Blog Marcos L. Mucheroni Filosofia, Noosfera e cibercultura

Augustine of Hippo, after having abandoned Manichaeism, dualism between good and evil, elaborates an ontology that is little known and cited, even by theologians; it is a Trinitarian ontology and a complex gnosis (or episteme) of truth.

When reading a passage from Genesis (Gen 1:26), which is that man is made in the image of God (imago Dei), he ponders that the correct expression is: “let us make man in our image and likeness, let us and ours were said in the plural, and cannot be understood except as a relation” (Augustine, De trinitate, VII,6,1), where the plural “let us” and “ours” are there.

This anthropological vision could not go unnoticed, but the philosophical vision of being and being are submerged and implied in the text, man as a created being and being, is at the same time Imago Dei and perishable nature, but the image means Trinitarian, and on the other hand perishable means finite as being and not as Being.

Augustine does not use ontological categories, but onto-theological ones, so man has an immortal soul and a perishable body. In order to respond to this apparent creationist paradox, Augustine uses Neoplatonic knowledge, that the human being is made up of a corporeal/material portion and a spiritual portion, which is different from the dualism that dismisses the body.

For Augustine, the soul knows and lives in the body, so “just as the mind gathers knowledge of corporeal things through the bodily senses, it is by itself that it [gathers knowledge] of incorporeal things. Therefore, since it itself is incorporeal, it is by itself that it knows itself” (De Trinitate, XI,3,3 ), and thus formulates its episteme inseparable from the soul.

In other words, underlying the self-centeredness of the mind, knowing and loving itself, there is the concurrence of memory, intelligence and will. This will be further developed in Porphyry and then in Boethius (480-524 AD).

A disciple of Plotinus, Porphyry (c. 234-305 AD) was a Neoplatonic philosopher and his work systematized and disseminated Neoplatonic thought. His contributions covered various areas, including logic, metaphysics, ethics and theology, but his tree of knowledge, called the Porphyry Tree (imave above), is famous.

Boethius, his disciple and translator, advanced the contribution that Porphyry intended to leave behind in unifying Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, the so-called henology (the doctrine of divine unity). His work Philosophical Consolations brings part of the questioning of particular and universal concepts, which will be a controversial topic among the nominalists and realists of the lower middle ages.

A period characterized by feudalism and trade routes prepared the Renaissance.

AUGUSTINE, St. DE TRINITATE. Monergism.com (pdf).