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Full Idea
Instead of supposing that what we know can be abstracted from sensible particulars that instantiate such knowledge, Augustine insists that our mind is so constituted as to see 'intelligible realities' directly by inner illumination.
Gist of Idea
Our minds grasp reality by direct illumination (rather than abstraction from experience)
Source
report of Augustine (works [c.415]) by Gareth B. Matthews - Augustine p.74
Book Ref
'Shorter Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Craig,Edward [Routledge 2005], p.74
A Reaction
His 'theory of illumination'. This seems to be a sort of super-rationalism. This doesn't make clear the role of sensations. Surely he doesn't thing that we just bypass them?
Related Idea
Idea 22128 Augustine's 'illumination' theory of knowledge leads to nothing but scepticism [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
| 22167 | Our images of bodies are not produced by the bodies, but by our own minds [Augustine, by Aquinas] |
| 4348 | Love, and do what you will [Augustine] |
| 22117 | Our minds grasp reality by direct illumination (rather than abstraction from experience) [Augustine, by Matthews] |
| 22118 | Augustine created the modern concept of the will [Augustine, by Matthews] |
| 7821 | Pagans produced three hundred definitions of the highest good [Augustine, by Grayling] |
| 22119 | Augustine said (unusually) that 'ought' does not imply 'can' [Augustine, by Matthews] |
| 22116 | Augustine identified Donatism, Pelagianism and Manicheism as the main heresies [Augustine, by Matthews] |
| 19338 | Augustine said evil does not really exist, and evil is a limitation in goodness [Augustine, by Perkins] |