Breeur (1.4) Lies – Imposture – Stupidity, Ch.1.4, “Lying and Intention”, summary

 

by Corry Shores

 

[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

 

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[Roland Breeur, entry directory]

[Breeur, Lies – Imposture – Stupidity, entry directory]

 

[The following is a paragraph by paragraph summary of Breeur’s text. Boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my mistakes. The book can be purchased here.]

 

 

 

 

Summary of

 

Roland Breeur

[Breeur’s academia.edu page and researchgate page]

 

Lies – Imposture – Stupidity

 

Part 1

Lies and Stupidity

 

Ch.1.

The Last Judgment

 

1.4

“Lying and Intention”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brief summary (collecting those below):

(1.4.1) When we are concerned with the intention of the lie (see sections 1.3.6 and 1.3.7), what matters is how the lie does damage to our relationship to ourself or to God, rather than how it might do damage to the world. (1.4.2) But if lie and honesty are all simply internal things, then why did Augustine need to make his confession? It is because “the truth may not only be claimed in the heart and the mind, but has to be communicated and spread among many witnesses” (20). However, by externalizing truth into expressed language, we “expose it to the ambiguities specific to the world, the language, and the facts” (20). Breeur provides a humorous example: “In this context, I involuntarily have to think of what a faithful friend once told me about reciting the ‘Lord’s Prayer’: He never pronounced the first sentence (‘Our Father who art in heaven’) to its end because, he said, the Devil couldn’t resist to add a blasphemous ‘F’ before the ‘art’” (20). (1.4.3) Casuists found ways to deceive without lying, where one states the truth but it is understood differently by others. Breeur notes some techniques and gives examples, including a famous one for oratio mixta: “St. Francis of Assisi, when asked by some pursuers if the fugitive they were looking for had passed his way, put his index finger in the sleeve of his mantle and said ‘he had not passed here,’ meaning through his sleeve” (21). (1.4.4)  These casuist examples show how “that the emphasis Augustinians placed on ‘intention’ and interiority was based on a subjectification of the truth according to which the final meaning of reality was sought in God and inwardness rather than in the contingent field of the world. This trend was of course continued in the 17th Century by the Jansenists and by thinkers such as Malebranche” (22). In fact, the effects of our lies are not of concern really, because under this view, neither our lies nor our truths can causally affect the world around us. Rather, lying introduces the ambiguity regarding facts and action into the realm of thought. This is conducted by means of the imagination, which dissimulates the truth and can thereby ultimately lead us astray.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

1.4.1

[The Internal Perspective on Lie: Its Damage to the Relationship of Self to Self or of Self to God]

 

1.4.2

[Risking the Purity of Truth by Expressing it Externally]

 

1.4.3

[Deceiving without Lying]

 

1.4.4

[Lies and Inner Life]

 

Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

1.4.1

[The Internal Perspective on Lie: Its Damage to the Relationship of Self to Self or of Self to God]

 

[When we are concerned with the intention of the lie (see sections 1.3.6 and 1.3.7), what matters is how the lie does damage to our relationship to ourself or to God, rather than how it might do damage to the world.]

 

[ditto]

Emphasizing the intention of the lie means searching for its origin in the inner world, the “interior intimi meo.” In the end, it may eventually not matter what your sincerity does to the world: Apart from that collateral damage, the relationship to yourself – or, better, to the Divine in yourself – takes precedence. In the Augustinian tradition, someone like Thomassin (1693) would go so far as to say that “if the whole human species were to be exterminated, and it were possible to save it by a lie, the lie should be avoided, and the whole human species should perish.”¹⁴ The lie must be avoided because of the ambiguity or duplicity that is part of its internal structure.

(20)

14 Thomassin, Traité de la vérité et du mensonge, quoted in Benoit Timmermans, “La chair du discours à l’âge classique,” in: Mensonge, Mauvaise Foi, Mystification: Les mésaventures du pacte fictionnel (Paris: Vrin, 2004), pp. 39-55.

(20)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.4.2

[Risking the Purity of Truth by Expressing it Externally]

 

[But if lie and honesty are all simply internal things, then why did Augustine need to make his confession? It is because “the truth may not only be claimed in the heart and the mind, but has to be communicated and spread among many witnesses” (20). However, by externalizing truth into expressed language, we “expose it to the ambiguities specific to the world, the language, and the facts” (20). Breeur provides a humorous example: “In this context, I involuntarily have to think of what a faithful friend once told me about reciting the ‘Lord’s Prayer’: He never pronounced the first sentence (‘Our Father who art in heaven’) to its end because, he said, the Devil couldn’t resist to add a blasphemous ‘F’ before the ‘art’” (20).]

 

[ditto]

In his confessions, Augustine at one point asks himself why he still has to confess his whole story anyway. God already knows everything, doesn’t he? If you confess, it is because the truth may not only be claimed in the heart and the mind, but has to be communicated and spread among many witnesses. Of course, there is also a risk that as soon as you bring out the truth you finally expose it to the ambiguities specific to the world, the language, and the facts. In this context, I involuntarily have to think of what a faithful friend once told me about reciting the “Lord’s Prayer”: He never pronounced the first sentence (“Our Father who art in heaven’’) to its end because, he said, the Devil couldn’t resist to add a blasphemous “F” before the “art.”

(20)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.4.3

[Deceiving without Lying]

 

[Casuists found ways to deceive without lying, where one states the truth but it is understood differently by others. Breeur notes some techniques and gives examples, including a famous one for oratio mixta: “St. Francis of Assisi, when asked by some pursuers if the fugitive they were looking for had passed his way, put his index finger in the sleeve of his mantle and said ‘he had not passed here,’ meaning through his sleeve” (21).]

 

[ditto]

It is interesting to note the use that the casuists made of those ambiguities in order to assuage the Augustinian prohibition of mendacity. The very existence of ambiguities (see their “theory of equivocation”) created a space in which to develop techniques to deceive without lying.¹⁵ The use of these techniques was therefore subject to strict conditions, especially when telling the truth represented high danger or would lead to disaster, and not saying anything was seen as a form of betrayal.¹⁶ The casuists developed very imaginative ways of dissimulating the truth by using the ambiguity inherent to certain propositions (“not est hic,” meaning “he is not here” or “he eats not here”)¹⁷ while other casuists made use of the “restrictio mentalis,” where it was claimed that a false statement can be made true by adding a mental reservation (e.g. after speaking the words “he’s not here” you mentally add the clause “for you,” or “today,” etc.). Another famous example of what is also called the oratio mixta and appeared in many manuals and discussions on mendacity is the following: St. Francis of Assisi, when asked by some pursuers if the fugitive they were looking for had passed his way, put his index finger in the sleeve of his mantle and said “he had not passed here,” meaning through his sleeve.

(21)

13 Cf. Jean-Pierre Cavaillé, “Non est hic. Le cas exemplaire de Ia protection du fugitif,” Les Dossiers du Grihl. Available at: https://journals.openedition.org/dossiersgrihl/300.

16 Of course, dissimulation is not limited to the Christian faith. Within the branch of Islam similar doctrines of dissimulation have been developed and is called “taqiyah”, used in cases where there is some danger to the life of one’s self or family (cf. P. Zagiron, o.c., pp. 4-6).

17 Or the use of equivocation by the “libertins” in the 18th Century: “Qui craint Dieu ne craint rien.”

(21)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.4.4

[Lies and Inner Life]

 

[These casuist examples show how “that the emphasis Augustinians placed on ‘intention’ and interiority was based on a subjectification of the truth according to which the final meaning of reality was sought in God and inwardness rather than in the contingent field of the world. This trend was of course continued in the 17th Century by the Jansenists and by thinkers such as Malebranche” (22). In fact, the effects of our lies are not of concern really, because under this view, neither our lies nor our truths can causally affect the world around us. Rather, lying introduces the ambiguity regarding facts and action into the realm of thought. This is conducted by means of the imagination, which dissimulates the truth and can thereby ultimately lead us astray.]

 

[ditto]

Characteristic of these methods is the form of deception or deceit that helped to bypass the lie. Pascal, in his “provincial letters,” would fulminate: “Cest dire la vérité tout bas, et un mensonge tout haut” (to be telling the truth in a low key, and falsehood in a loud one).¹⁸ In fact, one could summarize the whole set-up of the casuists using the motto: You get the lie | that you deserve on the basis of the truth that you expect. Their theories are very relevant inasmuch as they show that the emphasis Augustinians placed on “intention” and interiority was based on a subjectification of the truth according to which the final meaning of reality was sought in God and inwardness rather than in the contingent field of the world. This trend was of course continued in the 17th Century by the Jansenists and by thinkers such as Malebranche. The meaning and effects of what we do and say are beyond our control; in the world we are seldom free because – to speak with Spinoza – we are not an adequate cause of what we set in motion. In short, the lie is condemned in the name of the ambiguity inherent in every act and fact. Lying amplifies this ambiguity and injects it into a domain that is destined to be clear and distinct (thinking). This ambiguity is precisely the work of the imagination, the simulatio. You need it in order to dissimulate the truth, but the more you call upon it the greater the risk of going astray.

(21-22)

18 Blaise Pascal, Les Provinciales, Œuvres Complètes, Tome I (Paris : Gallimard [Pléiade]), 1998, p. 679.

(22)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography:

Breeur, Roland. Lies – Imposture – Stupidity. Vilnius: Jonas ir Jakubas, 2019.

The book can be purchased here.

 

Breeur’s academia.edu page and researchgate page.

.

 

 

.

Breeur (1.3) Lies – Imposture – Stupidity, Ch.1.3, “Imagination and Lying”, summary

 

by Corry Shores

 

[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

 

[Central Entry Directory]

[Roland Breeur, entry directory]

[Breeur, Lies – Imposture – Stupidity, entry directory]

 

[The following is a paragraph by paragraph summary of Breeur’s text. Boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my mistakes. The book can be purchased here.]

 

 

 

 

Summary of

 

Roland Breeur

[Breeur’s academia.edu page and researchgate page]

 

Lies – Imposture – Stupidity

 

Part 1

Lies and Stupidity

 

Ch.1.

The Last Judgment

 

1.3

“Imagination and Lying”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brief summary (collecting those below):

(1.3.1) According to Sartre, our imaginations are what allow us to transform the raw given real into a world whose parts meaningfully inter-relate; it is imagination that makes meaning and a world out of the given.  Turner for instance takes the raw given fog of London and paints it in a way that shows it as beautiful and interesting in its richness and complexity, especially with respect to the surrounding world it colors, helps characterize and give significance and value to (aesthetic and otherwise). Truth-values like true and false, which we assign to statements of the real, are determined less by some supposed objective factuality of the real and more by the values the real has obtained through our imagination’s reconstruals of it. Thus prior to Turner, the polluted fog in 19th century London may have been nothing more than an ugly and sickening element of the surrounding air. Hence, the truth-value of the statement, “the London fog is ugly and unhealthy” would be true. Yet, Turner, by showing the aesthetic values of the fog and how it adds to the overall aesthetic of London in its many locales and components, changes its value. It is no longer ugly (and insofar as it brings aesthetic enjoyment to behold, it is no longer simply unhealthy) and thus Turner’s imagination, by reconstruing London fog, changed the truth value of “the London fog is ugly and unhealthy” from true to false (and similarly, he changed “the London fog is beautiful and good for one’s health and well being to behold” from false to true.) Thus, like Oscar Wilde says in “The Decay of Lying,” art does not imitate nature but rather nature imitates art (in other words, even the natural given obtains its meanings, values, and appearances by means of the art that imagines it in various ways.) (1.3.2) The notion that imagination holds sway over the way we perceive and interact with the world is something we all probably assume anyway. We can see it more clearly when we consider strange beliefs and practices in the past that were based on the different ways they imagined their world in that context. For instance, in the 16th century, there was a conception of the human body based on imagining it with architectural imagery, where the skin is like a wall. Cracks in the wall allow water to seep in and with it mold and mildew that can weaken the overall structure. With this image in mind for the human skin, there was a practice among doctors at this time where they would cover a newborn baby’s body with fat and wrap it up, out of fear that diseases might seep into the cracks in the skin like water through a wall. The way this relates to truth and lying can be seen in the next example, Descartes’ depictions of the body as a machine. They have the advantage of allowing us to conceive the body’s working in a fruitful way and to think of how it might be replicated artificially. But now when we read his conceptions, none of it seems literally true at all. However, we would not accuse Descartes of lying (neither to the people of his time, whose limits in anatomical understanding might allow these conceptions to be acceptable, nor to us of our time, because these conceptions still speak a “truth” to us about the mechanical nature of the body, and much of our current knowledge of the body’s nervous functioning resembles in remarkable ways Descartes’ modeling.) (In other words, one can tell a falsehood that is not a lie, because it is something meaningful in its context and is formulated based on a fruitful intervention of the imagination into the world that is shaped by means of it.) (1.3.3) Thus, “truth itself is dependent upon a context and a criterion of meaning”. Breeur draws two observations from this. {1} “some truths, however scientific, sometimes appear worthless, inappropriate, or stupid in response to what they wish to prove” (discussion for this idea comes in the next chapter.) {2} “lies and scams sometimes illuminate true aspects of reality and enter into history as unshakeable truths.” For example, Adolf Eichmann was himself not banally evil and manipulative during his trial; he was spectacularly so. His trial “turned out to be a great spectacle, a conscious deception – in short, fake.” Nonetheless, on the basis of this false and remarkable performance, Hana Arendt developed her idea of the banality of evil. (1.3.4) Lies are tied to imagination. This is not because lying depends on the ability to imagine alternate facts but rather because lying and imagination have the same structure, namely, both are “expressions of the freedom to refuse to accept something and therefore the desire to change it – in short, to act” (18). (1.3.5) Augustine defines lying as having one thought in your head while expressing another thought instead, with the intention to deceive. In this way, the liar has a double heart and holds a double thought. Lying is an act of duplicity in which “You dissimulate what is true, and you simulate what is untrue” (19). (Augustine: “dissimulation is pretending not to be what one actually is, whereas simulation is pretending to be what one actually is not.”) (1.3.6) Lying requires skills and activity not required for simply telling the truth; for, the liar must on the one hand deny some part of reality while at the same time evoking and simulating something non-real and non-existent. But even though all lie is fiction, that does not mean all fiction is untruthful. The distinction is that lies are told with the intention to deceive, “that is, to fraudulently change reality or to adapt its meaning” (19). Given that lying involves the intention to deceive by means of denying reality while simulating the non-real, “Traditionally, therefore, the condemnation of the lie was focused either on the subjective aspect – the intention to deceive – or on the objective aspect – to replace reality with fiction.” (Yet as we noted above, lying is possible on account of factual reality being something bendable by means of the imagination.) Thus, “in both cases this reaction is an attempt to conjure, control, or neutralize the ambivalence proper to factual reality.” There are two ways to condemn lying: {1} internally, in the mental realm, and {2} externally, among the facts themselves. (1.3.7) {1} When we condemn the lie by concerning ourselves with the inner, mental realm, then we are blaming the inner self. Here the criticism is not on how the lie affects outer reality, because here we are assuming that the lie really has no control over it. Instead we are saying that lying involves a lack of sincerity, one’s attitude to one’s own thinking. {2} If instead we are concerned with how the lie affects reality, then our criticism is that by lying, we are “firing out ambiguities in the world” and thereby we “are unravelling the ground on which you yourself stand.” (20)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

1.3.1

[Truth Imitating Art]

 

1.3.2

[The Usualness of the Imagination’s Sway over Perception and Action]

 

1.3.3

[Truth’s Dependence on Context Having Two Important Consequences: {1} Some Truths Appearing Worthless; {2} Lies Illuminating Truths]

 

1.3.4

[Lies and Imagination as Sharing the Same Structure: Action (The Refusal to Accept Something and the Desire to Change It)]

 

1.3.5

[Augustine and Lie: Duplicity (Dissimulation and Simulation)]

 

1.3.6

[Lying and Efforts to Neutralize It]

 

1.3.7

[Contemning the Inner Side of Lying or the Outer Side]

 

 

Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

1.3.1

[Truth Imitating Art]

 

[According to Sartre, our imaginations are what allow us to transform the raw given real into a world whose parts meaningfully inter-relate; it is imagination that makes meaning and a world out of the given.  Turner for instance takes the raw given fog of London and paints it in a way that shows it as beautiful and interesting in its richness and complexity, especially with respect to the surrounding world it colors, helps characterize and give significance and value to (aesthetic and otherwise). Truth-values like true and false, which we assign to statements of the real, are determined less by some supposed objective factuality of the real and more by the values the real has obtained through our imagination’s reconstruals of it. Thus prior to Turner, the polluted fog in 19th century London may have been nothing more than an ugly and sickening element of the surrounding air. Hence, the truth-value of the statement, “the London fog is ugly and unhealthy” would be true. Yet, Turner, by showing the aesthetic values of the fog and how it adds to the overall aesthetic of London in its many locales and components, changes its value. It is no longer ugly (and insofar as it brings aesthetic enjoyment to behold, it is no longer simply unhealthy) and thus Turner’s imagination, by reconstruing London fog, changed the truth value of “the London fog is ugly and unhealthy” from true to false (and similarly, he changed “the London fog is beautiful and good for one’s health and well being to behold” from false to true.) Thus, like Oscar Wilde says in “The Decay of Lying,” art does not imitate nature but rather nature imitates art (in other words, even the natural given obtains its meanings, values, and appearances by means of the art that imagines it in various ways.)]

 

[Recall the following ideas from the previous section 1.2. A fact has an ambivalent nature. On the one hand, a fact, as an event that has happened, cannot be undone. So it seems necessary to us. On the other hand, we also sense that back when it was happening, we could have intervened or done otherwise so to prevent this fact from attaining and to instead have brought about an alternative outcome. These notions regarding the ambivalent nature of facts color our beliefs about our present actions. On the one hand, we hold that there is a given factuality that is necessary (it either is what is happening or is what is bound to happen (it is in action and so cannot be otherwise and is thus necessary)); while on the other hand, we believe that we can alter the course of things by denying this seemingly necessary fact and to exploit the fact’s other nature, it’s contingency, and use our freedom to intervene to deny this fact and affirm a non-fact yet to be actualized. We also use our imagination to conceive of such alternatives. (Suppose that we simply accepted things as they were and saw no place for things to be otherwise or for us to have any influence in the world, not even the capacity to be free to alter how we see the world and the things and events in it, their values, meanings, potential purposes, etc. That would mean that it is not really there for us in a way that affords us a meaningful relationship to all those things.) For Sartre this means that the imagination allows us to transcend (by neutralizing) the real in a way that makes it appear meaningful to us, thereby constituting it as a world. (In other words, the real is something given and in its rawness does not have meaning and does not make up a world yet. It does not have meaning, because meaning requires relationships between the parts of the real which would grant them some sort of purpose, role, or place related to our intentions, actions, thoughts, and so forth. But in its raw givenness, it is just sort of like brute factuality. It is only when we use our imaginations to see ways that our interactivity with the real can shape it, which we would do in relation to our values, interpretations, intentions, etc., that its parts can take on relations that become meaningful to us. And as the parts develop such an orientation and organization, they enter thereby into a world that is there for us and that we dwell within and interact with in a meaningful way. Now, given the role of the imagination in shaping the real in this way so to form a meaningful world,) “What you see and what you value betrays the nature of what you can imagine.” (In other words, the parts of our world only come into noticeable appearance to the extent that we can imagine their availability to our intentful interaction, and the ways we come to imagine those parts as relating to one another as well as to us ourselves determines the values those things have. Thus the degree to which we notice things in the world and assess their value is the degree to which our imagination is at work doing so. Furthermore, the more we try to understand and grasp the world, the more our imagination is working on it, and thus the richer and more complex it becomes in its meaningfulness.) This internal richness and complexity becomes “deepened” the more it increases through our imaginative interactivity with it. This all becomes especially interesting to us when we consider how truth and falsity come to function in this context. (The idea seems to be the following, but I might have it wrong. Something becomes more meaningful in our world the more that it adds more depth to its richness and complexity. Breeur uses the example of Turner’s paintings. Let us consider one in particular.

 

J.M.W. Turner.

Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway (1844)

(Image source: wiki)

 

There is a sort of mist or fog, presumably related to the steam engine’s exhaust plume. But it does not look exactly the same as what we normally might expect. It reimagines fog or mist. It sees it in a new way, but one which integrates it into the world and its meanings. Some might think that it shows us a new aspect, dimension, or beauty of fog or mist. After seeing Turner’s paintings, we might never look at real mist and fog the same way again. It will have transformed the meaning of real fog and mist and even the way it appears insofar as our internal states condition how we perceive it. It helps us see something that is real in fog that we never noticed before. In other words, it can alter the real by changing its values, meaning, and aspects. Normally we might see the dirty smoggy mist surrounding an old steam engine as being dirty and ugly. But Turner gets us to see its beauty. The way this affects truth is that it is no longer true that such smoggy air is ugly. Regarding Turner’s paintings of London, it is no longer true that “that fog in London is ugly and unhealthy.” Turner’s imagination, by changing the value of fog, has changed truth-values of statements relating to that fog.) Thus, like Oscar Wilde says in “The Decay of Lying,” art does not imitate nature but rather nature imitates art (in other words, even the natural given obtains its meanings, values, and appearances by means of the art that imagines it in various ways.)]

Sartre thus suggests that the imagination functions as an implicit horizon within which the real can appear as meaningful. It is a way of transcending (neutralizing) the real “en le constituant comme monde,” or constituting it as a world. What you see and what you value betrays the nature of what you can imagine. The world is deepened by the internal richness and complexity with which your representations try to grasp and understand things. What Sartre suggests is that depth determines the value of what you expect to be true or false. “Truth’’ as a concept only makes sense, then, within a context that determines whether what you say and think, what you claim or apprehend as true, is meaningful or not. In his famous 1899 essay “The Decay of Lying,” Oscar Wilde denied that art imitates nature and asserted rather that it is nature that imitates art.⁹ No one in London had actually “seen’’ anything in the mist before the existence of Turner’s paintings. This “natural factuality,” i.e. fog, suddenly acquires a value that it did not have before. And if a tourist were to claim that fog in London is ugly and unhealthy, he or she would say something that for Turner’s admirers would sound untrue. Why? Because it goes against the value that the fog had suddenly acquired. This is the domain of action, experience, or life.

(16)

9. See Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying and Other Essays (London: Penguin, 2013).

(16)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.3.2

[The Usualness of the Imagination’s Sway over Perception and Action]

 

[The notion that imagination holds sway over the way we perceive and interact with the world is something we all probably assume anyway. We can see it more clearly when we consider strange beliefs and practices in the past that were based on the different ways they imagined their world in that context. For instance, in the 16th century, there was a conception of the human body based on imagining it with architectural imagery, where the skin is like a wall. Cracks in the wall allow water to seep in and with it mold and mildew that can weaken the overall structure. With this image in mind for the human skin, there was a practice among doctors at this time where they would cover a newborn baby’s body with fat and wrap it up, out of fear that diseases might seep into the cracks in the skin like water through a wall. The way this relates to truth and lying can be seen in the next example, Descartes’ depictions of the body as a machine. They have the advantage of allowing us to conceive the body’s working in a fruitful way and to think of how it might be replicated artificially. But now when we read his conceptions, none of it seems literally true at all. However, we would not accuse Descartes of lying (neither to the people of his time, whose limits in anatomical understanding might allow these conceptions to be acceptable, nor to us of our time, because these conceptions still speak a “truth” to us about the mechanical nature of the body, and much of our current knowledge of the body’s nervous functioning resembles in remarkable ways Descartes’ modeling.) (In other words, one can tell a falsehood that is not a lie, because it is something meaningful in its context and is formulated based on a fruitful intervention of the imagination into the world that is shaped by means of it.)]

 

[ditto]

Moreover, the fact that our imagination implicitly influences our perception and our actions is in itself a rather banal thought. For example, the way in which we think about hygiene strongly depends on the images we sometimes unconsciously use about the body. In the 16th Century, a newborn was completely rubbed with fat and bound in wraps, because some doctors thought that diseases (e.g. the plague) seeped into the body through small cracks in the skin. This idea was partly formed by the fact that in their representations of the human skin, probably without knowing it, they borrowed images from architecture. They saw the skin as a kind of wall: In a house with cracks, water will seep in, and infiltrations cause mildew and weaken the entire structure. Descartes would probably have laughed very hard at these ideas, but the machines that he himself had in mind when he described the body as an automaton also have their limitations (at least, his models showed new possibilities vis-a-vis the way in which we can think about the body and imitate its functioning). Much of what he said today sounds untrue, yet, as a matter of fact, no one assumes that he was lying or trying to deceive us.

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.3.3

[Truth’s Dependence on Context Having Two Important Consequences: {1} Some Truths Appearing Worthless; {2} Lies Illuminating Truths]

 

[Thus, “truth itself is dependent upon a context and a criterion of meaning”. Breeur draws two observations from this. {1} “some truths, however scientific, sometimes appear worthless, inappropriate, or stupid in response to what they wish to prove” (discussion for this idea comes in the next chapter.) {2} “lies and scams sometimes illuminate true aspects of reality and enter into history as unshakeable truths.” For example, Adolf Eichmann was himself not banally evil and manipulative during his trial; he was spectacularly so. His trial “turned out to be a great spectacle, a conscious deception – in short, fake.” Nonetheless, on the basis of this false and remarkable performance, Hana Arendt developed her idea of the banality of evil.]

 

[ditto]

The idea that truth itself is dependent upon a context and a criterion of meaning implies, among other things, two points. On the one hand, as we will see in the next chapter, some truths, however scientific, sometimes appear worthless, inappropriate, or stupid in response to what they wish to prove. On the other hand, lies and scams sometimes illuminate true aspects of reality and enter into history as unshakeable truths. Think of the example of what Arendt said about the banality of evil. No one will question that thesis. But it was inspired by the swindler and imposter Adolf Eichmann whose appearance at the famous trial turned out to be a great spectacle, a conscious deception – in short, fake.¹⁰

(17)

10 See Johann Chapoutot, La loi du sang: penser et agir en nazi (Paris: Gallimard, 2014). See also David Cesarani, Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial o fa “Desk Murderer” (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2007).

(17)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.3.4

[Lies and Imagination as Sharing the Same Structure: Action (The Refusal to Accept Something and the Desire to Change It)]

 

[Lies are tied to imagination. This is not because lying depends on the ability to imagine alternate facts but rather because lying and imagination have the same structure, namely, both are “expressions of the freedom to refuse to accept something and therefore the desire to change it – in short, to act” (18).]

 

[ditto]

Finally, what is a lie? Recall Arendt’s point about how “the deliberate denial of factual truth – the ability to lie – and the capacity to change facts – the ability to act – are interconnected: they owe their existence to the same source: imagination.” A lie therefore points to an internal and strict affinity with imagination. Not so much so because we need a lot of imagination to fantasize (about) “alternative facts” – for, as we will see further, many liars and imposters betray themselves precisely not because of their lack of imagination – but because lying and imagination have the same structure. After all, they are both expressions of the freedom to refuse to accept something and therefore the desire to change it – in short, to act.

(18)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.3.5

[Augustine and Lie: Duplicity (Dissimulation and Simulation)]

 

[Augustine defines lying as having one thought in your head while expressing another thought instead, with the intention to deceive. In this way, the liar has a double heart and holds a double thought. Lying is an act of duplicity in which “You dissimulate what is true, and you simulate what is untrue” (19). (Augustine: “dissimulation is pretending not to be what one actually is, whereas simulation is pretending to be what one actually is not.”)]

 

[ditto]

“Lying,” said Augustine, “is having a thought in your head and, by words or other means of expression, expressing another,” with the intention of deceiving.¹¹ The liar is | double-hearted or has “a double heart” (duplex cor), that is, “a double thought” (duplex cogitatio). He has “a thought that he knows and judges true, but keeps to himself; and he has a second thought that he knows and judges false, but which he expresses instead of the first.”¹² The hallmark of the lie is its duplicity, a game of dissimulation and simulation: You dissimulate what is true, and you simulate what is untrue. Or, put otherwise, “dissimulation is pretending not to be what one actually is, whereas simulation is pretending to be what one actually is not.”¹³

(18-19)

11 Augustine, “Quapropter ille mentitur qui aliud habet in animo et aliud verbis vel quibuslibet significationibus enunciat,” in: De mendacio Œuvres de Saint Augustin, II. Problèmes Moraux (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer et Cie, 1937), p. 238.

(18)

12 “ ... una rei hujus quam veram esse vel scit putat et non profert, altera ejus rei quam pro ista profert sciens falsam esse vel putans.” Augustine, “Quapropter ille mentitur qui aliud habet in animo et aliud verbis vel quibuslibet significationibus enunciat,” p. 238.

13 Perez Zagorin, Ways of Lying: Dissimulation, Persecution and Conformity in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 3.

(19)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.3.6

[Lying and Efforts to Neutralize It]

 

[Lying requires skills and activity not required for simply telling the truth; for, the liar must on the one hand deny some part of reality while at the same time evoking and simulating something non-real and non-existent. But even though all lie is fiction, that does not mean all fiction is untruthful. The distinction is that lies are told with the intention to deceive, “that is, to fraudulently change reality or to adapt its meaning” (19). Given that lying involves the intention to deceive by means of denying reality while simulating the non-real, “Traditionally, therefore, the condemnation of the lie was focused either on the subjective aspect – the intention to deceive – or on the objective aspect – to replace reality with fiction.” (Yet as we noted above, lying is possible on account of factual reality being something bendable by means of the imagination.) Thus, “in both cases this reaction is an attempt to conjure, control, or neutralize the ambivalence proper to factual reality.” There are two ways to condemn lying: {1} internally, in the mental realm, and {2} externally, among the facts themselves.]

 

[ditto]

This interplay of lying and deception requires a certain skill, as Socrates suggests in the “Little Hippias”: Those who deliberately do not tell and distort the truth must be able to do more than those who always and everywhere speak the truth. Indeed, it comes down to being able to deny a part of reality or neutralize its impact in favor of the evocation and simulation of something that is not real and does not exist. Which does not mean that any form of fiction is untruthful. A lie would be a kind of fiction with the intention to deceive, that is, to fraudulently change reality or to adapt its meaning. Traditionally, therefore, the condemnation of the lie was focused either on the subjective aspect – the intention to deceive – or on the objective aspect – to replace reality with fiction. But in both cases this reaction is an attempt to conjure, control, or neutralize the ambivalence proper to factual reality. You do this either from the inside/interior, i.e. the mental realm, or from the outside/external, i.e. the facts themselves.

(19)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.3.7

[Contemning the Inner Side of Lying or the Outer Side]

 

[{1} When we condemn the lie by concerning ourselves with the inner, mental realm, then we are blaming the inner self. Here the criticism is not on how the lie affects outer reality, because here we are assuming that the lie really has no control over it. Instead we are saying that lying involves a lack of sincerity, one’s attitude to one’s own thinking. {2} If instead we are concerned with how the lie affects reality, then our criticism is that by lying, we are “firing out ambiguities in the world” and thereby we “are unravelling the ground on which you yourself stand.” (20)]

 

[ditto]

If you put the emphasis on the inner self, you condemn the lie not for your impact on reality, since this is something over which you lack any control (it could always turn out differently); the lie is condemned as a lack of sincerity, i.e. your | attitude towards your own thinking. On the other hand, if you emphasize the effect, you are mainly referring to the destabilizing consequences of the lie on the outside world. By firing out ambiguities in the world, you are unravelling the ground on which you yourself stand.

(19-20)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography:

Breeur, Roland. Lies – Imposture – Stupidity. Vilnius: Jonas ir Jakubas, 2019.

The book can be purchased here.

 

Breeur’s academia.edu page and researchgate page.

.

 

 

.

Augustine on Time, Confessions Book 11, summary

by Corry Shores [Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]
[Central Entry Directory]
[Augustine, entry directory]

[The following is summary and quotation. All boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are mine. Proofreading is incomplete, so mistakes are still present.]

Augustine

Confessions

Book XI

 

Brief summary:
Time is mysterious. We know there is a present. But it passes. The future and past do not exist, but we remember and anticipate them. Can the present have a duration? But whatever its duration, there will always be within it a segment that is more present. Thus the present is momentary and the past and future do not exist. However, because we remember and anticipate them right now in the present, there is “a time present of things past; a time present of things present; and a time present of things future.” Another mystery is when God created the world and thus when time began. God could not have existed in a moment before it, because there was no time before it. But God is eternal, and eternity does not have successive moments. All its parts are simultaneous. God did not exist successively before creation, but creation is the product of him. These mysteries of time tell us of the greatness of God whose ways we can scarcely comprehend.

 

Summary

Quoting Outler’s summarization at the beginning:

The eternal Creator and the Creation in time. Augustine ties together his memory of his past life, his present experience, and his ardent desire to comprehend the mystery of creation. This leads him to the questions of the mode and time of creation. He ponders the mode of creation and shows that it was de nihilo and involved no alteration in the being of God. He then considers the question of the beginning of the world and time and shows that time and creation are cotemporal. But what is time? To this Augustine devotes a brilliant analysis of the subjectivity of time and the relation of all temporal process to the abiding eternity of God. From this, he prepares to turn to a detailed interpretation of Gen. 1:1, 2. [215]

 

Chapter I

 

§1

Augustine notes that God is eternal but his current appeals are temporal, and so he wonders if God can even hear them. [For, he might be somewhere else in time or even nowhere in time.]

Is it possible, O Lord, that, since thou art in eternity, thou art ignorant of what I am saying to thee? Or, dost thou see in time an event at the time it occurs? If not, then why am I recounting such a tale of things to thee? Certainly not in order to acquaint thee with them through me; but, instead, that through them I may stir up my own love and the love of my readers toward thee, so that all may say, “Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.” I have said this before406 and will say it again: “For love of thy love I do it.”
[155]

Chapter II

§2

Augustine confesses his ignorance of God’s divine law and how much he wants to meditate on it.

§3

He asks for mercy for his longing.

“Thine is the day and the night is thine as well.” At thy bidding the moments fly by. Grant me in them, then, an interval for my meditations on the hidden things of thy law, nor close the door of thy law against us who knock.

[...]

Let me drink from thee and “consider the wondrous things out of thy law”416--from the very beginning, when thou madest heaven and earth, and thenceforward to the everlasting reign of thy Holy City with thee.
[156]

§4

Augustine’s desire  for this knowledge comes from his love for God.

 

Chapter III

§5

Augustine wants to know how God created heaven and earth. Moses wrote of it, but he is dead now.

since I cannot inquire of Moses, I beseech thee, O Truth, from whose fullness he spoke truth; I beseech thee, my God, forgive my sins, and as thou gavest thy servant the gift to speak these things, grant me also the gift to understand them.
[157]

 

Chapter IV

§6

Because heaven and earth are changing, they must have been something different before. From this Augustine concludes they were created. [If something was always the same, then maybe it was always there without origin.]

Look around; there are the heaven and the earth. They cry aloud that they were made, for they change and vary. Whatever there is that has not been made, and yet has being, has nothing in it that was not there before. This having something not already existent is what it means to be changed and varied. Heaven and earth thus speak plainly that they did not make themselves: “We are, because we have been made; we did not exist before we came to be so that we could have made ourselves!” And the voice with which they speak is simply their visible presence.
[157]

Chapter V

§7

Augustine wonders how God created the world. Man creates by changing the shapes of things already given to him. But God creates from nothing. And from what place did he create them? God must have created solely by his word.

But how didst thou make them? How, O God, didst thou make the heaven and earth? For truly, neither in heaven nor on earth didst thou make heaven and earth--nor in the air nor in the waters, since all of these also belong to the heaven and the earth. Nowhere in the whole world didst thou make the whole world, because there was no place where it could be made before it was made. And thou didst not hold anything in thy hand from which to fashion the heaven and the earth, for where couldst thou have gotten what thou hadst not made in order to make something with it? Is there, indeed, anything at all except because thou art? Thus thou didst speak and they were made, and by thy Word thou didst make them all.
[158]

Chapter VI

§8

Augustine now wonders how God’s voice sounded out in creation. When announcing his son of God, it was a voice in time in the created world. But the eternal word that created the world could not be corporeal, because then something created would have preceded it. Augustine wonders if the word itself decreed that there be some source from which that word word be spoken?

And what these words were which were formed at that time the outer ear conveyed to the conscious mind, whose inner ear lay attentively open to thy eternal Word. But it compared those words which sounded in time with thy eternal word sounding in silence and said: “This is different; quite different! These words are far below me; they are not even real, for they fly away and pass, but the Word of my God remains above me forever.” If, then, in words that sound and fade away thou didst say that heaven and earth should be made, and thus madest heaven and earth, then there was already some kind of corporeal creature before heaven and earth by whose motions in time that voice might have had its occurrence in time. But there was nothing corporeal before the heaven and the earth; or if there was, then it is certain that already, without a time-bound voice, thou hadst created whatever it was out of which thou didst make the time-bound voice by which thou didst say, “Let the heaven and the earth be made!” For whatever it was out of which such a voice was made simply did not exist at all until it was made by thee. Was it decreed by thy Word that a body might be made from which such words might come?
[158]

Chapter VII

§9

It seems Augustine is saying that the eternal word never finished. It also seems Augustine is saying that although the eternal word is not temporally located, God does say other things which are.

Thou dost call us, then, to understand the Word--the God who is God with thee--which is spoken eternally and by which all things are spoken eternally. For what was first spoken was not finished, and then something else spoken until the whole series was spoken; but all things, at the same time and forever. For, otherwise, we should have time and change and not a true eternity, nor a true immortality. [...] But there is nothing in thy Word that passes away or returns to its place; for it is truly immortal and eternal. And, therefore, unto the Word coeternal with thee, at the same time and always thou sayest all that thou sayest. And whatever thou sayest shall be made is made, and thou makest nothing otherwise than by speaking. Still, not all the things that thou dost make by speaking are made at the same time and always.
[159]

Chapter VIII

§10

It seems here that Augustine is saying that because we see change, it tells us there must be an origin of change.

Why is this, I ask of thee, O Lord my God? I see it after a fashion, but I do not know how to express it, unless I say that everything that begins to be and then ceases to be begins and ceases when it is known in thy eternal Reason that it ought to begin or cease--in thy eternal Reason where nothing begins or ceases. And this is thy Word, which is also “the Beginning,” because it also speaks to us.424 Thus, in the gospel, he spoke through the flesh; and this sounded in the outward ears of men so that it might be believed and sought for within, and so that it might be found in the eternal Truth, in which the good and only Master teacheth all his disciples. There, O Lord, I hear thy voice, the voice of one speaking to me, since he who teacheth us speaketh to us. But he that doth not teach us doth not really speak to us even when he speaketh. Yet who is it that teacheth us unless it be the Truth immutable? For even when we are instructed by means of the mutable creation, we are thereby led to the Truth immutable. There we learn truly as we stand and hear him, and we rejoice greatly “because of the bridegroom’s voice,” restoring us to the source whence our being comes. And therefore, unless the Beginning remained immutable, there would then not be a place to which we might return when we had wandered away. But when we return from error, it is through our gaining knowledge that we return. In order for us to gain knowledge he teacheth us, since he is the Beginning, and speaketh to us.
[159]

Chapter IX

§11.

Augustine praises God.

“How wonderful are thy works, O Lord; in wisdom thou hast made them all.”428 And this Wisdom is the Beginning, and in that Beginning thou hast made heaven and earth.
[160]

Chapter X

§12

In this section Augustine raises the issue of what comes before creation, but more importantly, if the creation was the will of God, and that will is as eternal as he is, then why is the world not as eternal as he is? Why did he have to create it?

 

Chapter XI

§13

Augustine says that those who asks such questions do not understand how God creates things. They also do not understand the nature of eternity. It is not progressive time going on forever. To think that is to then be confused about beginnings and ends. In a long progressive time, what makes it long is that all the parts of that time are happen one after each other. But in eternity, the whole of time is simultaneous with itself.

They endeavor to comprehend eternal things, but their heart still flies about in the past and future motions of created things, and is still unstable. Who shall hold it and fix it so that it may come to rest for a little; and then, by degrees, glimpse the glory of that eternity which abides forever; and then, comparing eternity with the temporal process in which nothing abides, they may see that they are incommensurable? They would see that a long time does not become long, except from the many separate events that occur in its passage, which cannot be simultaneous. In the Eternal, on the other hand, nothing passes away, but the whole is simultaneously present. But no temporal process is wholly simultaneous. Therefore, let it see that all time past is forced to move on by the incoming future; | that all the future follows from the past; and that all, past and future, is created and issues out of that which is forever present. Who will hold the heart of man that it may stand still and see how the eternity which always stands still is itself neither future nor past but expresses itself in the times that are future and past? Can my hand do this, or can the hand of my mouth bring about so difficult a thing even by persuasion?
[161]

 

Chapter XII

§14

[God is eternal. This means ‘before’ and ‘after’ does not have the normal meaning in terms of succession. The whole of eternity is simultaneous with itself. So we cannot designate in eternity points where one thing comes before or after another thing.] We would be misunderstanding the nature of eternity if we asked what God was doing before he made heaven and earth.

 

Chapter XIII

§15

When God created the world, he created successive progressive time with it. There could not be a ‘before’ to is since no successivity existed until the world was created.

For in what temporal medium could the unnumbered ages that thou didst not make pass by, since thou art the Author and Creator of all the ages? Or what periods of time would those be that were not made by thee? Or how could they have already passed away if they had not already been? Since, therefore, thou art the Creator of all times, if there was any time before thou madest heaven and earth, why is it said that thou wast abstaining from working? For thou madest that very time itself, and periods could not pass by before thou madest the whole temporal procession. But if there was no time before heaven and earth, how, then, can it be asked, “What wast thou doing then?” For there was no “then” when there was no time. [161]

 

§16

For eternal God, all of time is altogether at once. His years do not pass but rather are always abiding. All of time for Him is an eternal today.

Nor dost thou precede any given period of time by another period of time. Else thou wouldst not precede all periods of time. In the eminence of thy everpresent eternity, thou precedest all times past, and extendest beyond all future times, for they are still to come--and when they have come, they will be past. But “Thou art always the Selfsame and thy years shall have no end.” Thy years neither go nor come; but ours both go and come in order that all separate moments may come to pass. All thy years stand together as one, since they are abiding. Nor do thy years past exclude the years to come because thy years do not pass away. All these years of ours shall be with thee, when all of them shall have ceased to be. Thy years are but a day, and thy day is not recurrent, but always today. Thy “today” | yields not to tomorrow and does not follow yesterday. Thy “today” is eternity. Therefore, thou didst generate the Coeternal, to whom thou didst say, “This day I have begotten thee.” Thou madest all time and before all times thou art, and there was never a time when there was no time.

 

Chapter XIV

§17

Augustine acknowledges that we have implicit knowledge of time, but we cannot say what it is.

For what is time? Who can easily and briefly explain it? Who can even comprehend it in thought or put the answer into words? Yet is it not true that in conversation we refer to nothing more familiarly or knowingly than time? And surely we understand it when we speak of it; we understand it also when we hear another speak of it.

What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know.
[162]

He then wonders about the present. The present must pass, or else it would be eternal. But what defines time is that it is passing away. But then its cause of being seems like a contradiction. The present comes to exist because it ceasing to exist.

But, then, how is it that there are the two times, past and future, when even the past is now no longer and the future is now not yet? But if the present were always present, and did not pass into past time, it obviously would not be time but eternity. If, then, time present--if it be time--comes into existence only because it passes into time past, how can we say that even this is, since the cause of its being is that it will cease to be? Thus, can we not truly say that time is only as it tends toward nonbeing?
[162]

 

Chapter XV

§18

We say that some time ago was long ago. [It seems Augustine is then saying that a period of time can only be long if it is present, perhaps because when it is past it no longer exists. Perhaps Augustine is saying that the present of which it was a part carried on for a long time. Please see for yourself:]

And yet we speak of a long time and a short time; but never speak this way except of time past and future. We call a hundred years ago, for example, a long time past. In like manner, we should call a hundred years hence a long time to come. But we call ten days ago a short time past; and ten days hence a short time to come. But in what sense is something long or short that is nonexistent? For the past is not now, and the future is not yet. Therefore, let us not say, “It is long”; instead, let us say of the past, “It was long,” and of the future, “It will be long.” And yet, O Lord, my Light, shall not thy truth make mockery of man even here? For that long time past: was it long when it was already past, or when it was still present? For it might have been long when there was a period that could be long, but when it was past, it no longer was. In that case, that which was not at all could not be long. Let us not, therefore, say, “Time past was long,” for we shall not discover what it was that was long because, since it is past, it no longer exists. Rather, let us say that “time present was long, because when it was present it was long.” For then it had not yet passed on so as not to be, and therefore it still was in a state that could be called long. But after it passed, it ceased to be long simply because it ceased to be.
[162]

§19

Augustine then points out that a long time cannot all be present. Only its most current part can be. [[This is a useful point for the discussion of Barry Dainton’s notion of the specious present. He claims that the present can have a length, and to say what Augustine is saying here that there must always be a privileged part of any duration that is present is called ‘presentism’]].

Is a hundred years when present a long time? But, first, see whether a hundred years can be present at once. For if the first year in the century is current, then it is present time, and the other ninety and nine are still future. Therefore, they are not yet. But, then, if the second year is current, one year is already past, the second present, and all the rest are future. And thus, if we fix on any middle year of this century as present, those before it are past, those after it are future. Therefore, a hundred years cannot be present all at once.

Let us see, then, whether the year that is now current can be present. For if its first month is current, then the rest are future; if the second, the first is already past, and the remainder are not yet. Therefore, the current year is not present all at once. And if it is not present as a whole, then the year is not present. For it takes twelve months to make the year, from which each individual month which is current is itself present one at a time, but the rest are either past or future.
[163]

§20

But the present cannot have any length, because that length would always have a smaller more present point within it. The present must then be a durationless moment.

Thus it comes out that time present, which we found was the only time that could be called “long,” has been cut down to the space of scarcely a single day. But let us examine even that, for one day is never present as a whole. For it is made up of twenty-four hours, divided between night and day. The first of these hours has the rest of them as future, and the last of them has the rest as past; but any of those between has those that preceded it as past and those that succeed it as future. And that one hour itself passes away in fleeting fractions. The part of it that has fled is past; what remains is still future. If any fraction of time be conceived that cannot now be divided even into the most minute momentary point, this alone is what we may call time present. But this flies so rapidly from future to past that it cannot be extended by any delay. For if it is extended, it is then divided into past and future. But the present has no extension whatever.

Where, therefore, is that time which we may call “long”? Is it future? Actually we do not say of the future, “It is long,” for it has not yet come to be, so as to be long. Instead, we say, “It will be long.” When will it be? For since it is future, it will not be long, for what may be long is not yet. It will be long only when it passes from the future which is not as yet, and will have begun to be present, so that there can be something that may be long. But in that case, time present cries aloud, in the words we have already heard, that it cannot be “long.”
[163]

 

Chapter XVI

§21

We measure time, even after it has passed. But Augustine also says that we cannot measure passed time, since it no longer exists. [I am not sure how it is we measure the present if it has no duration, unless we compare it with the past or future. So I am not sure what Augustine is saying here:]

And yet, O Lord, we do perceive intervals of time, and we compare them with each other, and we say that some are longer and others are shorter. We even measure how much longer or shorter this time may be than that time. And we say that this time is twice as long, or three times as long, while this other time is only just as long as that other. But we measure the passage of time when we measure the intervals of perception. But who can measure times past which now are no longer, or times future which are not yet--unless perhaps someone will dare to say that what does not exist can be measured? Therefore, while time is passing, it can be perceived and measured; but when it is past, it cannot, since it is not.
[163]

 

Chapter XVII

§22

But we have much reason to think that there does exist a past and future.

Who can say that there is only time present because the other two do not exist? Or do they also exist; but when, from the future, time becomes present, it proceeds from some secret place; and when, from times present, it becomes past, it recedes into some secret place? For where have those men who have foretold the future seen the things foretold, if then they were not yet existing? For what does not exist cannot be seen. And those who tell of things past could not speak of them as if they were true, if they did not see them in their minds. These things could in no way be discerned if they did not exist. There are therefore times present and times past.
[164]

 

Chapter XVIII

§23

So there is a past in future in some sense. But if they exist, they must be there somehow as present. When we remember something, that image is there presently to our mind. And it seems when we think about the future, it is also being conceived or imagined presently.

Give me leave, O Lord, to seek still further. O my Hope, let not my purpose be confounded. For if there are times past and future, I wish to know where they are. But if I have not yet succeeded in this, I still know that wherever they are, they are not there as future or past, but as present. For if they are there as future, they are there as “not yet”; if they are there as past, they are there as “no longer.” Wherever they are and whatever they are they exist therefore only as present. Although we tell of past things as true, they are drawn out of the memory--not the things themselves, which have already passed, but words constructed from the images of the perceptions which were formed in the mind, like footprints in their passage through the senses. My childhood, for instance, which is no longer, still exists in time past, which does not now exist. But when I call to mind its image and speak of it, I see it in the present because it is still in my memory. Whether there is a similar explanation for the foretelling of future events--that is, of the images of things which are not yet seen as if they were already existing--I confess, O my God, I do not know. But this I certainly do know: that we generally think ahead about our future actions, and this premeditation is in time present; but that the action which we premeditate is not yet, because it is still future. When we shall have started the action and have begun to do what we were premeditating, then that action will be in time present, because then it is no longer in time future.
[164]

§24

So we do not foresee the things themselves, rather we see their signs or causes existing presently.

Whatever may be the manner of this secret foreseeing of future things, nothing can be seen except what exists. But what exists now is not future, but present. When, therefore, they say that future events are seen, it is not the events themselves, for they do not exist as yet (that is, they are still in time future), but perhaps, instead, their causes and their signs are seen, which already do exist. Therefore, to those already beholding these causes and signs, they are not future, but present, and from them future things are predicted because they are conceived in the mind. These conceptions, however, exist now, and those who predict those things see these conceptions before them in time present.
[164]

 

Chapter XIX

§25

Augustine now asks how it is that God teaches the prophets of things in the future. [165]

Chapter XX

§26

So there are three times, past, present, and future, but only insofar as they are given in the present. It is more accurate to speak of a time present of things past; a time present of things present; and a time present of things future.

But even now it is manifest and clear that there are neither times future nor times past. Thus it is not properly said that there are three times, past, present, and future. Perhaps it might be said rightly that there are three times: a time present of things past; a time present of things present; and a time present of things future. For these three do coexist somehow in the soul, for otherwise I could not see them. The time present of things past is memory; the time present of things present is direct experience; the time present of things future is expectation. If we are allowed to speak of these things so, I see three times, and I grant that there are three. Let it still be said, then, as our misapplied custom has it: “There are three times, past, present, and future.” I shall not be troubled by it, nor argue, nor object-- always provided that what is said is understood, so that neither the future nor the past is said to exist now. There are but few things about which we speak properly-- and many more about which we speak improperly--though we understand one another’s meaning.
[165]

 

Chapter XXI

§27

We measure time, like from the past to know, as though it had extension. But we just said it does not have extension.

I have said, then, that we measure periods of time as they pass so that we can say that this time is twice as long as that one or that this is just as long as that, and so on for the other fractions of time which we can count by measuring.

So, then, as I was saying, we measure periods of time as they pass. And if anyone asks me, “How do you know this?”, I can answer: “I know because we measure. We could not measure things that do not exist, and things past and future do not exist.” But how do we measure present time since it has no extension? It is measured while it passes, but when it has passed it is not measured; for then there is nothing that could be measured. But whence, and how, and whither does it pass while it is being measured? Whence, but from the future? Which way, save through the present? Whither, but into the past? Therefore, from what is not yet, through what has no length, it passes into what is now no longer. But what do we measure, unless it is a time of some length? For we cannot speak of single, and double, and triple, and equal, and all the other ways in which we speak of time, except in terms of the length of the periods of time. But in what “length,” then, do we measure passing time? Is it in the future, from which it passes over? But what does not yet exist cannot be measured. Or, is it in the present, through which it passes? But | what has no length we cannot measure. Or is it in the past into which it passes? But what is no longer we cannot measure. [165-166]

 

Chapter XXII

§28

Our assessments of measured time have meaning, but how so given that time has no extension? Augustine pleads with God for this knowledge.

 

Chapter XXIII

§29

Some say that the motion of the heavenly bodies constitute time. But we can have ongoing cycles without them. And while they might measure time, we cannot thereby equate the two.

§30

There is an absolute sort of time, such that if the sun stopped moving, we could still count the ‘days’ that it has not moved, since it measures time and does not constitute its passage. So it seems time in a way is an extension, but how?

I see, then, that time is a certain kind of extension. But do I see it, or do I only seem to? Thou, O Light and Truth, wilt show me.
[167]

 

Chapter XXIV

§31

Some say that motion is time. But we measure also how long something is at rest.

 

Chapter XXV

§32

Augustine confesses his ignorance of how we measure time when time has no extension, pleading for God to enlighten him on the matter.

 

Chapter XXVI

§33

Augustine restates the question. How can we say that one duration is twice as long as another if neither extends and if both no longer exist?

 

Chapter XXVII

§34

Augustine again restate the problem. We measure an event after it happened. But it no longer exists.

§35

Augustine illustrates this problem with a phrase. It has short and long syllables. How is it that we measured them?

§36

The future is constantly moving into the past, making the past larger and the future shorter. “The past increases by the diminution of the future until by the consumption of all the future all is past.” [170]

 

Chapter XXVIII

§37

future time, which is nonexistent, is not long; but “a long future” is “a long expectation of the future.” Nor is time past, which is now no longer, long; a “long past” is “a long memory of the past.”
[170]

§38

Augustine now describes what happens when he repeats a Psalm. It is in his memory. And he anticipates saying it in the future. The future then carries over into the past, and yet his attention remained in the present the whole time. [171]

 

Chapter XXIX

§39

Augustine finds inspiration in God. [Perhaps the point here is that because God is eternal, he is always before us.]

Thus through him I may lay hold upon him in whom I am also laid hold upon; and I may be gathered up from my old way of life to follow that One and to forget that which is behind, no longer stretched out but now pulled together again--stretching forth not to what shall be and shall pass away but to those things that are before me.
[171]

 

Chapter XXX

§40

[It seems Augustine is no longer trying to get answers for his questions but is instead interesting in focusing on the divine reality of eternal time, which does not present these problems.]

 

Chapter XXXI

§41

[It seems again that the idea is that for eternal God, all times are one. Perhaps the overall message is that time as we experience presents us with mysteries whose inexplicability results from the fact that time was caused by something eternal, and perhaps for that reason it is an odd mixture of eternal impermanence and momentary change. What is most important is that we take these mysteries of the time we experience as pointing to the majesty of the eternal creator. By meditating on the unsolvable mysteries of time, our attention and appreciation are directed to God.]

For whatever is past and whatever is yet to come would be no more concealed from him than the past and future of that psalm were hidden from me when I was chanting it: how much of it had been sung from the beginning and what and how much still remained till the end. But far be it from thee, O Creator of the universe, and Creator of our souls and bodies--far be it from thee that thou shouldst merely know all things past and future. Far, far more wonderfully, and far more mysteriously thou knowest them. For it is not as the feelings of one singing familiar | songs, or hearing a familiar song in which, because of his expectation of words still to come and his remembrance of those that are past, his feelings are varied and his senses are divided. This is not the way that anything happens to thee, who art unchangeably eternal, that is, the truly eternal Creator of minds. As in the beginning thou knewest both the heaven and the earth without any change in thy knowledge, so thou didst make heaven and earth in their beginnings without any division in thy action. Let him who understands this confess to thee; and let him who does not understand also confess to thee! Oh, exalted as thou art, still the humble in heart are thy dwelling place! For thou liftest them who are cast down and they fall not for whom thou art the Most High.
[172]

 

 

Augustine. Confessions. Ed. and Trans. Albert C. Outler. First published MCMLV Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 55-5021 This book is in the public domain. It was scanned from an uncopyrighted edition. Available online here:
http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/augustine/conf.pdf
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/hum100/augustinconf.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

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