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MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY 3

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MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY 3

AUGUSTINE ON INSIGHT

John Searle’s Chinese Room:

  • AI is not conscious, because it only understands semiotics
  • consciousness requires a conception of meaning, of semantics
  • similar to Augustine’s De Magistro

On Learning:

  • the teacher merely transfers signs
  • but signs are not actual knowledge, something is missing here
  • rather, it happens through ILLUMINATION: a spark, a flash, something beyond the signs
  • word don’t make us aware of the truth, we ourselves do
  • this is intuitive, but what about willing in God
  • we learn via Christ opening up the truth for us

De Magistro / The Teacher:

  • dialogue with his son
  • words don’t teach, we don’t learn what the teacher thinks, we learn something else beyond the teacher’s words
  • signs can’t quite communicate knowledge
  • signs can only go as far as pointing us towards ideas, but are not the ideas themselves
  • the teacher is like a midwife helping deliver ideas

On Epistemology:

  • true knowledge requires two thing:
    1. That it be true
    2. That you know it’s true, without doubt
  • this form of knowledge canno’t be grasped by mere signs (because of condition 2)
  • Augustine was a very early thinker of semiotics

The Sign:
SIGN: “A sign is a thing that of itself causes something else to enter into thought beyond the appearance [the sign] presents to the senses”

  • things that trigger thoughts about other things
  • Types of signs:
    1. Natural Signs: parts of the natural world (smoke reminds you of fire), based on natural causal orders (where there’s smoke, there’s fire, pure causal inference)
    2. Conventional Signs: conventions between people (a stop sign), we are reminded of the social agreements (it’s agreed upon that a red hexagon means stopping your car)
  • the transfer of thought from sign to meaning is instantaneous
  • and signs are very important for religion (omens, prophecies)
  • certain signs are only used for signifying
  • signs: transference towards things; things: non-signifying entities, the real objects of knowledge

Three circles:
1. Things (fire, the act of stopping your car)
2. Signs (smoke, etc.) - these can still be things in themselves
3. Signs that only signify (the word ‘smoke’)

  • sign-signifying-significance
  • all speech is either about teaching or learning

Structure:

  • certain signs/things can be taught by signs
  • signs can teach you about other signs (a dictionary)
  • some things can be shown without signs
  • non-signs cannot be fully revealed by signs
  • language is a closed system, but, how do you get to it? How do you learn one word, the first word?
  • you made the first connection between language and reality yourself, via illumination
  • self-exhibiting things: things that reveal themselves without signs
  • bird-catching: can be understood completely simply by the act of perceiving it (this is heavily dependent on your perceptive abilities)
  • so far it’s been only know-how, not know-that
  • but he never gets to proper propositional knowledge, drawing an analogy of revelation and illumination from know-how to know-that
  • First-hand knowledge: knowledge from pure illumination in perception, self-exhibiting knowledge
  • the stop sign would not reveal anything to the Martian, so the jump from sign to knowledge is still needed
  • the Martian can only comprehend the stop sign by seeing everyday life, thus, meaning must come before sign for the sign to be meaningful

Meno’s Paradox:

  • inquiry is either necessary or impossible (you either now what you’re looking for, or don’t, etc.)

  • for Augustine a sign is either meaningless for you since you don’t understand the meaning it’s pointing at, or, the sign is uneccesary since you already know it

  • How do we escape language and reach the world?

  • can’t be by simply pointing at the thing and saying its name (since pointing is too a sign)

Conclusion: we don’t learn anything by signs themselves, it’s all about illumination

Doctrine of Illumination:

  • learning by inward discovery according to ability
  • and you have to test you, think about it
  • words, however, can be pieces of a puzzle, pointers, a half-truth that requires proper comprehension
  • the teacher is like Christ who gives light to the room, allowing you to see, but he canno’t see for you

The Bible / Belief:

  • no first hand experience, but belief can be used, bringing us to salvation
  • everything you know you also believe
  • some things you believe aren’t true, but belief is useful

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