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Ideas for 'Saundaranandakavya', 'On Copernicanism and Relativity of Motion' and 'works'

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2 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
Our images of bodies are not produced by the bodies, but by our own minds [Augustine, by Aquinas]
     Full Idea: Augustine says bodies don't form images in our spirit; our spirit does that itself with amazing quickness. ...So the appearances under which mind knows things aren't drawn from the things themselves.
     From: report of Augustine (works [c.415]) by Thomas Aquinas - Quodlibeta 8.2.1
     A reaction: This is Augustine's theory of 'illumination' - that God creates experience within us. His theory was soon discarded by the early scholastics.
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
Our minds grasp reality by direct illumination (rather than abstraction from experience) [Augustine, by Matthews]
     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.
     From: report of Augustine (works [c.415]) by Gareth B. Matthews - Augustine 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?