Augustine on Skepticism, Truth and the Love of Being

Augustine on Skepticism and Truth

Academic — in his Counter (or against the Academics) — Augustine criticizes scholars such as Carneades, Arcesilaus and the successors of Plato's Academy who held the position of philosophical skepticism. According to Augustine, that form of skepticism had stripped Platonism of its ascetic and religious character and upheld the claim that it is not really possible to know.

License, an Academic contemporary of Augustine, stated that to achieve happiness it is enough to seek the truth; there was no need to know it. Given this interpretation of Platonism, Augustine — responding to Academic skepticism — uses an argument similar to the one Plato employed against the Sophists: how can those who deny the possibility of reaching the truth call themselves sages and claim to possess the science of happiness or wisdom?

For Augustine, possession of wisdom is not merely seeking truth. Since nature is intelligible, wisdom is attained by faith and by a total cleansing of mind and will that frees one from attachment to the world and the body. The decisive argument against the skeptic is the self, grounded in an intuitive intellectual evidence that underlies truth.

With this Augustine proposes a model of philosophical truth against skeptical doubt that anticipates the Cartesian cogito (if I err, I am). When Augustine examines the problem not merely as a Christian philosopher, the model of self-consciousness reveals truth from a logical point of view; but from a moral point of view the mistake is to love what leads us to sin.

Thus, the text offers an example of self-consciousness: he explains that he is aware that he is being deceived because he exists, and if he is aware that he exists, then he truly exists.

Love of Existence Across Beings

Augustine describes cases that exemplify the love of existence, which is found in man but also in all realms: animal, vegetable, or even in ore. Everyone wants to live; indeed, if those who choose to die were offered immortality, they would accept without hesitation. For that reason, the desire to live exists. Augustine offers an explanation for why even the most irrational creatures strive to live and flee from death with all their efforts — as well as plants and minerals: because they want to live.

Love of Knowledge and the Divine Trinity

On the other hand, the love of knowledge occurs only in humans; it is a specific characteristic (pondus). Alongside the love of existence, love of knowledge is what enables humans — because they are rational beings — to reach universal truth. The human being, though part of the body, also has a uniquely human capacity: perceiving what is right.

This is where the divine Trinity is involved: to truly achieve the intelligible idea of justice we must exist, know, and love. These three—existence, knowledge, and love—are interconnected in Augustine's account of how human beings approach truth and the good.

Key points

• Augustine opposes Academic skepticism and defends the possibility of knowledge.
• The self (self-consciousness) provides an intuitive basis against doubt and anticipates the cogito.
• The desire to live is universal across beings; love of knowledge is distinctively human.
• Faith and moral purification play essential roles in attaining true wisdom.