Augustine and Skepticism
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- Date Submitted: 06/08/2014 05:57 AM
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Augustine and Skepticism
St. Augustine lived a lifestyle as a young man philandering with many different women and bore a son. Although he did not live a mischievous lifestyle, he enjoyed observing those who did. St. Augustine questioned and doubted his way of life allowing his thoughts to ultimately control him. Even thought he was engaged and was to settle down out of respect for his family, he still chose to yet again take on a new lover. He went on to eventually become a professor in the field of teaching rhetoric. His mother a Christian woman had encouraged her son to become baptized which led to Augustine’s service as a Bishop in Northern Africa. Augustine’s beliefs on Total Skepticism is refuted in three different ways and should be considered when analyzing his theories.
The first refutation that Augustine refuted was the principle of noncontradiction. This principle basically stated that a both a contradiction as well as a proposition cannot be true; it must be only one or the other. I believe that the contradiction of the stick being straight and not straight shows how a direct contradiction can easily take place. Example, a person says “I’m on a strict diet of not eating meat”, yet the person stating this claim while inside of a steak house eating a steak.
The second refutation is Augustine’s holding the act of doubting. The act of doubting shows a person’s existence as something which is very certain: “from the fact I am doubting, it follows automatically that I am (Descartes). When you begin to question whether or not what you are seeing is truly in fact something that you see, you are allowing the act of doubt to enter your mind.
The third refutation in which St. Augustine refuted was sense perception. According to Augustine, Sense perception gives away a rudimentary sort of knowledge. He went on to explain how deception when it came to sense perception can occur in sense perception when a person tends to “give assent to more...
St. Augustine lived a lifestyle as a young man philandering with many different women and bore a son. Although he did not live a mischievous lifestyle, he enjoyed observing those who did. St. Augustine questioned and doubted his way of life allowing his thoughts to ultimately control him. Even thought he was engaged and was to settle down out of respect for his family, he still chose to yet again take on a new lover. He went on to eventually become a professor in the field of teaching rhetoric. His mother a Christian woman had encouraged her son to become baptized which led to Augustine’s service as a Bishop in Northern Africa. Augustine’s beliefs on Total Skepticism is refuted in three different ways and should be considered when analyzing his theories.
The first refutation that Augustine refuted was the principle of noncontradiction. This principle basically stated that a both a contradiction as well as a proposition cannot be true; it must be only one or the other. I believe that the contradiction of the stick being straight and not straight shows how a direct contradiction can easily take place. Example, a person says “I’m on a strict diet of not eating meat”, yet the person stating this claim while inside of a steak house eating a steak.
The second refutation is Augustine’s holding the act of doubting. The act of doubting shows a person’s existence as something which is very certain: “from the fact I am doubting, it follows automatically that I am (Descartes). When you begin to question whether or not what you are seeing is truly in fact something that you see, you are allowing the act of doubt to enter your mind.
The third refutation in which St. Augustine refuted was sense perception. According to Augustine, Sense perception gives away a rudimentary sort of knowledge. He went on to explain how deception when it came to sense perception can occur in sense perception when a person tends to “give assent to more...