Research Catalog

Title

Outward signs : the powerlessness of external things in Augustine's thought / Phillip Cary.

Author

Cary, Phillip, 1958-

Publication

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxiv, 344 pages; 25 cm

Summary

This book is, along with Inner Grace (OUP 2008), a sequel to Phillip Cary's Augustine and the Invention of the Inner Self (OUP 2000). In this work, Cary argues that Augustine invented the expressionist type of semiotics widely taken for granted in modernity, where words are outward signs giving inadequate expression to what lies within the soul. Augustine uses this new semiotics to explain why the authority of external teaching, including Biblical authority, is useful but temporary, designed to lead to a more permanent Platonist vision granted by the inner teacher, Christ, who is the eternal Wisdom of God. In fact, for Augustine we literally learn nothing from words or other outward signs, which are useful only as admonitions or reminders pointing out the right direction for us to look in order to see for ourselves, with the inner eye of our own mind. Even our knowledge of other people is ultimately a matter of seeing what is in their souls, not putting faith in their words. Cary argues that for Augustine outward signs cannot give us knowledge because all bodily things are fundamentally powerless, incapable of conveying an inner good to the soul. This also leaves no room for a concept of efficacious external means of grace null not even the flesh of Christ. The sacraments, which Augustine was the first to describe as outward signs of inner grace, signify what is necessary for salvation but do not confer it. Baptism, for example, is necessary for salvation, but its power is found not in water or word but in the inner unity, charity, and peace of the church. - Publisher.

Subject

• Augustine, of Hippo, Saint, 354-430
• Augustine, of Hippo, Saint, 354-430
• Augustinus, Aurelius
• Jesus Christus
• Bibel
• Semiotics
• Signs and symbols
• symbols
• Semiotik
• Gnade
• Sakrament
• Autorität
• Verkündigung
• Kirchliches Lehramt
• Glaube
• Platonismus

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [323]-333) and index.

Contents

Introduction: Expressionist semiotics and the powerlessness of the external -- Inadequate platonist signs -- Downward causality -- Mother and child -- Why lectures get boring -- Shared vision -- Words from which we learn nothing -- Before words were signs : semiotics in Greek philosophy -- Semiotics and semantics -- Words written on platonic souls -- The logic of Aristotle's signs -- Physiognomic inferences -- Body affecting soul -- The semiotics of On interpretation -- Stoic semiotics without depth -- Empirical inference and "common signs" -- The sceptics' reminding signs -- Reminders of deeper things -- From scepticism to platonism : the concept of sign in Augustine's earliest writings -- Plato's sceptical successors -- The grasping appearance -- Zeno's definition -- The point of academic scepticism -- The wise man needs depth -- The status of the truthlike -- The two kinds of similarity -- How words became signs : the development of Augustine's expressionist semiotics -- Signifying reason -- Words that signify -- A Latin orator's signs -- Giving signs -- The ontological ground of convention -- Fallen language -- Signs moving souls -- Why we learn nothing from words : the epistemology of Augustine's semiotics -- A socratic dialogue about teaching -- The on the teacher thesis -- Christ the inner teacher -- Learning nothing from Scripture and proof -- Admonitions to look inside -- Authority and reason -- Christian mysteries and platonist philosophy -- The great shift in Augustine's teaching -- Believing persons : theological implications of Augustine's semiotics -- Secondhand knowledge -- Belief in things not seen -- Testimony about temporal things -- Witnesses to Christ -- Moses and truth -- Seeing trinitarian love -- Outward voice and inner word -- Words forming persons? -- Powerless sacraments -- Sacred signs of inner unity : Augustine and medieval sacramental theology -- Election and sacraments -- The meaning of "Sacrament" -- Signs of grace? -- The invisible sacrifice -- Taking victorinus to heart -- Puzzles in confessions -- Public inner wisdom -- Shared insight and love's union -- Words and common inquiry -- The efficacy of the church's baptism : against donatists and pelagians -- Validity without efficacy -- The efficacy of unity -- The immediate return of sins -- Unity in adam -- Unity in Christ -- Conversion and perseverance -- The soul of Christ -- New Testament sacraments and the flesh of Christ -- Sacraments old and new -- When promising is giving -- The education of the human race -- Fewer and less burdensome -- The virtue of the sacraments -- Sacraments promising Christ -- Powerless blood -- Spiritual eating.

ISBN

• 9780195336498
• 0195336496

LCCN

• 2007028376
• 99935214798

OCLC

• ocn156874690
• 156874690
• SCSB-1473667

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library