Augustine and the Philosophers in Confessions, Book V: A Metaphilosophical Analysis

This article analyses in detail all references to philosophers in Book V of Augustine’s Confessions. The philosophers Augustine refers to are of two types. First, there are astronomers, whose theories seemed much more probable to the narrated Augustine than the Manichaean myths concerning the sun and moon. However, these philosophers/astronomers are criticised by the narrating Augustine for remaining locked within their secular wisdom, failing to recognise the divine Word, and falling into idolatry. Second, there are the Academic sceptics, to whom the narrated Augustine gave primacy among the ancient philosophical schools by virtue of their universal scepticism, which for the narrating Augustine was actually only apparent. The assumption of a probabilistic criterion inspired by Academic scepticism was one of the factors that led Augustine to abandon Manichaeism. The general conclusion this article comes to is that in Book V of the Confessions, Augustine presents his spiritual experience between Carthage, Rome, and Milan in 382-384 as marked by a philosophical tension and responding to an essentially coherent logic – that of a search for wisdom that could not be dissociated from faith in the salvific role of Christ. His philosophy, therefore, was destined from the beginning to join with the Christian religion.