Lecture 6B Memory and Knowledge

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Lecture 6BMemory and Knowledge

• Dr. Ann T. Orlando

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Outline

• Memory
• Knowledge
• Relation to Imago Dei

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Memory in Plato and Aristotle

• Plato and Reminiscences (Meno and Phaedo)
• Sense perceptions lead to remembering what is
  eternal (good, beautiful, truth)
• Learning is really remembering
• Aristotle and Memory (On Memory and Reminiscence)
  
• Memory stores images of sense images (tabula
  rasa)
• Reminiscence orders and processes the sense
  images held in memory
• No connection to eternal ideas

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Augustine and Memory

• Memory the interior place where time is
  recalled
• Memory is the place of knowledge
• Platonic understanding of remembering knowledge
  as learning
• How to remember God who is eternal?
• This is necessary for the Happy Life

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Confessions X

• What is memory
• How is human memory different from an animals
  memory
• Memory of sin
• What is forgetfulness
• Jesus Christ human and divine as Mediator between
  eternal and the time-bound
• Forms bridge into Book XI, the meditation on time

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De Trinitate

• Written 399-410 most likely written for himself
• Serialized (as was much of his work)
• Some of it published before he was ready for
  distribution
• Primary adversary Arians
• Tripartite Division
• Books I-IV How to interpret Scripture
• Books V VII Catholic doctrine argued against
  Arians
• Books VIII XV How we think about God
• Augustines most speculative work

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De TrinitateThe Imago Dei

• Note in De Trinitate Augustine traces the inner
  life of man (anthropology) origins, development,
  ends
• Book X.17-18 introduce concept of Memory,
  Intellect and Will the imago Dei
• Book XIV.1-11 how the image becomes perfected

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Aquinas on MemoryST IIa IIae Q49

• First note that for Aquinas, following Aristotle,
  we know through the senses
• Memory, again following Aristotle, in Aquinas
  becomes a part of prudence (a. 1)
• Memory is based solely on experience in time
• Understanding is also an aspect of prudence (a.
  2)
• For Aquinas prudence is by far the most important
  acquired virtue
• Note who is completely missing from this
  discussion

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John CalvinImago Dei

• The Fall completely destroyed the imago Dei in
  man
• Only Jesus Christ and His grace can restore it
• No analogy between human attributes and God
• Note arguments against philosophers
• An example of where Calvin differs from Augustine
• Institutes I.15, available at http//www.ccel.org/
  ccel/calvin/institutes.iii.xvi.html?highlightmemo
  ryhighlight

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John Locke

• Essay Concerning Understanding
• Tabula Rasa
• Strong empiricism
• Role of memory
• Place where we store observed data
• Read Essay, Book II, Ch 1, Of Ideas
• Available at http//oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl30
  2/texts/locke/locke1/Book2a.html

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Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716)

• Contemporary of Locke and Newton
• Lutheran mathematician and philosopher
• But also sees great value in Scholasticism
• Wanted to provide philosophical framework to
  reunite Lutherans and Catholics
• Discoverer/inventor of calculus
• Simultaneous with but independent of Newton
• Highly disputed then and to this day who was
  first

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Leibniz Opposition to Locke

• New Essay Concerning Understanding
• Opposed to Locke
• Based on Plato and Augustine
• His has more relation to Aristotle, and mine to
  Plato, although we diverge in many things from
  the doctrines of these two ancients. 9

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Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)

• One of the most influential philosophers of 20th
  C
• Early work as a Catholic theologian
• Breaks with Catholic (scholastic) in 1919
  becomes a student of Husserl
• Augustine Lectures, 1921
• Being and Time, 1927
• Becomes as Nazi in 1933 but eventually sent to
  dig ditches by Nazis in 1944
• Heideggers relation to Nazism still very
  disputed
• Along the way he does reject Christianity, or at
  least accuses Christianity of distorting
  philosophy, and Greek philosophy of distorting
  Biblical Christianity

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Heidegger, Augustine Lectures

• Augustine Lectures written as a commentary on
  Confessions Book X
• Heidegger attempts of deconstruct the
  Neoplatonic elements of Book X, to retrieve the
  phenomenology of lived Christianity
• Heidegger wanted to reconstruct the original
  lived experience of Biblical Christianity
• Specific objections by Heidegger
• God as highest good, beauty is not biblical but
  Neoplatonic
• God as experienced in the world is not one of
  enjoyment, but is found in struggle
• The work is preceded by Heideggers reading of
  the analysis of Augustine by Troeltsch, Harnack
  and Dilthey
• Heidegger says all three tried to objectify and
  historically distance Augustine as an object so
  study
• He wants to see Augustine as relevant to today,
  as an example of what we are living
• Read Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious
  Life, Trans. Matthais Fritsch and Jennifer
  Gosetti-Ferencei, (Bloomington Indiana
  University Press, 2004) pp121-148

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Benedict XVI, Regensburgh Speech, 12 Sept. 2006

• This is the infamous speech that led to
  consternation and confrontation in Muslim world
• Really about religion and science
• Really, really about opposing dehellenization
  (retrieval of Platonism) in Christianity
• Need for cultural memory
• Read (optional) http//www.vatican.va/holy_father/
  benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_
  ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html

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Assignments

• Memory
• Augustine,
• Confessions, X,
• De Trinitate 1.1, X.17-18, XIV.1-11
• Aquinas on Memory, ST IIa IIae Q49
• Calvin on Memory, Institutes I.15, available at
  http//www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.iii.xvi
  .html?highlightmemoryhighlight
• Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life,
  pp 121-148