Augustine the Philosopher
Saint? So they say, but I know him as a philosopher centuries before his time.
One philosopher deeply influenced by Plotinus was Augustine, (354–430 CE) who also began his philosophy from the assumption that reason was the source of all that is real and good. Augustine is often misunderstood and dismissed as being merely a theologian. The truth is that he is one of the deepest and most innovative thinkers in the history of philosophy. Augustine delved into questions that no one before him had considered, and he undertook philosophical explorations and reached fundamental insights not seen again for over 1,200 years.
Augustine has a bad reputation today because, to be honest, his most famous book Confessions, though containing brilliant philosophy in parts, is mostly a maudlin exercise in self-pity. Also, damaging his reputation is that late in his life as a Bishop of the city of Hippo, he became a zealous persecutor of nonconformists, suppressing their freedom of thought and religion. His zealotry was largely driven by his strange obsession with the doctrine of original sin, the doctrine that he championed that humans were inherently evil. Despite these realities, Augustine’s earlier philosophical thought is deep, insightful, and compelling and could easily fill an entire philosophy course. As philosophers we must make…
