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Part III: Augustine on Memory
Published by Cynthia R. Nielsen September 12th, 2008 in Confessions
At 10.14.21 Augustine turns to discuss emotions that are stored “in” memory. Here his emphasis is that we can recall being sad and yet not feel sad in the process. The recollection of these emotions, then, is the notion, not the passion itself. This shows that the faculty that is able to do this is thus differentiated from the emotions themselves (cf. Conf. 10.14.21; p. 251, Boulding trans.). If I can recall sadness and not be sad, then mind transcends emotions just as it transcends sense and other images. Additionally, in this section and other places in book X, Augustine makes a number of statements about the relationship between mind and body. After discussing the fact that he can recall a past sadness or pain while being presently happy and vice versa, he says:
There is nothing strange about this where the previous experience was one that simply involved the body, for the mind is one thing and the body another, it is therefore unremarkable if in my mind I joyfully recall some former bodily pain” (10.14.21; p. 250).
Does Augustine really mean that the body is one thing and the mind another thing? Perhaps not, but one can see why some scholars have tended to stress the continuities between Augustine and Descartes, this (the mind/body relation) being simply one example of an at least seeming similarity.
To make things worse, a few paragraphs later at 10.16.25, Augustine states, “the person who remembers is myself; I am my mind” (p. 253, cf. 10.17.26; p.254). Here we are left wondering what kind of relationship exists between body and mind, as Augustine could easily be interpreted as promoting a kind of substance dualism (where substance dualism means simply a real distinction between soul and body) along the lines of Plato’s teaching in the Phaedo. Given his Christian commitments, it is likely that Augustine presents a more integrated view elsewhere or perhaps makes corrections or qualifications to his views in his Retractiones; however, it is difficult not to interpret his view of the mind/body relation in Confessions X as dualistic and resembling a Platonic or Cartesian understanding.
Do you think substance-dualism is ‘bad’ for Christian faith? It was promoted for a long time–for as long as Plato held sway over Aristotle in the West, no? I think it is Carlos Steel (Leuven) that has written a paper recently for the Stephen Brown festschrift arguing that Aquinas’s unity of substantial form has significant problems with cohering with the Christian idea that souls exist after death and before the resurrection. If these disembodied souls are not real, and so not able to exercise acts of thinking and willing; how could they pray?
I think the important question here is the kind of unity of soul and body; Auggie definitely thinks that we learn about the world b/c we have a body. So there is definitely some sort of dependence relations of mind to body in terms of cognizing particulars … of course … if we say the soul cannot cognize particulars without the body, then how could disembodied Saint so and so pray for you and I right now?
Hi Scott,
I totally agree that substance-dualism has been part of the Christian tradition for some time—no doubt about that (as you say a kind of Platonic-Augustinian view dominated the West until the Christian West was more or less forced deal with Aristotle). Whether its “bad” or not depends I suppose on how consistent one is in carrying out its implications. I do think that it is bad for Christian faith when it begins to work itself out among laypeople as follows: (1) “heaven” is somekind of ethereal realm where disembodied spirits go; (2) embodiment is something we need to escape (a kind of Christianized version of Plato’s Phaedo). The Word after all has assumed human flesh permanently and as the Creed says, “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” So it seems to me that whatever account can best explain the unity of body-soul would better serve the Christian faith. Lastly, I wouldn’t want to build too big a theory on the body-soul relation based on what disembodied saints (who are in an “un-natural” state, according to both Scripture and the tradition, e.g., St. Thomas) supposedly can or can’t do.
Best,
Cynthia
Hey Cynthia,
Good responses. I completely agree with (1)— though if one were Roman Catholic — wouldn’t you be compelled to believe that disembodied saints can pray/intercede for you? And if the saints can’t pray for us … lots of RC piety has to be revised, no? Re: (2)– doesn’t Paul somewhat long to ‘be saved from this body of death’? On the one hand, we need to say that being bodily is basic to our nature; on the other hand, perhaps we need a better body –so we can look forward to the resurrected body while we cope with the diseases, viruses, etc. that corrupt the bodies we have now. Thanks be to God for various medicines to help us cope; I for one would not be alive if it weren’t for certain medicines. Perhaps one hazard about focusing on embodiment without talking about our corrupted and corruptible bodies that we have now– is the very American health and wealth gospel. If we play up the goods of the body in this context, then we’d seem to forget that our bodies do need to be resurrected by God and in fact we do have corrupt and corruptible bodies in this life. It is a balancing act- to be sure– just a matter of getting it right.
Pax et bonum,
Scott
Hi Scott,
Why would it necessarily be a problem for a beatified saint (in union with Christ) who has not yet received his/her resurrected body to pray/intercede for someone? Regarding the St. Paul comment, I read “body of death” as having our postlapsarian body in view (that is, what we are now as a psycho-somatic whole but with attention on the body). Given the distinction between what we can assume the body was like in the prelapsarian state (based on what Scripture tells us about Adam and Eve and what occurs on a cosmic level due to the fall) and what the body is like now (as you point out, diseases etc.), I can totally understood a desire to be free from a sin-permeated body. This, however, seems quite different than say the Platonic idea of the body qua body as something to be shed—the body as something that drags down the soul, makes it “dizzy” and “confused” as the Phaedo says. In the Platonic understanding of the soul/body relation, the relation itself seems un-natural and non-integrated, as if the body really shouldn’t be part of the soul; hence, the goal of the philosophic life is to be “as dead as possible” in this life (where “dead” = the soul being separate from the body. Unfortunately, many Christians seem to have embraced the Platonic view of the body and this carries over in their view of an ethereal heaven where disembodied souls go.
I agree with your view of being thankful for medicine, doctors etc., and think that what you say about the American health/wealth gospel makes a good deal of sense.
Best wishes,
Cynthia