary Challenges in Systematic Theology (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). For a detailed treatment of

the state of the art on illumination, see Alexandra Parvan, ‘La relation en tant qu’élément-clé de l’illumination augustinienne,’

Chora: Journal of Ancient and Medieval Studies 7-8 (2009-2010) 87-103.

19 Goulven Madec, Chez Augustin (Paris, 1998) 14-15. 20 lib. arb. 2.43 21 sol. 1.3; 15. 22 See also ss. 34 and 35 for more on light and Christ. 23 Menn, ‘Desire for God,’ 72; lib. arb. 2. 24 Menn, ‘Desire for God,’ 76.

5

(pensée vraie).25 In his fourth Ennaratio, Augustine links God's light with truth, and claims that he is not perceptible

by one's (physical) eyes, but only intellectually (mente conspicitur).26 In his De Magistro, Augustine speaks of the

interior man (homo interior) who perceives certain intelligible objects by the intellect (mente conspicimus; intellectu

atque ratione), a vision which is enabled by a certain type of intelligible light (in illa interiore luce ueritatis). Likewise,

these objects illumine the inner man (illustratur).27 And of course, in order to see the divine light, one’s heart must

be cleansed (cui uidendae corda mundantur).28

1. Augustine on the senses

Augustine follows the Aristotelian division of the five physical senses of the body. Of these, Augustine sees

that of touch as closest to the non-rational part of one’s nature, and therefore among the lowest. He echoes

similar thoughts in lib. arb. 2, in which he also describes hearing and vision as the pre-eminent senses of the

body.29 Augustine concedes that even non-rational animals possess some capacity for sight and memory; in fact, he

even sees the latter as an essentially ‘natural’ faculty. What distinguishes the rational from the non-rational soul is

the capacity to judge and to interrogate reality. The rational soul can judge ‘empirical data’ in the sense that it can

see this content as possessed of a deeper meaning and significance. Intellectual vision is distinctive of rational

beings, of the anima rationalis (homines autem possunt interrogare).

In locations such as Confessiones 10 and De libero arbitrio 2, Augustine distinguishes each physical sense based on the

object proper to each. So for example, the perception of colour pertains to the eye, and the sense of olfaction

pertains to the nose or the nostrils. However, Augustine makes clear that the logic of the corporeal senses does

not carry over for the way in which the heart ‘senses,’ and indeed, this is a distinguishing mark of intellectual

perception for Augustine. In conf. 10, Augustine presents a rather self-conscious reflection on the use of language

in relation to the senses. He writes that one uses terms related to vision to apply both to the bodily or physical

sense of sight, as well as in an intellectual sense of understanding something.30 However, what sets sight apart

from the other senses is that the intellectual sense of sight seems to encompass all aspects of understanding or

experiencing. Augustine bases this conclusion on a reflection on expressions such as ‘see this scent,’ which in the

purely corporeal sense is absurd, especially given his idea that the bodily senses each have their own proper

object. But intuitively for the sense of sight this does not seem at all strange.31

As J.-L. Chrétien explains, when it comes to the inner senses, there is a unity and a dynamism which

surpasses the strictures of those of the body.32 As Augustine writes in his De trinitate,33 ‘non est aliud atque aliud

uidere et audire.’ In fact, strange formulations such as ‘seeing with the (inner) ear’ on this view are perfectly

acceptable.34 The inner eyes and the inner ears, according to Chrétien, ‘sont ceux du cœur, et pour saint Augustin

il n’y va que de deux formulations distinctes de la même ouverture et de le même réceptivité spirituelles.’35

Speaking in various ways of the heart, the sight of the mind, or the soul, Augustine conceives of one’s inner

25 Giraud, ‘Delectatio interior,’ 211. 26 en. Ps. 4.8; Giraud, ‘Delectatio,’ 207. 27 mag. 40; Giraud, ‘Delectatio,’ 210. 28 Gn. litt. 12.28.56. 29 Gn. litt. 3.4.6; lib. arb. 2. 30 Cf. Origen, De principiis 1.1.9: ‘The names of the organs of sense are often applied to the soul, so that we speak

of seeing with the eyes of the heart, hat is, of drawing some intellectual conclusion by means of the faculty of intelligence’ (p.

14 translation Butterworth).

31 conf. 10.35; cf. ciu. 11.10.2. 32 Jean-Louis Chrétien, L’appelle et la réponse (Paris, 1992) 45. In this respect, Chrétien quotes Paul Claudel’s

curious formulation, ‘l’œil écoute.’ Chrétien, L’appelle, 45. 33 15.10.18. 34 Chrétien, L’appelle, 45. 35 Chrétien, L’appelle, 63.

6

faculty of intellectual perception as holistic and unified, and thus able to judge the reports of the individual senses

and to ‘perceive’ in these reports different ‘types’ of objects.36

A prime example of this point is located in the second book of De libero arbitrio, perhaps the final

authoritative writing of his earlier ‘philosophical’ years. Herein Augustine discusses how he perceives such

properties as ‘unity’ in things. However, it seems that he does not have any ‘empirical’ experience of the oneness

of things, since various things are composed of manifold parts. In fact, it seems to be the other way around: some

concept of unity seems to be required in order to have intelligible experience at all. As Augustine writes,

‘Accordingly, we acknowledge that no bodily reality is one, truly and simply, and yet it would be impossible to

enumerate so many parts within the body unless these were differentiated by the concept of one.’ Augustine

identifies an idea, namely ‘oneness,’ which we do not experience by means of the senses and which we

presuppose in making judgements about the material world. From this observation, Augustine derives the

following conclusion:

Consequently, when I recognise that a bodily reality is not one, I know the meaning of one; otherwise, I

could not number the many parts in the body. Wherever it is that I come to know one, I certainly do not

know it by the bodily senses, for by these I know only bodies, which, as we have shown, are not one, truly

and simply.

In a work composed several years after lib. arb., Augustine makes a similar point concerning number and our

apparently intimate awareness of it, insofar as it conditions our thought and seems inseparable from the

‘empirical’ realities we observe. As Augustine writes in conf. 10, we judge numeral instances in the world

according to an innate knowledge of number itself; in fact, the latter provides the very condition which enables

one to perceive particular objects in the world. The numbers which we enumerate (quos numeramus) when we

count are the instances of those numbers by which we count (quibus numeramus), and these latter, Augustine

suggests, exceed the corporeal senses: ‘sensi etiam numeros omnibus corporis sensibus, quos numeramus; sed illi

alii sunt, quibus numeramus, nec imagines istorum sunt et ideo ualde sunt.’ By adding that these ‘intelligible

numbers’ exist in a supreme way (ualde sunt), Augustine is suggesting a certain link between number and the

divine mind, namely that the latter causes the instantiation of the former in reality, and because of our own

creation ad imaginem Dei, our mental faculties are constructed in such a way that we can perceive such properties

instantiated in physical states of affairs.

We read a similar line of thought in an opuscule which he composed around the same time as his

Confessiones, ca. 400, De fide rerum inuisibilium. In this work among others, we again see Augustine grappling with

the problem of vision, and its highly ‘intentional’ character. Herein Augustine describes a certain type of

perception, the objects of which exceed the ‘merely empirical’ (aliena sit ab istorum conspectibus oculorum). In this

work, he operates with a notion of sight admitting of two aspects, one corporeal, and the other intellectual. For

example, he speaks of the sight (aciem) of the flesh (carnis) and of the mind (mentis), respectively. Likewise, whilst

sometimes one perceives by the bodily eyes (corporeis oculis), sometimes one sees by (means of) the mind (ipso

animo uides; cernis animo tuo).37 Indeed, each type of vision has its own proper object: corpora praesentia for the flesh,

cogitationes and uoluntates for the mind.38

In De fide, Augustine moves fluidly between formulations according to which there are different types or

sets of senses (e.g., corporeis oculis), and those according to which it is the individual as a unified entity perceiving

by means of different aspects of the same faculty, e.g., uides … corpore tuo … uides … animo tuo. In the

aforementioned passage from conf. 10, we see both formulations, and a clear instance of the latter type as well.

36 This is apropos of Augustine’s enigmatic understanding of the inner word, though a fuller discussion of this issue

will have to wait. 37 Consider also: aut extrinsecus corpore aut intrinsecus corde. 38 See also William Blake’s ‘The Everlasting Gospel,’ in which he writes, ‘This life’s five windows of the

soul/Distorts the Heavens from pole to pole,/And leads you to believe a lie/When you see with, not thro’, the eye.’

7

For instance, when he is speaking of number, Augustine recounts how he has come to this knowledge: ‘Homo

interior cognouit haec per exterioris ministerium; ego interior cognoui haec, ego, ego animus per sensum

corporis mei.’39 He reiterates that it was he himself who saw and cognised the ‘formal property’ of number,

which ‘is’ to a higher degree. This suggests a close link between the corporeal and the intellectual sense of sight.

This is essentially the point that Augustine makes in the twelfth book of De trinitate. Though number, for example,

transcends the five bodily senses, it is nonetheless communicated through them in a certain way:

[T]he nature of the intellectual mind is so formed as to see those things which, according to the disposition

of the Creator, are subjoined to intelligible things of the natural order, in a sort of incorporeal light of its

own kind, as the eye of the flesh sees the things that lie about it in this corporeal light, of which light it is

made to be receptive and to which it is adapted.40

These ‘intelligibles’ are formal properties, truths which are not merely ‘empirical.’ Yet in order for the mind to

have access to them, these must be connected to something of the natural order, for otherwise one would not be

able to perceive it at all. In a more contemporary idiom, we could speak about the instantiation of certain

properties in physical states of affairs. As C. Harrison puts it, ‘the factum contains the mysterium.’41

2. Priority

Thus we arrive at the first point of intervention in this conversation regarding intellectual vision. One

striking result of the foregoing survey is that Augustine holds that there are objects of intellectual cognition. These

are not perceived independently of physical objects; rather, these forms or principles are precisely what render

particular things or objects intelligible and divisible. Ideas such as unity, parsimony, and simplicity allow one to

make sense of the world. Augustine speaks about unity in De libero arbitrio, and similarly, in De Trinitate, he writes

about the ‘subjoining’ of forms within the world to corporeal things.42 In virtue of his endorsement of a theology

of creation ex nihilo, Augustine’s thought cannot coherently brook an opposition between the material and the

spiritual. Even if they are distinct, this is a distinction which implies co-extension. Writing on the rehabilitation of

the Aristotelian concept of formal causality, Haldane explains that, ‘what form brings is order. . . . Its existence is

testified to . . . by the fact that what exists, and how existents act, exhibit natural order.’43 Formal and efficient

causality therefore are not two separate process but two moments of one and the same activity. As Haldane puts

it, ‘Efficient causality is the vehicle for the communication of form.’44

For Augustine, some knowledge of formal realities is a prerequisite for knowledge and perception itself.

The knowledge of unity, for example, provides the ability for identifying particulars, and from here reasoning can

take place. It seems that these forms are ineluctable; without them thinking would be short-circuited, as there has

to be something–not just ‘anything’, but some intelligible thing–about which to think. Otherwise there would be

no ‘thing’ to understand, no intelligible content of which to make sense. We are integrally connected to the

world, and because of that constitutive connection, we perceive reality in a particular way. As Taylor puts it, ‘our

representations of things–the kinds of objects we pick out as whole, enduring entities–are grounded in the way

39 conf. 10.6.9. 40 trin. 12.15.24. 41 Carol Harrison, Beauty and Revelation in the Thought of St Augustine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992) 66. 42 See Trelenberg, “Das Prinzip ‘Einheit.’” 43 John Haldane, ‘A Return to Form in the Philosophy of Mind,’ Ratio 60 Vol. XI, No. 3. (December 1998) 269.

44 Haldane, ‘Return to Form,’ 269.

8

we deal with those things.’45 From this point, Taylor goes on to claim that these ‘a priori conditions’ just

constitute our way of relating to the world, and these are ineluctable.46

Taylor suggests that one of the key tasks of philosophy, if such conclusions are true, would be to reflect

more deeply on the way in which our knowledge is conditioned. It would be ‘disclose’ the fundamental features

of our cognitive capacities.47 A major upshot of such a view for Taylor is to develop a notion of reason in contrast

to an Enlightenment view, the modus operandi of which, at least in part, would involve the (Heideggerian)

‘disclosure’ of the conditions of our knowing.48 This is precisely the task in which Augustine engages across his

early dialogues: he tries to draw out the deeper implications of his conclusions about knowledge, based on his

own self-reflection. As he sees it, in particular in book two of De libero arbtirio, the standards to which he has

access suggest to Augustine that his mind is in touch with a greater reality which is constitutive of the intelligibility

of the external world.

3. Formal causality to-day

As Taylor explains, the specifically modern approach to knowledge, beginning with Descartes, might be

described as ‘representational.’ The task of thinking is to produce an accurate representation of reality which one

finds outside of oneself. The novelty of this approach to truth should not be missed, for within the history of

philosophy informed by the Socratic tradition, knowledge involved the apprehension of an idea or form by the

intellect. Platonic and Aristotelian theories of knowledge differ over the details of the way in which this takes

place and the precise ‘location’ of the formal realities, but they agree on the fundamental point that ideas are

instantiated in physical particulars, and one acquires knowledge by identifying that form in a thing. Following

from the nominalist critique of essentialism at the close of the middle ages, the understanding was that there are

no longer pre-given forms to be discovered in reality, but rather that thought consists in the production of

representations, more or less accurate of the ‘objects’ of the external world.

But according to philosophers like Taylor,49 this ‘tabula rasa’ approach to knowledge puts the cart before

the horse; there has to be some intelligible content already present in order to produce a representation of it at

all. Our way of perceiving the world is already imbued with a fundamentally intentional structure.50 In his The

Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn makes a similar point when he writes, ‘though they are always legitimate

and are occasionally extraordinarily fruitful, questions about retinal imprints or about the consequences of

particular laboratory manipulations presuppose a world already perceptually and conceptually subdivided in a certain

way.’51 He describes scientific data as ‘concrete indices to the content of more elementary perceptions,’ that is,

information which results from sensory stimuli of a more basic nature, combined with the informed looking of a

45 Taylor, “Overcoming Epistemology,” 11. 46 This topic is pertinent to contemporary debates on the metaphysics of composition in analytic philosophy, a

seminal text of which is Van Inwagen, Material Beings, in which he raises the question of what it would take for xs to compose

some composite C. Of course, the nihilist critique of our approach here would be that it simply begs the question. The

nihilist would be inclined to question whether there is really any such thing as, e.g., a house, or simply particles arranged

house-wise. Of course, such a critique is not unproblematic, because it presupposes some simple particulars, thus assuming a

notion of form. John Haldane makes a similar point, arguing that even in contemporary physics, notions of sub-atomic

particles presuppose a notion of formal causality, and indeed, this point is similar to the one that we have cited from Taylor.

Furthermore, one could also consult Merricks, Objects and Persons, in which he argues that a composite is possessed of causal

properties which are not reducible to its constituents. 47 Taylor, “Overcoming Epistemology,” 12. 48 Taylor, “Overcoming Epistemology,” 15. 49 Taylor cites Kant, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Merleau-Ponty as proponents of this view. Taylor, ‘Overcoming

Epistemology,’ 9. 50 Kuhn, Structure, 125. 51 Kuhn, Structure, 129; emphases added.

9

rational and unconfused subject.52 This implies that our powers of cognition are moulded and qualified in

particular ways, ways which extend beyond our autonomous control.53

Hence we are led to think about how other factors influence the exercise of our reason, what one might

call the ‘conditions’ of our knowing. In this respect, Augustine’s discussion of an intelligible light in Soliloquia is

also reminiscent of a theme he discusses in his De magistro. In the first book of the former, Augustine argues that

God is the source of intelligibility, and that in His light one is enabled to perceive objects of intellectual vision.

The point is a subtle one: Augustine realises that the interplay between the knower and the object of knowledge is

somehow mediated and enabled by a principle of intelligibility. This principle eludes human control and direct

perception; indeed, quite the reverse: it is that which enables perception in the first place. In fact, here Augustine

anticipates Heidegger’s notion of Lichtung. This also pertains to the inner teacher in De magistro, namely that some

mediating principle is at work in the acquisition of knowledge and the connection of signs to realities. Taylor

expresses this very well when he writes that ‘this formulation [Lichtung] focuses us on the fact (which we are

meant to come to perceive as astonishing) that the knower-known complex is at all.’54 It is little wonder then that

Augustine finds the theme of light and vision so useful. Light is something which we hardly notice as a reality in

itself, but rather as it impinges upon objects of cognition. Furthermore, this interplay, as we have called it, is

given; the human mind requires it to function in the first place. Any attempt to get to its foundation is not so

much futile as unintelligible. What would it mean to talk about the underlying structure beyond or underneath

that which constitutes the conditions of our knowledge? Can a sensible question even be raised in this regard? Our

quotidian experience of sight is immediate and intimate, so much so that we can fail to realise what it implies

about the world and our relationship to it. It seems that Augustine, and in the present day, figures like Taylor, are

broaching the very limits of knowledge and attempting to identify the ways in which it is structured.

According to Taylor, these conditions are not simply useful in disclosing information about the world,

but reflection on the conditions of our knowledge indicate something about who we are as human knowers.55

Interestingly, however, this interior reflection, indeed, a soliloquy, can be helpful and might even be necessary in

order to engage in an ‘exterior’ enquiry. One has to know something about the agent enquiring before what is

beyond it can be understood. This is not to engage necessarily in a radically sceptical view of the world. For

Augustine, our conditions of knowing do not so much impose a grid on the world through which we view it, but

rather just constitutes the way in which we are situated herein. There is not the world on the one hand and our

experience of it on the other; rather, they are integrally connected, especially because we (and our rational

faculties) are part of the world. As Taylor writes, ‘Foundationalism is undermined because you can’t go on digging

under ordinary representations to uncover further, more basic representations. What you get underlying our

representations of the world–the kinds of things we formulate, for instance, in declarative sentences–is not

further representation but rather a certain grasp of the world that we have as agents in it.’56 Our way of knowing

things is arranged in a certain way, such that we neither select it nor have complete control over it. Rather, this

just is the way that we come to know reality. A heteronomous account of knowledge is the result, or at least one

possible result, which arises out of the critique of foundationalism, which was consummated in the 20th century by

figures like Heidegger and his student Gadamer, and which is reflected in sundry locations of Augustine’s corpus.

B. Augustine’s three-fold sense of vision in De Genesi ad Litteram XII

Let us delve deeper still into Augustine’s understanding of intellectual perception by pursuing a case

study in which Augustine enumerates three distinct types of vision and the objects proper to each. As we shall see,

52 Kuhn, Structure, 126. 53 Taylor, ‘Overcoming Epistemology,’ 3-4, 9-12. 54 Taylor, ‘Overcoming Epistemology,’ 9. 55 Taylor, “Overcoming Epistemology,” 16. 56 Taylor, “Overcoming Epistemology,” 11-12.

10

this reflection is occasioned by scriptural exegesis and has serious implications for Augustine’s understanding of

knowledge.

Augustine frames the twelfth and final book of Gn. litt. based on the theophanic experience narrated in 2

Cor 12:2-4, in which Paul describes a ‘man in Christ’ (presumably himself) who was ‘caught up’ (raptum) to the

‘third heaven.’ For Augustine, there is no question that Paul was taken into the ‘third heaven’ and that that was

what he ‘saw.’ Augustine bases his interpretation on the text itself (scio [...] nescio). So Paul recounts that he did in

fact know that it was the third heaven, but he did not know how exactly he was able to perceive it.57 Augustine

tries to elaborate on Paul's apparent confusion over whether he was in or outside the body. Hence Augustine

identifies Paul’s doubt in this episode as pertaining to the mode of his vision, not the object thereof. It was the third

heaven itself (proprie uidit), and not an image or a reflection (non imaginaliter) which he saw. Thus either Paul left

the body altogether, or his soul remained, but his mind was taken for some sort of spiritual vision.58

His exegesis of the Pauline passage provides the occasion for Augustine to propose a problematised

understanding of sight. He identifies three types of vision(s) (tria genera uisionum), the first of which is the

corporeal sort, which is facilitated by the eyes of the body (per sensus corporis), and allows one to see objects of

sense. Spiritual vision, which seems to be what Augustine has in mind in the Confessiones when he discusses

memoria, involves images being impressed on the mind through one’s spirit (per spiritum). This spirit is not the soul

as such, but a certain faculty of the soul which is able to retain images captured by the senses. Finally, there is the

intellectual sense of vision, which is proper to the mind (mens). In a word, this is reason or understanding, vision

in a normative sense. This type of vision is incorporeal, as are its objects, which do not admit of any material

component. Moreover, when one perceives them with the mind, one is seeing the things themselves (res ipsae). So

when one truly understands and sees wisdom within one’s mind, that is not one’s own thought of wisdom, but

sapientia ipsa (my term).59

1. Corporeal

Augustine understands corporeal vision as what we intuitively call to mind when we think about ‘seeing’

something. Moreover, just as there are different senses of vision, so too are there different objects proper to each.

As for corporeal vision, these are corporeal realities immediately available to our sight, hence shown to the bodily

senses.60 He writes that bodily things are perceived by the corporeis oculis.61 Augustine’s wording suggests a

demarcation between the bodily senses on the one hand (oculis huius corporis) and those of the mind on the other.

Likewise, there is a distinction between the objects proper to the former, which are accessible to the

corresponding bodily senses, and those which are only perceived intellectually, such as sapientia.62 Although God

can manifest himself through corporeal objects, and thereby to our human senses (humanis et corporalibus sensibus),

his substance is entirely different from these, and not directly perceptible to them.63

2. Spiritual

As the corporeal sense of vision pertains to praesentia corpora, the spiritual vision pertains to the images

and similitudes thereof. Augustine writes that the bodily senses convey images to the spirit, where images of those

57 Gn. litt. 12.4.10. 58 Gn. litt. 12.5.14. 59 Gn. litt. 12.3.6; 6.15; 7.16. 60 Gn. litt. 12.27.55. 61 Gn. litt. 12.5.13. 62 Gn. litt. 12.4.12. 63 Gn. litt. 12.4.9. Augustine calls for sensitivity in interpreting corporeal language in scripture; it may not be

intended in a literal sense, but rather to illustrate a point metaphorically (Gn. litt. 12.7.17.)

11

bodies are formed and stored.64 For Augustine, corporeal and spiritual vision are not so much two different

senses, or two operations separated in time, but are rather two aspects of the same act of looking; after the object

has disappeared, one realises the spiritual vision in the form of a memory.65 Hence spiritual vision is the soul’s

vision of images which have been impressed on it from the corporeal senses.66 However, in addition to things one

has actually experienced, it is also possible to see images of things which one has never seen, speculating and

constructing mental pictures from past experiences. For example, I have been to Budapest, so I can call to mind

certain images thereof in my memory. I have not been to Beijing, but based on various memories, I can produce

speculative images of what it may look like. Both of these operations are based in the spiritual sense of vision for

Augustine which, though not itself corporeal, is concerned with the images of corporeal things.

The use of terms ‘spiritual’ and ‘intellectual’ can be a bit confusing. That is true for us just as it was true

in Augustine’s time. In order to dispel any possible confusion amongst his readers, Augustine qualifies and

restricts his use of the term ‘spiritual,’ first acknowledging the various senses which it can take in scripture. These

uses of spirit include mind (oculus animae), which pertains to the image of God within the soul, a meaning which

really comes closer to Augustine’s understanding of intellectus in this work. However, though Scripture seems to

complicate Augustine’s schema, it also provides him with the basis for making it in the first place. He refers to 1

Cor 14:14, in which spirit and mind are distinguished from one another.67 Augustine points to 1 Cor 14:15 (orabo

spiritu ... et mente) to substantiate his distinction between the spiritual and the intellectual.68 Thus Augustine makes

clear that in this particular work, he is using spiritus in his own restricted sense, and hence it should not be

confused or conflated with ‘intellectual.’69

This difference is further clarified as Augustine continues his enquiry into the tria genera uisionum. He

writes that the spirit delivers its contents to the mind, where the intellect conducts its operation of seeking,

parsing, and understanding the images contained in the mind.70 For this reason the spiritual sense of vision can

rightly be described as a mediator between the mind and the body.71 The intellectual sense is superior still, for it

has the rôle of directing the enquiring sensations of the body, as well as making sense of the contents contained

within the spiritus; the intellect pertains to one’s capacity to interpret and understand.72

3. Intellectual

The third and most superior type of vision, the ‘intellectual,’ is unique, in that there is a different type of

light proper to it, and that its objects do not possess any corporeal properties, such as colour, taste, and such like.

Rather, they are known by one’s intellect, one sees them by understanding and thinking (intellegendo et

cogitando).73 Thus there is a strong demarcation drawn between corporeal and spiritual vision on the one hand,

and intellectual vision on the other. Intellectus is proper to the mind, and is responsible for moving from images to

knowledge.74 In the mind, the images delivered by the spiritual sense are judged (diiudicantur).75 Augustine

employs another Pauline passage to illustrate this point. Drawing upon 1 Cor 14:16, Augustine writes that

64 Gn. litt. 12.11.22. 65 Gn. litt. 12.24.51. 66 Gn. litt. 12.9.20. 67 Gn. litt. 12.8.19. 68 Gn. litt. 12.24.51. 69 Gn. litt. 12.7.18. 70 Gn. litt. 12.11.22. 71 Gn. litt. 12.24.51. 72 Gn. litt. 12.9.20. 73 Gn. litt. 12.3.6. 74 Gn. litt. 12.8.19. 75 Gn. litt. 12.24.50.

12

speaking in various tongues is worthless if one cannot communicate or make one come to knowledge thereby,

thus emphasising the distinction between spirit and understanding.76

The operation of the mind pertains to one’s understanding, one’s cognitive grasp of something, in

particular non-corporeal realities, which the soul beholds within itself. These are not images but the things

themselves (res ipsae).77 The ‘region’ of intellectual vision is beyond all corporeality.78 Here the claritas Domini

itself is seen, as much as the mind can handle, not a reflection (non aenigmata).79 Augustine writes that ‘intelligible

things’ such as love (dilectio), virtues (uirtutes), and wisdom (sapientia) are perceived by the mind, as these objects

are neither corporeal, nor do they possess any corporeal features (uidetur mente sapientia, sine ullis imaginibus

corporum).80 Because one is perceiving such spiritual properties by the mind (res ipsae), one grows closer to God

and thereby perfects one’s human nature (quibus propinquatur Deo).81

[Insert Figure 1 here]

Though he speaks of different ‘types’ (genera) of vision, Augustine sees these as inherently connected to

one another. Though there can be a temporal separation between them, there need not be. This he makes clear by

his example of reading a particular scriptural passage, showing how each type of vision can be operative

simultaneously:

Behold, when it is read in this one precept, You shall love your neighbour as yourself, three types of visions occur:

one through the eyes, by which the letters themselves are read; another the spirit of man by which near and

far are thought; the third through the contuition of the mind, by which the intellectual thing love itself is

perceived.82

Indeed, we have already seen how corporal and spiritual vision, respectively, are two aspects of the same act of

looking.83 This may well be true for intellectual vision, if one is attuned to perceive and cognise the intelligible

forms available before one. For Augustine, intellectual vision implies that one either sees or one does not. As

Giraud explains, ‘Il ne s’agit plus tant de prouver que de voir.’84 The intellectual sense of vision in the sense of

complete understanding may not happen at the same time. However, one’s rational faculties may still be at work

in detecting that which one does not (yet) understand and directing the mind to enquire further. Augustine also

speaks of this in Gn. litt., and in so doing, appears to anticipate what Gadamer and other contemporary figures

have to say about the notion of a hermeneutical consciousness. It is to this we now turn, first to Augustine, and

then to Gadamer.

C. Hermeneutical consciousness as ‘intellectual vision’

1. Intellectual direction

76 Gn. litt. 12.8.19. 77 Gn. litt. 12.8.19. 78 Gn. litt. 12.26.54. 79 Gn. litt. 12.26.54. 80 Gn. litt. 12.5.13; 11.22; 31.59. 81 Gn. litt. 12.24.50; 34.68. 82 Ecce in hoc uno praecepto cum legitur: Diliges proximum tuum tamquam teipsum, tria genera visionum occurrunt:

unum per oculos, quibus ipsae litterae videntur; alterum per spiritum hominis quo proximus et absens cogitatur; tertium per

contuitum mentis, quo ipsa dilectio intellecta conspicitur. (Gn. litt. 12.6.15.).

83 Gn. litt. 12.24.51. 84 Giraud, ‘Signum et vestigium,’ 258.

13

Augustine believes that one can have a sort of ‘indirect’ intellectual perception, one which is incomplete,

yet provides the very basis for its own completion. In this respect, Augustine cites the example of the Babylonian

king Belshazzar from the book of Daniel,85 in which he has a vision of a hand writing in an unknown language on

the wall. Then Daniel is called to interpret the message. Two points are worth noting here. First, Augustine

designates Daniel’s act of understanding and interpretation as the superior act of vision, though by forming an

image of the symbol in his mind, the king was certainly partaking in spiritual vision. Moreover, Augustine

identifies Belshazzar’s intellectual vision with a certain ‘hermeneutical’ pre-understanding: Though the king’s

intellect could not understand the writing, he could nevertheless identify it as intelligible and as containing some

hidden meaning, which provided him with an intentional object into which to enquire, whether by himself or with

another.86 Even though he lacked complete understanding, his mind was nonetheless able to direct his enquiry and

to recognise something of intelligible value in the objects of his perception, the image of which was contained in

his spirit. Augustine speaks of this movement in terms of a call or a summons, such that one's mind is called

(adhibetur intellectus) to discover the meaning of particular corporeal images, artefacts, and such like, or rather, the

meaning contained within those material images.87

We see a similar line of thought in De fide rerum inuisibilium, in which Augustine is grappling with the

problem of vision, and its highly ‘intentional’ character. He speaks of intellectual sight in terms of a kind of faith;

in other words, before we can begin to interact with someone, we have to have a sense of their identity and their

unity (cum te committis ut probes, credis antequam probes), and this Augustine locates in the heart or the soul (amici

faciem cernis corpore tuo, fidem tuam cernis animo tuo). There has to be a certain sense in which one perceives an

intelligible, coherent reality which, whilst constituted of sensible matter, is ultimately more than the sum of its

parts and is thereby not directly ‘visible’ to the corporeis oculis. When we reflect (self-)critically, we realise that

our lives seem to make sense in light of these invisible realities; it seems that we are already implicated in them

without realising it, and we proceed accordingly in our quotidian lives (etiam tunc eorum erga nos beneuolentiam

credimus potius quam uidemus).

Similarly, Augustine recasts the Meno paradox in trin. 8.6, pondering how one can have a desire to know

God when one does not yet know Him.88 According to S. Menn writes,89 ‘Augustine says that we can pray to

God, even before we have knowledge of God, based on faith in God.’ For this position, Augustine draws upon

Hebrews 11.6, suggesting that one must have some ‘pre-cognition’ of God which guides them to seek him and

which provides an initial direction for enquiry.90

2. Fraglichkeit

For Augustine, thinking does not happen in a vacuum but responds to a certain type of content exterior

to the mind, a res, a Sache (neque enim cognitio fieri potest, nisi cognoscenda praecedant).91 I think the same can be said

for Gadamer. What I want to suggest is that in his intellectual struggles with the problematic nature of human

sight, Augustine anticipates Gadamer’s understanding of hermeneutics as the capacity for seeing what is

intelligible and worthy of further enquiry. This point may come as a surprise to some. Indeed, we often associate

Gadamer’s hermeneutical programme with the reading and interpretation of texts. And rightly so. But shortly

after the publication of his revolutionary Wahrheit und Methode (Tübingen, 1960), Gadamer published an essay on

85 Daniel 5: 5-28. 86 et transacti eius imaginem in spiritu cogitando cernebat, nec aliquid intellectu poterat, nisi nosse signum esse, et quid

significaret inquirere (Gn. litt. 12.11.23.) 87 Gn. litt. 12.14.29. 88 Menn, ‘Desire for God,’ 84. 89 Menn, ‘Desire for God,’ 81. 90 Menn, ‘Desire for God,’ 81. 91 Gn. litt. 4.49.

14

what he called the ‘universality’ of hermeneutics.92 In this piece, he argues that hermeneutics is not a particular

method or theory which one applied to the reading of texts; rather, he conceives of textual interpretation as a

particular application of hermeneutics as a much more basic aspect of human cognition. Gadamer understands

hermeneutics in terms of a sort of intellectual vision, as the capacity to perceive the intelligible contents

constitutive of our world.

The capacity to question something presupposes on the one hand our capacity for understanding, and on

the other the capacity to perceive intellectual properties in physical particulars. Gadamer views a properly

formulated question as the invitation to a particular truth content to disclose itself. Therefore the capacity for

questioning is at the foundation of all enquiry. Likewise, Kuhn writes of the directed-ness to scientific enquiry,

even at the most rudimentary level. One’s experiments are dictated by the theoretical commitments, and

therefore the hypotheses, which one formulates.93 One has a certain expectation, a fore-understanding of what

one will discover, and accordingly one seeks to confirm or challenge it. Even the design and deployment of

apparatus and instruments involve this intentional element. In addition, the appearance of anomaly, itself a driver

of scientific advancement, only appears as such against the backdrop of some rational expectation.94 Guided by a

certain hermeneutical sensibility, one is able to see what is ‘questionable.’ Indeed, this suggests a certain

dialectical relation between the empirical and the intentional, insofar as ‘empirical’ perception is already linked

with the intentional and presupposes it, and further perception encourages theoretical revision and precision,

which leads in turn to novel and different sense perceptions. The questioning aspect of scientific investigation is

not completely open, but is rather directed and guided by particular standards and expectations. Moreover,

certain implied restrictions are placed on the type or the scope of potential solutions to a given quandary, as well

as on the methods appropriate to ascertaining an answer.95

One’s perception of a content invites and summons one to enquire and thereby to arrive at truth. As

Gadamer writes, ‘The real power of hermeneutical consciousness is to see what is questionable [fragwürdige]. Now

if what we have before our eyes is not only the artistic tradition of a people, or historical tradition, or the

principle of modern science in its hermeneutical preconditions but rather the whole of our experience, then we have

succeeded, I think, in joining the experience of science to our own universal and human experience of life.’96

Gadamer speaks of ‘imagination,’ which he understands as the capacity to see that which is intelligible, what yields

the promise of rewarding an enquiry properly undertaken. Such a view presupposes the unity suggested by the

phrase ‘the whole of our experience.’ This implies that the world presents itself to us as a unity; there is a

primordial intuition not simply of the intelligibility of the universe but also of its coherence.97 Such a realisation is

a result of one’s ‘intellectual vision,’ one’s capacity to see what is questionable, or in other words, what is

intelligible. There has to be a sense in which one is already able to perceive what can be known before one

actually does the work necessary to know it. Whilst a certain attention to data, observations, and records is

necessary in order to arrive at truthful conclusions from facts, the very possibility of gathering data at all relies

92 Hans-Georg Gadamer, ‘The Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem,’ in G. L. Ormiston and A. D. Schrift

(eds.), The Hermeneutic Tradition from Ast to Ricoeur, Intersections: Philosophy and Critical Theory (State University of New

York Press, 1972) 147-58.

93 Kuhn, Structure, 126. 94 Kuhn, Structure, 96. 95 Kuhn, Structure, 38. 96 Gadamer, ‘Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem,’ 154. Gadamer uses the curious term fragwürdig(e),

translated as ‘questionable.’ The ambiguity of the English term seems to reflect that of the German. For in English we speak

of things being questionable in the sense that they are somehow dubious or dodgy. But the context of Gadamer’s text makes

clear that ‘questionable’ refers to that which contains something ‘worthy’ (würdig) of being questioned. As a basis for this

claim, one could consider other locations in which Gadamer also speaks of Fraglichkeit. From a broader linguistic and

historical perspective, one could also consider the epithet of the Habsburg king Leopold I. „der Glorwürdige,“ as in the one

who is worthy of glory (http://www.habsburger.net/de/personen/habsburger/leopold-i-der-glorwurdige). 97 Cf. D. C. Schindler, The Catholicity of Reason (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013) 7.

15

upon a hermeneutical consciousness. Gadamer speaks of a fundamental aspect of hermeneutics as one’s capacity to

discern intelligible contents present in the world around one.98 As he writes, ‘It is imagination that is the decisive

function of the scholar. Imagination naturally has a hermeneutical function and serves the sense for what is

questionable. It serves the ability to expose real, productive questions, something in which, generally speaking,

only he who masters all the methods of his science succeeds.’

3. Contrast with Enlightenment

I believe it is in contrast with Aufklärung that the distinctiveness of Augustine’s theory of knowledge comes

to light. From our perspective this has the effect of a reversal. For Augustine, we must let the truth come to us as

much as we go to it. It is not as if one must go somewhere or remove certain of truth’s protective layers (in the

words of Neil Armstrong) so much as remove the obstructions in oneself and re-orient one’s vision so as to see

what was already present to one.99

This ‘interrogative’ approach to knowledge is also realised in a certain ‘existential’ way. Questioning is

highly dynamic, as one opens oneself, puts oneself at risk, en jeu, as it were, and thereby becomes receptive to

what may exceed one, may surprise one or challenge one’s prejudices. By questioning, one’s interlocutor is

valorised, and allowed to speak with some freedom, in a way which is neither compelled nor forced. Chrétien

contrasts this model of questioning suggested by Augustine with another way of questioning, which takes the form

of forcing a particular (type of) response, rather than asking an open, though directed, question. Thus Chrétien:

Kant écrit, à propos de la physique, que la raison « doit obliger la nature à répondre à ses questions » , et

qu’elle est « comme un juge en fonction qui force les témoins à répondre aux questions qu'il leur pose » ,

cette interrogation ne suppose pas une voix visible, ni que l'œil écoute en étant appelé, surpris et saisi, mais

que « la raison ne voit que ce qu'elle produit elle-même d'après ses propres plans » , ce qui est le contraire

d'écouter. La démarche expérimental est soliloque plus que dialogue. L'idée centrale n’est pas ici celle de

question, mais celle de réponse forcée. La réponse ne saurait aucune façon excède notre question.100

Chrétien’s take on the Kantian approach to interrogation suggests a certain imposition of ‘our’ categories onto

nature, an ‘epistemic violence.’ In contrast, there is a dynamism and reciprocity to the Augustinian sense of

interrogation, in which the world can also come to one. This movement involves an aspect of hermeneutical

intuition: one is summoned, called, invited by the ‘question-able’ reality in front of one. One simultaneously

knows it and does not. One is invited to investigate it further and from that enquiry derive important cognitive

knowledge. This whole process, though it certainly relies on ‘empirical’ sense data, is enabled, as Augustine

suggests in De Genesi, by the direction of one’s intellect, of one’s perceiving of cognoscenda and one’s undertaking

efforts to examine them further. In certain locations of his prodigious oeuvre, Augustine gives us some insight into

how this process works, to the consideration of which we now turn.

4. Interroga pulchritudinem terrae

In sermo 241, Augustine credits the philosophi with a valid and genuine knowledge of God derived from

nature (de operibus artificem cognouisse), a knowledge which did not come as a result of the revelation vouchsafed to

98 Gadamer, ‘Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem,’ 153-4. 99 Menn, ‘Desire for God,’ 93. 100 ‘Kant writes, concerning physics, that reason “must compel nature to respond to its questions,” and that it is

“like a judge in the function of one who forces witnesses to respond to the questions which he asks them,” this interrogation

does not suppose a visible voice, nor that the eye listens and in listening is called, surprised and seized, but that ‘reason does

not see anything except what it produces itself according to its own plans,’ that which is contrary to listening. The

experimental approach is more a soliloquy than a dialogue. The central idea here is not that that of question, but that of

forced response. The response may not in any way exceed our question.’ Chrétien, L’appelle, 49.

16

the chosen people (prophetas non audierunt, legem Dei non acceperunt). Augustine affirms that God was addressing

these philosophers through creation (eis Deus quodam modo silens ipsius mundi operibus loquebatur, et eos ad quaerendum

artificem rerum, mundi species inuitabat). In conf. 10, Augustine claims that this speaking is constant, without

cessation, and that it is directed to all people (omnibus).101 This divine call, which echoes through the natural

world, is ever present to the soul, ever calling and beckoning: this way, mortal, bend thy eyes.102 Augustine’s

understanding of creatio ex nihilo places nature on a par with scripture, a point which is demonstrated by his

assertion that the philosophers are inexcusabiles because they did not worship God as they ought. As Otten notes,

Scripture itself provides a basis for supposing that one can discern vestiges of God in creation.103 Following this

tradition, mediaeval theologians too saw Scripture and Creation as two complementary ways in which God

reveals himself.104 Creation therefore served as a sort of alternative testament to the pagans, to whom God was

speaking in a certain way through the world. In addition to God himself speaking through the works of the world,

Augustine also suggests that creatures themselves speak, but when they do, it is nonetheless on God’s behalf, and

always directed back to him (sed et caelum et terra et omnia, quae in eis sunt, ecce undique mihi dicunt, ut te amem).105

One can see how Augustine understands the potency and the power of the created world to communicate

the divine, even if one can be deaf to its address. Having condemned the pagan philosophers for their rejection of

the revelation vouchsafed to them by God through his works, Augustine proceeds to suggest how God can be

known through creation, instructing his audience to ‘interrogate’ the beauty of nature, and to enquire into it as

one pursues knowledge of the divine. Thus Augustine:

Interrogate the beauty of the earth, interrogate the beauty of the sea, the beauty of the wind which spreads

and blows, the beauty of the sky, the order of the stars, the sun which illumines the day by its light, the moon

which by its splendour tempers the darkness of the following night, the animals which move in the seas,

which roam about land, which fly in the air; interrogate hidden souls, and visible bodies; visible things

needing to be ruled, invisible things governing.106

According to Chrétien, Augustine sees the beauty of creation as calling to one and addressing one; it is truly la voix

visible.107 As Chrétien puts it, ‘Augustin définit ici la beauté comme réponse.’108 Even in his much later Ciuitas Dei,

Augustine writes that the basic principles constitutive of the world speak to and address one.109 This calling of the

world’s pulchritudo initiates a dialogue with the soul, which entails a certain reciprocity and dialectic which can be

continuously extended and deepened.110 This speaks to the excess of worldly things, showing forth beauty of their

origin, what William Desmond calls the ‘overdeterminacy’ of being,111 the sapiential saturation of material reality

in virtue of its origin in God’s creativity. As Chrétien writes, ‘Les chose mêmes nous appellent et nous invitent a

les interroger. Leur beauté appelle en répondant et répond en appellant.’112 Like Gadamer, Augustine sees nature

as replete with ‘question-able’ content, which stands in need of being disclosed by directed enquiry.

101 conf. 10.6. 102 See William Congreve’s libretto for the operetta ‘The Judgment of Paris.’ 103 Otten, ‘Nature and Scripture,’ 262. 104 Otten, ‘Nature and Scripture,’ 262-3. 105 conf. 10.6. 106 s. 241. interroga pulchritudinem terrae, interroga pulchritudinem maris, interroga pulchritudinem dilatati et

diffusi aeris, interroga pulchritudinem coeli, interroga ordinem siderum, interroga solem fulgore suo diem clarificantem,

interroga lunam splendore subsequentis noctis tenebras temperantem, interroga animalia quae mouentur in aquis, quae

morantur in terris, quae uolitant in aere; latentes animas, perspicua corpora; uisibilia regenda, inuisibiles regentes. 107 Chrétien, L’appelle, 47-8. 108 Chrétien, L’appelle, 48. 109 ciu. 11.27.2; Chrétien, L’appelle, 48-9. 110 Chrétien, L’appelle, 47-8. 111 Chrétien, L’appelle, 50. 112 Chrétien, L’appelle, 49.

17

In conf. 10, Augustine writes that his ‘method’ for searching for God involves an active, directed searching,

an interrogation. He says that he began with the creatures of the exterior world, and that he asked, or interrogated

(interrogaui) them, specifically to discover whether any one of them was God. Augustine depicts apparently

inanimate natural objects as speaking, responding, and indeed, confessing. This metaphorical and highly

imaginative image of nature speaking is portrayed as a dialogue between Augustine’s soul and the world, to which

he gives some interpretation when he writes, ‘interrogatio mea intentio mea, et responsio eorum species eorum.’

In other words, Augustine’s act of interrogation is an expression for his directed, focused enquiry into particular

realities, guided by a pre-sentiment of their intelligibility, whilst the ‘response’ he ‘hears’ from various natural

bodies is their species, their form or their beauty, a property which he is able to perceive by means of his intellect.

There is an interior and indeed, qualitatively superior sense at work, judging the reports of the senses and

interpreting them in a certain way: ‘homo interior cognouit haec per exterioris ministerium ; ego interior cognoui

haec, ego, ego animus per sensum corporis mei.’113 As we have already noted, Augustine sees the capacity to

judge and to interrogate the reports of one’s senses is distinctive of the capacity for rational thought.

The use of the term interroga as applied to the beauty of nature is particularly interesting here for another

reason, as Augustine uses this very term when he exhorts his audience to ‘interrogate’ a particular person or

biblical book (e.g., Isaiah, John, or Paul, ‘the apostle’) in order to elicit an answer to a difficult question. Chrétien

emphasises that we must interrogate the beauty of nature, that is, to look with direction and purpose. We cannot

look with a simple passivity.114 In other words, an interrogation is a dynamic, reciprocal process. One only

interrogates someone who can respond intelligently. For instance, one cannot interrogate a cash point, but one

can interrogate a person, a text, or some other sort of thing which is invested with intelligible content. Hence it is

interesting that Augustine, who so often speaks of interrogating people and texts, would use the same term to

impel his listeners to enquire into nature, even stating that it can ‘respond’ to one. Furthermore, this term

interroga implies a committed sense of searching, even in response to a summons, and hence more than mere

curiosity. Moreover, in an interrogation, one does not ask open-ended questions, or at least has a particular sense

of direction in which one is moving and a certain (type of) answer for which one is looking. In fact, in the

directed-ness of question, a certain hermeneutical process is at work, for one has a presentiment of answer which

one wishes to complete and to refine in light of further information, a point we have noted with respect to Kuhn’s

work and Augustine’s exegesis of Daniel 5.

Augustine’s protreptic to interrogation in s. 241 is consummated in the following crescendo: ‘interroga

ista, respondent tibi omnia: ecce uide, pulchra sumus. pulchritudo eorum, confessio eorum.’ Augustine

establishes a clear link between beauty and truth: pulchritudo eorum, confessio eorum. He even says that creation

‘speaks’ to one, saying ‘We are beautiful.’ On Augustine’s view, the world is engaged in a dialogue with the

human heart, and the language it speaks is that of beauty. Augustine’s understanding of ‘interrogating’ the beauty

of the universe and natural phenomena provides a deeper source for thinking about the notion of questioning and

insight which we have encountered in Gadamer and Taylor. Moreover, Augustine’s understanding of pulchritudo is

interesting here, as he understands it in profoundly cognitive and intelligible terms. But more importantly, in

order for one to be able to see this beauty requires an initial vision or intuition which is not ultimately reducible to

‘empirical’ observation; rather, the latter presupposes the former. So just as is the case with sapiential knowledge,

the understanding of beauty requires a concerted effort on the part of the seeker of truth, which is both

intellectual and ascetical. However, this intellectual perception presupposes an even more basic faculty, namely

that of the mind’s gaze, the capacity for discerning objects of intellectual vision and of seeing what admits of the

possibility of being interrogated. In other words, pulchritudo at a very basic level represents something which

admits of intelligible content which can be further disclosed by means of focused and concentrated enquiry; in a

word, instantiations of beauty in the created world, or indeed, the created world itself, represents, in Taylor’s

words, a ‘text-analogue,’ or an object of enquiry which is, as Gadamer puts it, fragwürdig(e). The very capacity to

interrogate reality presupposes the capacity to see what can be questioned, and indeed, what is inviting one to

113 conf. 10.6.9. 114 Chrétien, L’appelle, 47-8.

18

question, that which draws one’s attention. Such an epistemic model, as we have seen, is grounded in a

cosmology informed by Genesis and the concept of creatio ex nihilo.

Conclusion to Part I

Augustine, Gadamer, Taylor, and Kuhn, in their own ways, seem to be striking at the heart of the scientific frame

of mind, and more specifically what it requires, what its ‘conditions of possibility’ actually are. We find ourselves

as thinking beings enquiring into the nature of the world we observe around us and deriving from it apparently

true, useful, and helpful conclusions. We then take these ‘dividends’ and ‘re-invest’ them in the market of

intellectual enquiry, over the course of time realising further gains. For this entire scheme to function, we must

possess some mental faculty by means of which we can identify investment opportunities: not simply whether

they will yield excellent dividends, but whether they are actually opportunities or not. There is some overarching

a priori sense of discernment which we employ in order to direct our enquiry. In other words, we ‘see’ what is

possessed of intelligible content. But this content is not felicitously described as ‘empirical’ in the intuitive sense

of the word. Somehow we ‘see’ it ‘in’ the ‘empirical.’

II

Drawing upon Is 7:9, Augustine formulated the famous dictum crede ut intellegas, believe, so that you may

understand. From the foregoing treatment of Gn. litt., we have discovered that understanding (intellectus) for

Augustine pertains to intellectual vision, an intuition of truth by the mind, which is nonetheless facilitated and

prepared by the inferior senses of vision. Therefore, what Augustine is saying when he declares that one must

believe in order to understand is that one must endorse certain theoretical propositions, must adopt a certain

viewpoint, must attune oneself in a particular way in order to perceive truth. The truth is present to one, but it

requires a certain type of vision, a certain type of ‘eye,’ in order to be seen and known.

Thus we return to the issue of the degree to which one can exercise one’s capacity for intellectual vision,

which Augustine notes in diu. quaest. 46, inter alia, and which constitutes the second focal point of this enquiry.

Though we are created ad imaginem Dei, our faculties are limited, both in virtue of our finitude, as well as

(original) sin. Both of these limitations can be counteracted and corrected. The former requires an epistemic

purity, whereby we challenge our ‘four-dimensional’ prejudices of time and space, and thus come to conceive of

God as non-spatial. The latter involves a moral purity, which allows one to remove the obstructions within

oneself which distract or prevent one from perceiving truth.

In Gn. litt., Augustine claims that some perceivers are more, and others less attuned to the perception of

intellectual objects.115 As much as the mind can, it must purge itself of earthly stains and corporeal images.116

Intellectual vision requires a withdrawal from the senses (a carnalibus subtracta sensibus) so that one can perceive

things which are not in space or time (non spatiis locibus), since the intellect perceives in its own way (modo quodam

suo).117 The task of the soul is to remove oneself from the habit of spatio-temporal objects, so that one can begin to

perceive intellectual things, as best one can.118 Thus Menn:119

Augustine stresses in particular that we cannot search for God effectively unless we are purified, where the

requisite purity is in part moral purity, but also purity of imagination-we cannot search for God effectively if

we are so immersed in the senses that we cannot think any object without an accompanying sensory image.

But we cannot achieve this purity of morals and imagination without the help of God, and specifically without

praying to God for his help […]

115 Gn. litt. 12.6.15. 116 Gn. litt. 12.28.56. 117 Gn. litt. 12.31.59; cf. 34.67. 118 Gn. litt. 12.35.68. 119 Menn, ‘Desire for God,’ 80.

19

The opacity lies not with the exterior object of our enquiry, but rather with us the enquirers. For one, our

epistemic faculties are blocked due to a variety of factors, whether sin or human finitude. Furthermore, and as a

result of this, we are ‘prejudiced’ in favour of physical and material conceptions of God, trying to fit him into our

finite categories, an approach which simply begs to fail.120 As Menn writes,

[W]e wrongly think that the concept of truth is unclear and that we would understand it better if we

could picture it, and this attempt to fill out our knowledge of God by means of sensory images is just

what conceals God from us. And this dissatisfaction with a purely intellectual grasp of God is in turn

rooted in an affective turning away from God and toward the “accustomed earthly things” …121

Augustine describes this as the consuetudo carnalis,122 and it designates that particular weakness in human nature

which causes it to think in merely ‘four-dimensional’ terms, and to allow itself to be confined to such thinking.

Christ comes in the flesh in order to heal our wounded nature, and in so doing, to reveal to us something of the

eternal, immutable God. In this divine condescension, he makes use of a medium which is accessible to all.

However, not all perceive Christ qua Son of God, a point which Augustine discusses towards the end of the first

book of De trinitate.

A. Perceive

1. Christ as the filius hominis in trin. I

Christ came in the flesh so that he might lead us to the knowledge that he is God. Augustine sees this as

the very logic behind the Incarnation itself: the eternal Son of God condescends to our human level, making

himself visible, assuming a form ‘lesser’ than that of the Father (minorem Patre), yet in virtue of this human nature,

using it as a way of conducting the pious to the belief that he is also God. It allows them to see his divinity,

precisely in virtue of his humility and presence in the flesh. All of the iudicandi will see Christ as the Son of Man,

that is, in his human nature, forma serui (uisio quippe filli hominis exhibebitur et malis; uisio communis erit et impiis et

iusti). Augustine writes that since all the living and the dead are to be judged, it is fitting (oportet) that the judge,

who is Christ, will appear in a way that all can perceive him (in forma uideri ab omnibus potest). However, those who

have listened to the voice of Christ and have believed in the Incarnation will be shown the fullness of his being,

that is, not only as the son of man (filius hominis), but also as the son of God (uisio formae Dei non nisi mundis corde;

uidere iniqui non possunt).

In trin. 1, Augustine is claiming that two (types of) people can look at the same object and perceive it

differently. He makes a similar point in conf. 10. Although all rational creatures possess this capacity for

judgement, some use it to a greater or more excellent extent than others. Hence nature is also saying or speaking

something, but one person ‘hears’ it, whilst another does not. The difference between the two, according to

Augustine, is that the one who really ‘hears’ the testimony of nature compares the reports of the senses with the

truth which resides within one: ‘immo uero omnibus loquitur, sed illi intellegunt, qui eius uocem acceptam foris

intus cum ueritate conferunt.’

What is suggested by such passages is a more nuanced notion of sight than that to which we are

accustomed. By the same token, it also suggests a more nuanced way of thinking about the relationship between

the ‘empirical’ and the intentional. Augustine’s theory of knowledge is one which proceeds per corporalia ad

incorporalia. It is tempting to separate these two movements in a temporal fashion, but that need not be the case.

Rather, these are two aspects or two moments of the same act of looking. The corporalia, which are accessible to

the ‘bodily senses,’ provide the substrate, the forum for the perception of meaningful, valuable content. They are

120 Menn, ‘Desire for God,’ 93. 121 Menn, ‘Desire for God,’ 93. 122 conf. 7.23.

20

co-extensive, but the full content of a particular factum is not always perceived to an inadequacy in one’s own

intentional way of looking, whether in terms of moral impurity, theoretical commitments, or some such.123

Gadamer speaks of both enabling and disabling prejudices when it comes to reading a text.124 So just as

some theoretical commitments permit one to see something of meaning and value, other types of prejudices may

obscure such a view. However, these sorts of obstructions are corrigible for Gadamer, who sees the continuous

challenge of one’s prejudices as part and parcel of the hermeneutical circle. According to Wachterhauser’s analysis

of Gadamer, even though we have different understandings of reality, and these are articulated in different

conceptual frameworks, these frameworks nonetheless develop and are constantly informed by one’s engagement

with and experience of the world, which, as Wachterhauser writes, ‘we all have in common.’125 Gadamer

understands himself as a metaphysical realist; he believes that the world enjoys a certain intelligibility

independently of any particular perspective.126 Indeed, even to recognise the differences between frameworks is

to presuppose a deeper and more common understanding, namely a normative one.127 In addition to being a

realist, Gadamer also assumes the fundamental unity of human nature across time and space.128

In his endeavour to analyse and identify scientific revolutions and their mechanics, Kuhn finds himself

grappling with the highly intentional character of sight, exploring how it is inherently linked with prior beliefs.

Kuhn sees questions of a metaphysical nature as crucial to scientific endeavours. In order to begin investigation,

one must first possess, even if implicitly, certain ontological categories into which various types of phenomena

may fall. Kuhn describes such concepts and theories as a necessary and deeply basic part of the scientific

process.129 Without any commitment to a particular type of intentional object there is ‘no-thing’ to see in the first

place, and hence no sight.130 Kuhn writes that ‘something like a paradigm is prerequisite to perception itself,’

insofar as what one sees ‘depends upon what [one] looks at and also upon what [one’s] previous visual-conceptual

experience has taught [one] to see.’131 A sine qua non of scientific enquiry is some adherence to a theoretical

framework. It is this intentional outlook on reality that provides one with the necessary categories, inchoate as

they may be, in which to process and understand, indeed, even acquire information in the first place; as with

Augustine, fact presupposes theory. Perceptions of parsimony, elegance, and simplicity also play a key role, not

least of all because this seems to be even more basic in the sense that this value is shared more broadly and also

promises a more neutral ground than the various arguments and demonstrations made from the perspective of a

particular framework.132 Besides the essential factor of explanatory capacity, considerations of parsimony and

elegance are crucial elements for any theory worthy of consideration.133 Indeed, Kuhn even claims that ‘the

importance of aesthetic considerations can sometimes be decisive.’134 The identification of parsimony in a

particular explanation is something which encompasses the collected set of observations themselves.

2. Kuhn and the challenging of the ‘empirical’

123 trin. 1.13.30. In another location, Augustine says that the Jews did in fact see the Son, but they did not know

that He was God Incarnate, revealing the Father (In Ioh. eu. 70.2; Kuehn, op. cit., 588.). 124 Gadamer, TM, 295. 125 Wachterhauser, ‘Getting it Right,’ 66. 126 Ibid., 74. 127 Ibid., 64-5. 128 Taylor, ‘Gadamer on the Human Sciences,’ 140. 129 Kuhn, Structure, 5. 130 Kuhn, Structure, 79; Taylor, ‘Gadamer on the Human Sciences,’ passim; Gn. litt. 4.49. 131 Kuhn, Structure, 113. 132 Kuhn, Structure, 154. 133 Kuhn, Structure, 72. 134 Kuhn, Structure 155.

21

Heretofore, I have often placed the term empirical betwixt inverted commas. The reason for this is two-

fold. First, this technique was intended to serve as a prophylactic against anachronism.135 Aside from this historical

concern, however, my main interest was a philosophical one. It may be the case that a sharp division between the

empirical and the intentional is difficult to maintain; form and matter, to use Aristotelian terminology, are co-

extensive with and presuppose one another.136 The ‘empirical,’ objective level provides no guarantee of parity of

perception by multiple observers.137 Based on such observations, Kuhn even goes so far as to suggest that we need

to reconsider the very notion of ‘sight’ itself.138

A logical empiricist holds that, in a sense, the facts speak for themselves. They rely upon ‘brute data,’

which is to say, facts the content of which just is constitutive of an interpretation and admit of no other

interpretive possibilities.139 In fact, such a standard is considered one of the defining marks of science. Therefore,

‘along with the epistemological stance,’ according to Taylor, ‘goes the ontological belief that reality must be

susceptible to understanding and explanation by science so understood.’140 According to Taylor, a purely

'empirical' description of the facts does not capture all of the relevant intentional properties of a particular

artefact, event, utterance, &c. Moreover, one might even want to take a further step and challenge the fact-value

dichotomy altogether,141 which is the precise step Kuhn takes.

Differing from the specifically modern, epistemological viewpoint, Kuhn believes that there is no such

thing as ‘brute data’ in the way that we intuitively understand the term. He bases this on the view that the

epistemological paradigm admits of severe difficulties, not the least of which is the search for an objective,

conceptually neutral language, which for him is quixotic and even ‘hopeless.’142 As Kuhn pithily puts the point,

‘factual and theoretical novelty are intertwined.’143 Therefore, our theoretical commitments have a direct effect

on the observations we make, which in turn determine the (types of) knowledge we (can) acquire and the (types

of) objects we see. The commitments of first principles and philosophical understandings of the ‘furniture of the

universe’ determine the very types of questions an investigator will ask, and therefore the sorts of observations

they can make. Theory dictates what (kinds of) entities inhabit the universe (indeed, provide us with a sense of

what ‘the universe’ actually means) and the behaviour of these entities.144 Kuhn gives the example of research into

the nature of light in the 18th century. Influenced by Newton, researchers sought a particular type of evidence in

order to validate the hypothesis that light consisted of small material particles; but those who conceived of light as

a wave did not ask such questions.145

Kuhn also employs the example of data and observations gathered from apparatus in order to emphasise

this overlap of the empirical and the intentional. Despite the fact that scientists employ instruments in order to

135 For instance, one of the first major apologiae for empiricism comes from John’s Locke’s 1689 essay on human

understanding. Perhaps further work is to be done in this respect, but it exceeds the bounds of the current enquiry. See John

Locke, ‘Book I: Innate Notions,’ in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, J. Bennett (ed.) (2010-2015; originally

published 1689) Available at <http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/locke1690book1.pdf> Accessed 12 August

2015.

On this note, it may also be worth looking further into the French philosophes, such as Rabelais and Montaigne, who

were acutely aware of the decline of sagesse as a form of knowledge during the Enlightenment. This thought requires further

investigation, though I am grateful for J.-L. Marion for pointing me in this direction.

136 Cf. Haldane, ‘A Return to Form in the Philosophy of Mind,’ passim. 137 Kuhn, Structure, 126. 138 Kuhn, Structure, 55. 139 Taylor, ‘Interpretation,’ 8. 140 Taylor, 'Interpretation,' 9. 141 Taylor, ‘Interpretation,’ 19; cf. Kuhn, Structure, passim. 142 Kuhn, Structure, 125. 143 Kuhn, Structure, 53. 144 Kuhn, Structure, 103. 145 Kuhn, Structure, 12-13.

22

collect readings and data, such observations presuppose a certain intentional and theoretical framing and

direction, not only for the collection of the data, but for the design of the machine itself. A great deal of

theoretical direction goes into the conception, design, and calibration of a particular device. In other words, the

design of instruments for the purpose of collecting data is informed and directed by theory, which in some cases is

based more on expectation and prediction than some evidence which has already been produced.146 One creates a

machine in order to enable one to ‘perceive’ certain phenomena, or perhaps to see the same phenomena in a

different way.147 In addition to the collection of data, scientific instruments also allow for ever more perceptive

detections of anomalies, which the scientist, if exercising precision, can use more profitably.148 The recognition of

anomaly is the prerequisite for scientific advance, and presupposes a backdrop of a conceptual framework and

hermeneutical expectation.

The appropriation of new intentional and theoretical content allows for one to ‘perceive’ realities which

were always in the world, but now to be properly understood.149 As Kuhn puts it, ‘discovery involves an

extended, though not necessarily long, process of conceptual assimilation.’150 Citing an example from the

tortuous history of the discovery of oxygen, Kuhn writes that the act of ‘discovery’ is one which, though it

involves sight, nonetheless requires a certain in-formed way of looking, as well as a novel judgement concerning a

particular state of affairs.151 In the case of a scientific revolution, Kuhn suggests ‘Scientists do not see something as

something else; instead, they simply see it.’152

B. Process

In his De quantitate animae, Augustine describes the goal of human reason as gazing upon truth (ipsa uisione

atque contemplatione ueritatis). As V. Giraud explains, this differs from the mere gathering of facts and data (‘Le but

ultime vise par ce biais n'est en aucun cas d'accumuler sans fin les connaissances, mais bien parvenir “a la vision

même et à la contemplation de la vérité.”’) Thus the acquisition of individual pieces of knowledge (connaissances)

neither suffices for an actual grasp of truth nor constitutes the goal of reason. Indeed, what is implied is a proper

overarching framework in which these individual data can be assembled, parsed, and thus rendered significant and

meaningful.153 For example, in his second tractate on the Gospel of John, Augustine excoriates the philosophi huius

mundi, whose knowledge only extends to scientia, and who do not relate the individual facts they record to any

overarching framework of meaning, and thereby fail to glean from them true knowledge, sapientia. They prize

creatures over the Creator, failing to refer all things to the principium which is simultaneously their source and

summit. Finally, and perhaps most perniciously, the knowledge acquired by the philosophi does not lead them to

confessio.

Particular observations and facts require a background of meaning in order to make sense. Some

theoretical backdrop is responsible for supplying meaning to particular facts.154 For instance, Kuhn writes that

despite the recording of information concerning electrical attraction, these data ‘remained mere facts, unrelated

and unrelatable to the continuing progress of electrical research.’155 In a similar way, Taylor understands meaning

as obtaining within a particular field of other meanings, that the part can never totally be separated from the

whole. In fact, the hermeneutical theorist holds that part and whole are mutually illumining and engaged in a

146 Kuhn, Structure, 39. 147 Kuhn, Structure, 59, cf. 39. 148 Kuhn, Structure, 65. 149 Kuhn, Structure, 56-7. 150 Kuhn, Structure, 56. 151 Kuhn, Structure, 55-6. 152 Kuhn, Structure, 85. 153 quant. an. 33.76; Giraud, ‘Delectatio,’ 209. 154 Kuhn, Structure, 39. 155 Kuhn, Structure, 35-6.

23

dialogue with one another. Part of the challenge of interpretation, especially in cases of text-analogues, is perhaps

simply to identify or clarify this relation, or more basically, what ‘the whole’ is, whether that means the whole of

our experience as Gadamer writes, or something even broader. This implies that just in the very relation between

particulars, something else comes to be, in the way that a polyphonic chord results from several individual notes

being sounded at once. Thus, from the perspective of the particular, one must be careful to balance and parse

various meanings in relation to one another. But moreover, one must also adapt the correct perspective in order

to be able to assimilate the various pieces of knowledge which one acquires in the process of rational enquiry. One

must relate particular facts to one another, but at the same time, one must know how to do so, and this is

ultimately not a result so much of an evidential demonstration but a decision which cannot rely totally on

‘evidence’ or ‘demonstration.’

Taylor places an emphasis on what he calls ‘insight.’ In contrast to the proponents of a verification theory

of the sciences, that is, one which posits a purely neutral or objective set of criteria for determining the truth of a

particular claim, Taylor argues that at some point, the mere acquisition of arguments or further data may be

otiose. In other words, it may be the case that one’s intuitions, attunement, or perspective may in some way be

defective. It may be the case that when one reaches an argumentative impasse, there may be no 'neutral' or

‘objectively verifiable’ way of deciding which side is correct. What may be required is a different perspective,

further insight, or a re-evaluation or re-orientation of one's interpretive framework, and thereby the way in which

particular facts are assimilated and understood. Following Aristotle, Taylor writes that often times, a lack of

external understanding is a direct result of some internal misunderstanding: ‘our incapacity to understand is

rooted in our self-definitions.’156 To call such a process a conversion would not be an overstatement.157

This implies, as Taylor writes, ‘that some claims of the form: “if you don’t understand, then your

intuitions are at fault, are blind or inadequate,” some claims of this form will be justified; that some differences

will be nonarbitratable (sic) by further evidence, but that each side can only make appeal to deeper insight on the

part of the other.’158 This is partly because empirical observation does not provide an exhaustive account of a

particular reality or content, as by its very nature such observation cannot take into account certain types of

factors which may be present at a higher order.159 On this view, the defining mark of the superior position is that

of an asymmetrical intellectual empathy; that is, the one with the better positions possesses the capacity to

‘understand’ the view of one’s opponent, though of course without thereby endorsing it, whilst the opponent

cannot do this.160 In fact, Taylor takes a very Augustinian step further, claiming that besides intuitions and prior

beliefs, it may be necessary to ‘change one’s orientation’ in order to perceive a particular truth.161 In fact, it may

even require conversion, changing of one’s very self; in a word, it may require ‘confession.’162 For Taylor, such a

view, if correct, sounds the death knell for ‘any aspiration to a value-free or “ideology-free” science of man.’163

What is necessary, therefore, is an account of the data which is parsimonious, that is, which elegantly

presents an understanding of the data, as well as enables one to parse and make sense not simply of individual facts

but types of facts. This evaluative component allows one to relate distinct facts to one another, and to begin to see

them as not of generally equal meaning, as in the case of the early stages of research which Kuhn describes.

Rather, the point is that the acquisition of scientific data requires some mechanism in order to make sense of it,

that is, by relating and parsing the data in order to construct an appropriate interpretation thereof, one which goes

beyond mere observation and ultimately conducts one to knowledge.164 Advances in science are never due merely

156 Taylor, ‘Interpretation,’ 51. 157 Taylor, ‘Interpretation,’ 46-8. 158 Taylor, ‘Interpretation,’ 46-7. 159 Taylor, ‘Interpretation,’ 19. 160 Taylor, ‘Interpretation,’ 47. 161 Taylor, ‘Interpretation,’ 47. 162 Taylor, ‘Interpretation,’ 48. 163 Taylor, ‘Interpretation,’ 48. 164 Cf. Kuhn, Structure, 15-16.

24

to an accumulation of individual facts; rather, it involves a re-orientation of one's way of looking at a particular

phenomenon.165 The eureka moment for a scientist is prepared by the subtle formation of new conceptual

categories. In the case of discovery, this does not involve a revision or an addition of the same types of categories,

but the addition and indeed substitution of something novel; therefore scientific advancement, insofar as it

represents a qualitative and not merely a quantitative shift.

Envoi

The upshot of the foregoing review of Augustine’s thought is a view according to which the world does not so

much consist of a set of facts to be recorded but rather a plenitude of truths to be discerned. This view finds some

resonance in the contemporary theological scene. For instance, in his Sacred Attunement, Michael Fishbane seeks to

recover a theology, according to which the natural world is seen as somehow distinctive in its own way, as

offering something for our consideration.166 Indeed, ‘creation comes to us,’ Otten writes, ‘as a world ready to be

explored for Fishbane, to whose rhythm we must become attuned in an experiential process that allows us to

explore science freely without thereby sacrificing the values of the divine from (written and oral) scripture.’167

Whilst this position may not be totally surprising in a theological context, as we shall see, contemporary thinkers

have been increasingly moving in a similar direction, impelled by some of the shortcomings of the prevailing

‘geometrical’ paradigm.

A challenge to the ‘fact-value’ dichotomy and related issues is tantamount to a challenge to the

contemporary understanding of science itself. Informed by Kuhn, one could venture an Augustinian

understanding of reason, according to which the ‘battle lines’ are not drawn between faith and reason, but rather

between two different understandings of reason itself. The upshot would be a competing version of rationality,

one which is eminently ‘scientific’ in Gadamer’s hermeneutical sense of the term. This research is also pertinent

to other work on the intellectual senses, as well as the notion of ‘reading’ the universe as analogous to a text.

165 Kuhn, Structure, 53. 166 Otten, ‘On Sacred Attunement,’ 492. 167 Otten, ‘On Sacred Attunement,’ 492.