Augustine, 23–40; Madec, Saint Augustin et la philosophie, 53–60.
The Philosopher 69
Aug. What then? Can something be a sign unless it signifies something? Ad. No. [They then analyze at some length a single line from Vergil's Aeneid, proceeding word by word to explore and draw out the sign-based character of human speech].
Aug. Granted that this is true, . . . still you will at least notice this one point: namely, that you have been explaining words by words, that is, signs by signs, and what is familiar by what is equally familiar. But I would like you to point out to me, if you can, the realities themselves of which these are signs.
(3.5) Ad. I am surprised that you do not know—or rather, that you pretend not to know—that what you ask cannot be done in conversation where we cannot answer except by words. But you are looking for those realities that, whatever else they are, are certainly not words, and yet you too are using words to ask me about them. So you will first have to ask a question without words so that I can reply in the same way.56
Christ the Inner Teacher
On the Teacher is concerned not only with the nature of language but also with the broader question of epistemology, that is, how we know what we know, and it explores this by probing in what sense teachers actually teach anything. Augustine argues that we do not really learn realities outside us, but are reminded interiorly of forgotten truths. This theory of knowledge as "remembrance," while akin in some ways to Plato's, is also quite different. Augustine came to deny Plato's hypothesis that learning is remembering something from a past life.57 For Augustine, knowing is a matter of inner illumination; Christ is the true teacher teaching truth deep within us. Augustine later, as a preacher, will play on this idea, comparing and contrasting his outer words with Christ's inner teaching. From On the Teacher:
(11.36) So far, the most I can say for words is that they merely intimate that we should look for realities; they do not present them to us for our knowledge. But the one who teaches me is the one who presents to my eyes or to any bodily senses or even to the mind itself something that I want to know.
56. De magistro 1.1–3.5 (CCL 29:157–62); my trans., based on Russell, FOTC 59:7–10. On this, see Rist, Augustine, 23–40; Madec, Saint Augustin et la philosophie, 53–60.
57. In Soliloquia 2.20.35, Augustine hints at holding such an idea. Étienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine (New York: Random House, 1960), 70–71, suggested that it was "possible that during the early days of his conversion Augustine combined the theory of the soul's pre-existence with its natural complement, the doctrine of Platonic reminiscence." Gerald J. P. O'Daly, "Did St. Augustine Ever Believe in the Soul's Pre-Existence?" Augustinian Studies 5 (1974): 227–54, has argued against this. Late in his career, Augustine explicitly repudiated this Platonic doctrine, noting that the uneducated know things "not because they knew things at some time or other and have forgotten them, as it seemed to Plato or men like him," but rather that "when they have the capacity to grasp it, the light of eternal reason by which they perceive those unchangeable truths is present in them" (retr. 1.4.4; trans. Bogan, FOTC 60:18).