tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post6316238519517180453..comments2024-03-07T12:57:35.296-05:00Comments on Varieties of Unreligious Experience: AugusteinConrad H. Rothhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-74507608736780664992007-04-10T03:26:00.000-04:002007-04-10T03:26:00.000-04:00I see what you're saying, although I would want to...I see what you're saying, although I would want to draw quite a sharp distinction between the Neoplatonic idea of God as being essentially unknowable (which Augustine inherited from his pagan training), and the Wittgensteinian notion that <EM>the whole field of religion</EM> is excluded from the realm of discourse, on the basis of something like a verifiability criterion.<BR/><BR/>Augustine wants in the quoted passage to retain something of the 'numinous' feel of the Christian revelation; but in the rest of this text he repeatedly offers his reader a way to understand one of the two central paradoxes of Christianity (ie. the Triune Godhead) by the philosophical method of <EM>analogia</EM>. This strikes me as a thoroughgoing rationalism, even if it is (as it was in Plato) in the service of an ulterior mysticism.<BR/><BR/>Books 10 and 14 of <EM>De Trinitate</EM>, incidentally, contain accounts of language-learning that also conflict with the <EM>Confessions</EM>, though an exposition of this (if it is wanted) will have to wait till another time.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-50188705923801875512007-04-10T00:58:00.000-04:002007-04-10T00:58:00.000-04:00Ah it's been a few days. And reading Auerbach's "L...Ah it's been a few days. And reading Auerbach's "Literary Language and Its Public" I found a quote that sideways gets at my thoughts.<BR/><BR/>From De Trinitate:<BR/><BR/><I>...when you hear, "He is truth". Do not ask what truth is. For mists of corporeal images and clouds of phantasm will rise forthwith and confuse the clarity that flared up in you in a first impulse when I said: "Truth." When the word truth is spooken, remain if you can in that first impulse which struck you as a flash of lightning. But you cannot; you fall back into this world of familiar, earthly things...</I><BR/><BR/>Now, this is at least Wittgenstein in its belief in the inability to come up with a total definition for "truth". But it also seems not unlike his conversion experience, with its understanding in a flash of lightning. We can, Plato-style, try to search for that exact definition of "truth" -- or of what that religious conversion is -- and it might be interesting and useful (to prepare the mind for that moment -- I believe the term "grace" should appear around here?) and certainly someone with Augustine's sensability isn't going to be able to prevent himself from thinking very easily. But all that cogitation is, at best, an approximation of the actual definition, of the actual shape of faith. I haven't read enough Augustine to know if he thinks that there's a chance his thinkings might in some way be misleading, even -- I suspect so, and can only assume his mind, which was certainly clever enough, would have gotten him to that point eventually. Certainly he doesn't seem to think you need or should even want his intellectual abilities and curiosities to be a good Christian or to "understand" faith.<BR/><BR/>So yes; certainly it didn't stop him from trying, but I think he didn't feel like he was ever going to be able to talk about the thing itself, just maybe outline the implications of the thing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-79943587667379829862007-04-05T05:42:00.000-04:002007-04-05T05:42:00.000-04:00"The religious seems to fall for Wittg under "that..."The religious seems to fall for Wittg under "that which one can say nothing about""<BR/><BR/>Have you read, by any chance, <A HREF="http://duckrabbit.blogspot.com/2007/02/attn-peter-hacker.html" REL="nofollow">this</A>?<BR/><BR/>"Augustine also seems to feel something like this."<BR/><BR/>You <EM>really</EM> think so? I can see a comparison to Augustine's famous remarks about time; but surely Augustine thinks <EM>quite the reverse</EM> about religion! He does, after all, say a hell of a lot about it; and there is no sense of grim determination in his writing. There is a wonderful sense in works like <EM>The City of God</EM>, <EM>On the Trinity</EM>, and <EM>On Christian Doctrine</EM> that Christianity is something reasonable, philosophical and communicable. His main critique of the religious currents of his time--both Gnostic theurgy and the decayed remnants of Roman state religion (which he cites in Varro)--is that they are confused and unreasonable.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-30535021997548320152007-04-05T04:04:00.000-04:002007-04-05T04:04:00.000-04:00The seed of the idea, which I have not let germina...The seed of the idea, which I have not let germinate properly, goes something like: The religious seems to fall for Wittg under "that which one can say nothing about", although it's also very important to him; Augustine also seems to feel something like this, but is determined to try to say something about it anyway. And this leads him down all sorts of incorrect thinking (about language, time, memory) -- but he has used these in the Confessions to build some sort of proof (or just a suggestion?) of God! So Wittg pulls the rug out from underneath Augustine -- but, perhaps, without making him fall.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-69471600619989196182007-04-01T21:30:00.000-04:002007-04-01T21:30:00.000-04:00Hank: I'm flattered to have had such an impact. I ...Hank: I'm flattered to have had such an impact. I wouldn't want you to think that I actually <EM>agree</EM> with Augustine, however. I have more sympathy for W. The issues of the actual psychological / linguistic development of children has been of great interest to linguists for the last 50 years, and has become quite scientific--thus putting it somewhat beyond my ken.<BR/><BR/>Chris: I am sorry to hear you are sickly, but nonetheless I hope at some point you might enlighten us with your insights into W's relationship to Augustine.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-73928180850262755912007-04-01T14:36:00.000-04:002007-04-01T14:36:00.000-04:00Thanks, Conrad; I wish you had written this a year...Thanks, Conrad; I wish you had written this a year ago, when I was knee-deep in Wittgenstein.<BR/><BR/><I>Thanks Conrad, for showing us how Wittgenstein used the wrong straw man - perhaps he knew Augustine had a more sophisticated view of language, but I suspect not.</I><BR/><BR/>It's worth pointing out that Aug.'s view of language is <I>not</I> more sophisticated than this in the Confessions, though; and his later chapters on time and memory are also dealt with in PI; and that choosing Augustine as his straw man brings a quiet religious context for the PI which reverberates in interesting ways; but I am too feverish and sickly right now to elaborate. <BR/><BR/>Still, I haven't heard about this part of Aug.'s thinking before; De Magistro is on my to-read list, but it has now been bumped up a few notches.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-72230535357826235112007-03-31T15:11:00.000-04:002007-03-31T15:11:00.000-04:00Pardon my spelling. You've gotten me excited and ...Pardon my spelling. You've gotten me excited and agitated. This is wonderful. I confess, I'd never thought about many of these things in these ways.<BR/><BR/>Of course I'm familiar with the Bishop of Hippo and his City of God/City of Man comparisons. I'd never before heard of Wittgenstein (thank you).<BR/><BR/>(Does everyone know this stuff but me?)<BR/><BR/>John's comment was especially poignant for me, as they so often are. It is APPARENT that he is a teacher.<BR/><BR/><I>"Signs cannot teach the knowledge of things...."</I><BR/><BR/>But this discussion shakes me. Rather, it shakes a long and firmly held belief of mine. (And that's never fun.) I'd always found some real joy in the following quotation (<I>really! joy!</I>).<BR/><BR/><B>"The quality of our thoughts is bordered on all sides by our facility with language.” J. Michael Straczynski</B><BR/><BR/>(I think J. Michael Straczynski was/is some kind of Star Trek guy or something... or so I hear. I originally heard the (mis)quote as Oscar Wilde (who is always the safest attribution I find).)<BR/><BR/>I have always believed that knowing 100 words (labels/categories) for "red" is DIRECTLY linked to being able to SEE and UNDERSTAND 100 hues of "red." For me, it has always been language that leads to ideas. I know the difference between Cobalt Blue and Ultramarine and when I see a painting, I can SEE the two colors. AND the gradients in between.<BR/><BR/>But I think I'm wrong. I think I've BEEN wrong.<BR/><BR/>I wonder if there are discrete phases of learning… like <I>acquisition</I> of basic skills and then <I>refinement</I> and then something else… like, maybe we begin to THINK DIFFERENTLY at different points. I'd always thought of it as ONE continuum, but maybe it is several in some kind of sequence?<BR/><BR/>I'm going to have to look into this.<BR/><BR/>And I just wanted to play some golf today. Damn.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-82574566557783579252007-03-31T14:15:00.000-04:002007-03-31T14:15:00.000-04:00What a feast! I feel a bit left out now, not havin...What a feast! I feel a bit left out now, not having a kid...<BR/><BR/>Hank: Are you referring to my final sentences? If so, what I meant was that for Augustine, the signs displayed by others in teaching (eg. words, pointing, etc.), can only push us towards consulting our own, inner intellectual faculty (or God)--the latter are the source of truth and understanding, not external sensations. Language plays a very limited part. Whereas for Wittgenstein, there is no 'inner truth' or 'inner language'--language consists rather of a series of learned behaviours which are conducted in a group setting.<BR/><BR/>Steve: yes, the rationalists are gaining day by day. And 2 centuries ago they thought they were beaten!<BR/><BR/>John: A good illustration!<BR/><BR/>Proserpine: yes he was. I had forgotten that rather important fact. I'm amazed your five-year-old could ask you about prosody and copyright law--must be pretty precocious!<BR/><BR/>Otto: It is an intriguing aspect of W, indeed; you feel like you're reading him in a vacuum. W's position, like Chomsky's, does push language to the front of thought--Augustine's, on the other hand, devalorises language and separates it from the spirit, which he owes more to the divine. Words--breath, spirit--become almost a useless parody of the Spirit. I think Augustine was reacting against his own language-heavy training in rhetoric.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-81330519281938685312007-03-31T10:15:00.000-04:002007-03-31T10:15:00.000-04:00One of Wittgenstein's tricks is that, despite the ...One of Wittgenstein's tricks is that, despite the fact that his philosophical writings rarely mention other philosophers, he was in fact deeply engaged with the philosophical "problems" of his day.<BR/><BR/>So it's a wondrous thing that Wittgenstein scholar P.M.S Hacker can show that Locke makes a picture-perfect adversary for Wittgenstein's understanding of language, even though it doesn't appear Wittgenstein ever read Locke. <BR/><BR/>It just so happened that he and Russell had found a new cloak for Locke's ideas.<BR/><BR/>And as yet another commenter with a small child, despite my chomskian tendencies to see my son's language acquisition as a kind of swtich that turns on certain elements of syntax, I have to say that Wittgenstein's views do indeed, at least to my limited faculties, and pace Proserpine, recognize the agency and creativity of the language user much more than the Lockean conception.<BR/><BR/>Just take those language games at the start of the <I>Philosophical Investigations</I> - those are complete languages in and of themselves, not primitive languages. They require something of both speaker and hearer that goes beyond ostention.<BR/><BR/>Wittgenstein's account is very much informed by the peculiar fact that people seem to know when to use words correctly, which can often mean using them in ways they've never been used before, yet nonetheless correctly.<BR/><BR/>So when people say Joyce writes nonsense (and they often do, at least where I'm from), it's a Wittgensteinian account that helps us to understand why Joyce is a great writer, and not the pretentious hack he's taken for.<BR/><BR/>Thanks Conrad, for showing us how Wittgenstein used the wrong straw man - perhaps he knew Augustine had a more sophisticated view of language, but I suspect not. <BR/><BR/>And bravo for marking a more fruitful path of exploration with respect to Augustine's philosophy of language!Andrew W.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00071098030747838202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-3134493185012928882007-03-31T09:46:00.000-04:002007-03-31T09:46:00.000-04:00Adeodatus was Augustine's son, was he not?This pos...Adeodatus was Augustine's son, was he not?<BR/><BR/>This post struck a chord with me, since I'm the parent of a bright five-year-old; I have lived on the front lines of language acquisition for some time. In the past few days, I have been obliged to answer the following "what is" questions: "what is infinity? the president? government? war? prosody? copyright law?" Interestingly, my explanation of "infinity" (an entirely abstract concept) and prosody (with reference to "twinkle, twinkle little star") were accepted immediately. We are still talking about "president," "government," "war," and "copyright law." Is that due to the inadequacy of my explanations or my child's innate interests and ability to connect concepts?<BR/><BR/>Augustine's empiricism and Wittgenstein's reliance on social context both seem inadequate to explain the phenomenon of language acquisition - neither theory recognizes the agency and creativity of the individual in manipulating a symbolic system of communication.Malonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04345790207108760002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-62540883408923830672007-03-31T09:40:00.000-04:002007-03-31T09:40:00.000-04:00Signs cannot teach the knowledge of things: 'When ...<I>Signs cannot teach the knowledge of things: 'When a sign is given to me, it can teach me nothing if it finds me ignorant of the thing of which it is the sign; but if I'm not ignorant, what do I learn through the sign?' Signs can only remind us of things we already know, or teach us other signs.</I><BR/><BR/>Just the other day I was talking about my daughters' learning the names for colors and how I think it's in that circumstance that we can most easily see the rather arbitrary nature of language. For my younger daughter, every color was "red" for quite some time.John B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06358811061653958120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-35911041044898447172007-03-30T14:03:00.000-04:002007-03-30T14:03:00.000-04:00"For Wittgenstein, the acquisition of language com..."For Wittgenstein, the acquisition of language comes not from 'explanation', but rather from 'training'..."<BR/><BR/>It's poetic that now, with present strengths in the science that Augustine in his way lay so much of the foundation for, we uncover that in-dwelling spirit, or knowledge, residing...in genes. How else to explain it? The tacit-yet-impossibly abstract? The understanding is built directly into the machines.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-6429218477057009202007-03-30T10:54:00.000-04:002007-03-30T10:54:00.000-04:00Have read it several times... I'm not entirely su...Have read it several times... I'm not entirely sure I understand the distinction to which you are so beautifully pointing.<BR/><BR/>Could you elaborate?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com