The Socratic Augustine

Augustine is both one of the great dogmatic thinkers in our Western tradition and also one of the most Socratic. How can that be? I suggest that Augustine is given to puzzling over questions of the form "How is it possible that p?" – for example, "How is it possible to measure time wh...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inMetaphilosophy Vol. 29; no. 3; pp. 196 - 208
Main Author Matthews, Gareth B.
Format Journal Article Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford, UK and Boston, USA Blackwell Publishers Ltd 01.07.1998
Blackwell Publishers
Blackwell
Basil Blackwell for the Metaphilosophy Foundation
Subjects
Doctrinal theology
Economics. Civilization. Education
Metaphilosophy
Paradoxes
Perplexity
Philosophy
Platonism
Prayer
Publishing industry
Socratic philosophy
Soul
Squares
SYMPOSIUM ON AUGUSTINE AND TEACHING
United States;U.S.A
Belief
Dogmatism
Nature
Augustine
Explanation
Perplexity
Time
Dialectic
Subject-Predicate
Teaching
Congresses
Socratism
Measure
Emotion
Meno (The)
Proposition
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Augustine is both one of the great dogmatic thinkers in our Western tradition and also one of the most Socratic. How can that be? I suggest that Augustine is given to puzzling over questions of the form "How is it possible that p?" – for example, "How is it possible to measure time when no length of time is ever present to be measured?" Moreover, he asks questions of this form even when he is in no doubt that p is the case. (Thus he is in no doubt that we can measure periods of time even though, strictly speaking, no period of time is ever present.) I suggest further that we can learn something about good teaching from studying Augustine's Socratic-style inquiry.
Bibliography:ArticleID:META091
istex:718C8E60B2031BBB0512B9C95446B331ABFCAB26
ark:/67375/WNG-6B96LX8W-M
ISSN:0026-1068
1467-9973
DOI:10.1111/1467-9973.00091