Book contents
- What is a Person?
- What is a Person?
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Constructing the ‘Mainline Tradition’
- 1 The First Foundations: Plato and Aristotle
- 2 From Stoic Individuals and Personae to Christian Persons
- 3 Mixtures: Plotinus, Porphyry, Nemesius
- 4 Augustine’s Personae: Theology, Metaphysics, History
- 5 The Definition: Boethius and Richard of Saint Victor
- 6 Toward a Synthesis: Thomas Aquinas
- 7 Between Two Worlds: Duns Scotus
- Part II No God, no Soul: What Person?
- Part III Toward Disabling the Person
- Part IV Persons Restored or Final Solution?
- Epilogue or Epitaph?
- Appendix The World of Rights Transformed Again
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Augustine’s Personae: Theology, Metaphysics, History
from Part I - Constructing the ‘Mainline Tradition’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2019
- What is a Person?
- What is a Person?
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Constructing the ‘Mainline Tradition’
- 1 The First Foundations: Plato and Aristotle
- 2 From Stoic Individuals and Personae to Christian Persons
- 3 Mixtures: Plotinus, Porphyry, Nemesius
- 4 Augustine’s Personae: Theology, Metaphysics, History
- 5 The Definition: Boethius and Richard of Saint Victor
- 6 Toward a Synthesis: Thomas Aquinas
- 7 Between Two Worlds: Duns Scotus
- Part II No God, no Soul: What Person?
- Part III Toward Disabling the Person
- Part IV Persons Restored or Final Solution?
- Epilogue or Epitaph?
- Appendix The World of Rights Transformed Again
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Our next stop is Augustine, a thinker who, as he himself says, recognizes that he should obey the old command of the Delphic Oracle that tells him to know himself. Indeed, from near the beginning of his literary career, in the Soliloquies, he said that he only wanted to know about God and the soul – doubtless especially his own soul, and doubtless assuming a connection between the two subjects. He sees the Delphic command in terms of a version of Meno’s Paradox (De Trinitate 10.9.12): I want to know what I am, because I do not know myself, but how, if I do not know myself, could I understand that I have come to know myself. I seem both to know myself and not to know myself.
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- Information
- What is a Person?Realities, Constructs, Illusions, pp. 44 - 55Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019