Antiquity to the Middle Ages

1. Antiquity to the Middle Ages Plato to St. Augustine

2. Plato & Aristotle • Eternal harmony within nature that helps provide a model for human life • acorn to oak tree (oak tree is the telos or final cause of the acorn) • human to actualise our reason as a philosopher is the our telos greatest good/happiness.

3. The Pre-Eminence of Reason • With proper education, which includes good laws the soul can be moulded/habituated with our reasonable end in mind and we can live a virtuous life amongst others. • Due to their focus on human reason they believe disagreements emerged from a lack of knowledge. Know right = do right (Socrates).

4. Augustine • Humans live between a material-earthly body and a spiritual-transcendent body. • Earth = Flux and Change and Sinful • Spiritual = Eternal and Immutable and Perfect • Augustine argues that they are like opposite poles that are under constant tension Material Spiritual

5. Material Spiritual • This tension is much like the tripartite soul in Plato with one key difference – whereas for the Greeks we could theoretically balance this tension with proper education/habituation in accordance with our reason, Augustine says there is something about the experience of this tension that our reason cannot explain.

6. Philosophical Anthropology: Human Nature Reason Spiritedness / Emotions Desire/Appetites

7. Material Spiritual When humans are faced with a decision Augustine says we experience a paralyzing moment where our decision can go either way – toward earthly or spiritual body. From this experience Augustine hypothesises that humans are influenced by something other than just the teleological motion toward a reasonable nature. Augustine hypothesises that humans are also influenced by something he calls the human will.

8. Philosophical Anthropology: Human Nature Divided into Two Wills loving the eternal selflessly like God (caritas). loving material or carnal objects (cupiditas)

9. Two Cities • St. Augustine argued that history can be divided along two independent trajectories (paths): • The first trajectory is the human history of wars, government, authority, taxes, conquests, and laws. City of Man • the second trajectory of human history is the sacred history of human salvation. City of God • All human life can understood in these terms – your actions are either in one trajectory or another.

10. Two Cities • St. Augustine also argued that the City of Man exists solely for the advancement of the City of God – therefore anything that happens in the history of man is seen as advancing the sacred history of God. • For instance, even though the emperors of Rome were pagan during the life of Christ, their actions in uniting the Mediterranean world under a single state allowed for Christianity to spread all throughout the empire. • His argument forms the foundation of temporal authority in the material world – which becomes the basis of political theory of the Middle Ages.

11. Formed in likeness of God… what does that mean? • Just as we can say Joe is like a lion. The most relevant part of the metaphor are those aspects of a lion that a person can imitate: bravery, and so on. There are also parts of the metaphor that don't apply: Joe does not walk on four legs or have a mane or live in a pride. The same applies to human similarity to God: we are similar in some respects and dissimilar in others. • According to St. Augustine any action which makes you different from God is a sin – this includes living in a material world or using your reason – we are always fallen.

12. Ethics and Human Action • We also find that we couldn’t have made ourselves – therefore “proving” that God created us. • We also realize there is an unbridgeable gap between us and the divine (material, earthly – eternal, heavenly). • The only thing to do is live as God does (City of God) and love your neighbour as a spiritual being. • Augustine believed that the best way for society to live was based upon this neighbour-love – love as God does – with unlimited love and charity.

13. Ethics and Human Action • However, most of us find it remarkably difficult to live a neighbourly or a life defined by charity. We live in this fallen world of cupidity and desire that is filled with competing wills. • Augustine’s new conception of the human will drastically changes the way we think about organizing ourselves in society (political philosophy). All of a sudden instead of people arguing because there is a difference in knowledge (Socrates - know right = do right) we have a world where the human will decides actions regardless of knowledge.

14. What does this Mean? • When organizing society we don’t so much focus attention on educating and habituating people so they can know what is just or good or the truth (all the same for the Greeks) but rather we focus on the question “How can we get particular wills (people) to suppress or expand to the collective will (society)?” How do we do this?

15. Augustine says give all the individual wills a goal – love like God – try to create the City of God on Earth. • Of course he knew that we live on earth so it won’t go perfectly therefore he also looks at worldly society and comes up with a plan to help it create the conditions for the City of God on Earth. • For society to suppress particular wills to the collective will we need to have laws, which need authority and ultimately are backed by the threat of violence. Hopefully through good laws we can achieve some sort of civil respect which is the first step toward people recognizing the spiritual part of others and acting in a charitable or Godly way.

16. The Will and Why it is So Important • The introduction of a human will and an ability to willingly act against our reasonable natures indicates a freedom of choice that makes humans different from nature. • When we look to nature for those “big” answers we find it difficult because it is always changing, therefore we look inward, to ourselves. • What we find is this realization that we have two wills – one loving material/carnal objects (cupiditas) and the other loving the eternal selflessly like God (caritas).