Augustine's Philosophy of Mind

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AUGUSTINE'S PHILOSOPHY OF MIND GerardO'Daly As a philosopher, no less than as a theologian, Augustine marl.low substantial change of S, and substantial change only, entails change of

Q.

But qualitative, quantitative change, etc., do not for their part entail substantial change. Now it is precisely qualitative change that Augustine wishes to attribute to soul; what is 'in soul' as in a subject may (but need not necessarily) change: that is to say, soul's affections, its will, or its moral and intellectual condition may alter. These changes do not, however, affect the substantial identity of soul. On the contrary, they presuppose the identity of the subject in separation from which they cannot exist. 91 The subject or substance soul is the giver of life and form (species) to the body. It has its own characteristic form also, and this it has received as a creation of God, or - as the more Platonically coloured language of imm. an. 24 would put it - from the sovereign or highest Life or Good or Beauty ('the highest life, which is wisdom and unchanging goodness ... the form which it (sc. the soul) gets from the highest good'; §2S: 'More powerful entities, therefore, transmit to weaker ones the form which they have received from the highest beauty, through a kind of natural succession'). The formed soul, in transmitting form, is not diminished in any way, nor does it lose its own form: If the soul transmits form to body, that the body may exist to the extent that it does, it by no means deprives itself of form in the process (ib. 24).

These assertions are, in a sense, the answer to what was presented as a problem in duab. an. 2-3 concerning the nature and source of the Jonna found in souls and bodies. Just as the soul's immortality is not that of God, so also its form is not that of the highest Good: the soul is, rather, 'like God' (quant. an. 3). It is in this sense that Augustine understands the words of Genesis 1 :26, that man is' made in God's image and likeness. Man, like God, has power over subordinate creation in virtue of his possession of reason (Gn. c. Man. 1.27-8), and indeed he has limited creative powers of his own, as when, for example, the human soul forms and enlivens body. If soul is formed, immortal, godlike, it cannot, in its nature, be bad. Augustine will repeatedly and decisively reject the Manichaean view that there are two kinds of soul, of which one kind, identifiable with the Principle of Darkness, is intrinsically eviJ.92 Soul is naturally good, because everything that exists is, to some degree, good, and the very corruptibility of things is an indication that they have a goodness capable of being corrupted: And pain itself is e"idence of the good which has been taken away and of the good which has been left ... the pain at good lost through punishment is evidence of a good nature (civ. 19.13; cf. conf. 7.18). Corruptible goodness is, however, less than pefectly good. Soul, in other words, is a good that is lower than the highest God in virtue of its mutability 7,

" For the application of this argument to the relation of knowledge to the mind see Chapter pp. 178.89. " See n.85 above.

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Augustine's Philosophy of Mind

and potential moral corruptibility, but higher than corporeal goods in virtue of its immateriality and powers: The soul ... created by the highest good, is not, however, the highest good, but rather a great good ... living between the highest and the lower goods, that is, between God and the flesh, inferior to God, superior to the flesh (ItT. 156.6). These (sc. more powerful natures) ... which do not have greater capabilities than lesser material masses because of larger bulk, but, without any spatially extended tumidity, are more powerful in virtue of that same form whereby they are also better. In this category is the soul, better and more powerful than the body (imm. an. 25)."

( ix) Soul s middle slale The situation of the human soul in the hierarchy of being often leads Augustine to talk of its mean or medial position between God and body. The rational soul, established in some kind of middle place, has received the law to hold fast to that which is higher, to govern that which is lower (en. Ps. 145.5). Nor is anything found to be between the highest life, which is wisdom and unchanging goodness, and that which is the lowest recipient of life, that is, the body, apart from the life-giving soul (imm. an. 24). The rational soul ... has been placed in some kind of middle state, inasmuch as it has the bodily creation beneath it, but its own and the body's creator above it (ep. 140.3). .

The notion of the medial position of the soul is Middle and Neoplatonic, and is found in Plotinus, Origen and CaIcidius.·· The medielas of soul is primarily ontological, between divine and corporeal being, but the human powers of reason and will convey the freedom, and its attendant risks, which allow the soul, in consequence of its moral behaviour, to maintain or sink below its proper level in the hierarchy. Thus Augustine can talk of the soul's providentia, which is voluntarily exercised in e.g. the quest for knowledge, in social communication, education and culture, and in the search for bodily protection, and which is analogous to the divine providmtia that is naturally operative in the universe, in the formation, growth and decay of man's body, and in the sentient life of man's soul (Gn.lilt. 8.9.17). Man's medial position means that he can opt to be the means of providentia at the level appropriate to him, and over the things within his power. The infant instinctively avoids unpleasantness (offmsiones) and seeks after pleasure (volup/as), and can thus attain to temporal happiness (ep. 140.3). But upon reaching the age of reason " On the notion that everything that is is good to a certain degree, and that degrees of being or goodness are degrees of form see Theiler (1933) I Iff. = Theiler (1966) 173ff. Forthe application of these principles to soul see Theiler (1933) 20fT. = Theiler (\ 966) 184fT. .. See Theiler (1970).

2. General Theory of the Soul

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and acquiring the ability to will and choose, the individual may opt either to prefer the goods of the mind ('the goods of the inner and higher nature ... that it may enjoy divinity and eternity', ib.) - equated here with divine substance - or to prefer those of the body ('the goods of the external and lower (sc. nature) ... that it may enjoy the body and time'). The morally right choice is evidently in favour of the former, while making proper use (bene uti, ib. §4) of the latter.'; In this way the soul maintains its level, ethically speaking (oTdintm StTVare, ib.), in its choice of preferred goods.'· Rather than degrading itself and its body through the pervmitas of preferring bodily to divine goods, it 'turns itself and its body towards the better' (ib.) by its tendance of the latter. Even its self-centered tendency degrades the soul. For pride (superbia) , which Augustine often defines as the root of sin, and which he equates with the 'perverse imitation of God' (e.g. conj. 2. t 3- t 4), is ultimately a desire for self-mastery in an order where one, as a human being, is emphatically not the master.· 7 Pride is not to be confused with the soul's just and pious aspiration towards the highest spiritual values: The soul, which is a spiritual substance, should be raised up to those things which are high among matters spiritual, not by the exaltation of pride, but by the dutifulness of justice (trill. 12.1). Rather, love of God is preferable to love of self, and, paradoxically, absorption with one's own medial position is tantamount to moral degradation to animal level : The less, therefore, it loves what is its own, the more it cleaves to God. But through the desire to put its own power to the test, it falls down to itself as to some middle state by a kind of inherent tendency. And so while it wishes to be as he (sc. God) is, under nobody, it is driven down by way of punishment even from its own middle level to the lowest degree, that is, to those things in which the animals delight (trin. 12.16). The testing of, or experiment with, oneself as the centre of one's own existence (illud suae medietatis expeTimentum) brings about a loss of one's own value or worth, a loss, that is, of what can be achieved and maintained only by preference of the transcendent, divine good: So the oppressed soul is thrust out by its own weight, so to speak, from happiness, and through that testing of its own intermediate state comes to learn by its punishment what the difference is between the good it has left behind and "For the concepts uti-froi behind this text see Bourke (1979) 29-65; Lorenz (1950/51); O'Donovan; id., . Usus and Fruitio in Augustine, De Doctrl.a Christiana, 1', Journal of The%grcal Stut/its XS. 33 (1982) 361.97; G. Plligersdorffer, 'Zu den Grundlagen des augustinischen Begriffspaares uti-froi', Wiener Stut/itn :-