Augustinus

Facing charges of witchery, Apuleius defends himself by mentioning the name of the African village where one of his accusers, Sicinius Aemilianus, lives. The article begins with a summary of what should be known about the word (spelling, etymology, grammatical status) as well as the place it refers to.  It goes on to show how the utterance of the name is, in fact, used as a counterattack that aims to invalidate the charge of barbarism that faces the accused. The word, which is generally analyzed as a stroke of irony, covers though a complex game on the pronunciation of the accuser whose Punic accent is presented derisively, rather,  as a claim to the mastery of Attic Greek.This subtle game involves  making reference to authors brought back into fashion in the second century (Plautus, Catullus). In the end,  the paper  attempts to put into perspective this game on the  pronunciation of Sicinius Aemilianus in a reflection on the cultural identity of the sophist, who clearly rejects the Punic,  fetishizes Latin and carefully conceals his vernacular native language, the Libyan.

Naturrecht AUFSATZSAMMLUNG 19-3 Leibniz und das Naturrecht / hrsg. von Luca Basso.-Stuttgart : Steiner, 2019.-201 S. ; 24 cm.-(Studia Leibnitiana : Sonder-hefte ; 54).-ISBN 978-3-515-12288-7 : EUR 44.00 [#6467] Die Geschichte des Naturrechts ist lang, und in der Frühen Neuzeit machte diese Denkfigur grundlegende Änderungen durch. Immer aber blieb das Na-turrecht als eine Herausforderung bestehen, an der man sich rechtsphi-lophisch, politiktheoretisch oder auch theologisch abarbeiten mußte. Daher kann es nicht verwundern, daß viele Denker in einem mehr oder weniger engen Bezug zum naturrechtlichen Denken stehen, so eben auch Leibniz, dem der vorliegende Band 1-er geht auf einen Kongreß in Padua 2016 zu-rück-in der verdienstvollen Reihe der Sonderhefte der Studia Leibnitiana nachgeht. 2 Dabei stehen auch manche anderen Denker zur Diskussion, zu denen sich Leibniz in ein kritisches Verhältnis setzen mußte. So wird er denn auch hier im Zusammenhang mit dem Naturrecht konfrontiert mit Aristoteles, Augusti-1 Inhaltsverzeichnis: https://d-nb.info/1176674730/04 2 Zuletzt wurden besprochen: Leibniz and the European encounter with China : 300 years of "Discours sur la théologie naturelle des Chinois" / Wenchao Li (Hg.).-Stuttgart : Steiner, 2017.-295 S. ; 24 cm.-(Studia Leibnitiana : Sonderhefte ; 52).-ISBN 978-3-515-11733-3 : EUR 56.00 [#5645].-Rez.: IFB 18-2 http://informationsmittel-fuer-bibliotheken.de/showfile.php?id=9011-Leibniz im Lichte der Theologien / Wenchao Li ; Hartmut Rudolph (Hg.).-Stuttgart : Stei-ner, 2017.-345 S. ; 25 cm.-(Studia Leibnitiana : Supplementa ; 40).-ISBN 978-3-515-11465-3 : EUR 62.00 [#5215].-Rez.: IFB 18-2 http://informationsmittel-fuer-bibliotheken.de/showfile.php?id=9010-Leibniz in Latenz : Überlieferungsbildung als Rezeption (1716-1740) / Nora Gädeke ; Wenchao Li (Hg.).-Stuttgart : Stei-ner, 2017.-262 S. : Faks., Diagramme ; 24 cm.-(Studia Leibnitiana : Sonderhefte ; 50).-ISBN 978-3-515-11474-5 : EUR 46.00 [#5484],. Rez.: IFB 17-4 http://informationsmittel-fuer-bibliotheken.de/showfile.php?id=8729-Leibniz et Bayle : confrontation et dialogue / éd. par Christian Leduc ...-Stuttgart : Steiner, 2015.-452 S. ; 24 cm.-(Studia Leibnitiana : Sonderhefte ; 43).

Warum kann Augustinus die These, dass die Welt schon immer mit Gott existiert hat, nicht verteidigen? Im ersten Abschnitt werde ich Augustinus Theorie der Zeit und Schöpfung kurz rekonstruieren und einige Probleme vorstellen. Im zweiten Abschnitt werde ich die folgenden Fragen versuchen zu beantworten: warum kann Augustinus die These, dass die Welt schon immer mit Gott existiert hat, nicht verteidigen? Ich werde argumentieren, dass wir die Augustinus Zeittheorie im Hinblick auf ihr Schuld-Doktrin betrachten sollen und, dass Augustinus, obwohl kein philosophisches Argument und auch keine biblischen Beweise für die ex-nihilo Schöpfung hat, steht seine Verteidigung seiner Zeittheorie in Einklang mit seiner Schuld-Doktrin.

Au g ustinus bei echter Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar.

This is a course on a masterpiece in world literature, on a late 4 th-century text of Augustine. We will read closely the whole Confessions in which the author tells his story in the form of sequential conversions to the quest of wisdom (Cicero), Manichaeism, skepticism, neoplatonic philosophy, and catholic Christianity. The Confessions is the history of the schooling of the author's heart in the love of God, which is presented simultaneously as a narrative, introspection, theological reflection, philosophical scrutiny, and prayer. Course Goals: Students are expected to know the course of Augustine's life, his intellectual development, and the main themes that he considered in his Confessions.

Abstract: The article discusses Augustine's teaching on suicide, especially in the way he exposed it when a Christian facing despair is tempted to take his own life. In the first part, the article examines some basic aspects of Augus-tine's teaching on suicide in some of his works outside the letter 244. In a second part, the article presents an analytic reading Augustine's Letter 244 to Chrisimus. The article also discusses some important remarks to show the relevance of Augustine's recommendations nowadays.

El artículo presenta las enseñanzas de Agustín sobre el suicidio, especial-mente cuando un cristiano que debe afrontar momentos de dificultad se ve tentado por el suicidio. En la primera parte del artículo se estudian algunos aspectos básicos de la enseñanza de Agustín sobre el suicidio fuera de la ep. 244. En la segunda parte, el artículo presenta una lectura analítica de la ep. 244 de Agustín a Crísimo. El artículo presenta finalmente algunas aplica-ciones del pensamiento de Agustín sobre el suicidio a nuestros días. Palabras clave: Suicidio, ep. 244 de Agustín, esperanza cristiana.

Like most intellectuals of late antiquity, whether pagan or Christian, Augustine thinks that true happiness has to be independent from bodily and external goods. He therefore tends to accept the originally Stoic paradox that ‘virtue is self-sufficient for happiness’. In the framework of his thought this principle is however problematic because of his strictly eschatological understanding of happiness and because he thinks that salvation depends not on human endeavour but exclusively on God’s grace. In this paper it is argued that while he rejects the principle of self-sufficiency in its Stoic or Ciceronian version, he accepts it for both the present and the future life under the condition that virtue is redefined as right love, i.e. the love of God. This version of the principle can be reconciled with the doctrine of grace if we consider that grace is not the reward but the presupposition of virtue.

İran Mektuplarını, Montesquieu’nun kurguladığı bağlamda, İran’dan yola çıkarak dünyanın farklı coğrafyalarına dağılan ve oradaki durumla alakalı önemli bilgiler aktaran(özellikle sosyal ve siyasi hayat bağlamında) karakterlerin mektuplarını sistematik bir biçimde ele alacağız. İran Mektupları incelenirken referans alınacak kitaplar özellikle, Augustinus’un ‘’İtiraflar’’ ve Carlo Ginzburg’un ‘’Tahta Gözler’’  adlı eserleri olacaktır. Bu iki eserin içinde bulunan zaman ve mekâna algılamalarını, örnek olarak seçilmiş mektupların içinde arayacağız...

Ein Essay über die Macht der Wahrheit und Lüge in der Politik, der sich an den Schlagworten der „postfaktischen Demokratie“ und „Postwahrheitspolitik“ – drastischen Erosions- und Verfallserscheinungen der kollektiven Wirklichkeits- und Wahrheitsorientierung – orientiert. Diese Verfallsdiagnose schließt an die an die älteren Schlagworte der Postdemokratie bzw. Postpolitik an, so dass seit rund drei Jahrzehnten ein gravierender Partizipations- und Legitimitätsverlust demokratischer Gemeinschaften thematisiert wird, der sich an verschiedenen Dimensionen der Politikverdrossenheit offenbare: dem Misstrauen gegenüber politischen Agenden, Parteien und demokratischen Verfahren, dem Erstarken populistischer Bewegungen und antipolitischer Haltungen, dem allgemeinen Verfall der politischen Kommunikation und neuerdings an der zunehmenden Akzeptanz unverhohlener Lügen und Lügner in der Politik. Dieses faktische Auseinanderdriften von Demokratie als Herrschafts- und als Lebensform wirft mit Blick auf das konstatierte Phänomen des Postfaktischen eine Reihe von normativen Fragen auf, die die ethischen und epistemischen Grundlagen der Demokratie betreffen. Diese praktisch-politischen und normativ-philosophischen Beunruhigungen sind der Ausgangspunkt für meine Überlegungen, mit denen ich die vielbeschworene Krise der liberalen Demokratie als eine Krise der Wahrheit zu interpretieren vorschlage.

E n 1015, l'évêque germanique Bernward d'Hildesheim fait réaliser une immense porte de bronze couverte de seize panneaux narratifs, qui racontent l'histoire du monde à la fois comme un récit factuel et comme une explication de l'avènement des choses. Ces images invitent le spectateur à un voyage initiatique dans la matière et le temps. Elles inter-rogent sur le sens de la vie, la responsabilité, le don, la violence, l'engendre-ment, dans une vision humaniste tissée d'héritages antiques et de croyances propres à la riche culture du haut Moyen Âge. Ce faisant, Bernward propose un chemin de conversion intérieure, de la peur vers la lumière de la connais-sance. Ce parcours est restitué par Isabelle Marchesin en une passionnante enquête visuelle dans laquelle l'auteure scrute aussi bien les personnages que les végétaux et les édifices, les gestes et les substances. Le lecteur y est accompagné pas à pas jusqu'à se voir révéler, par le jeu des ressemblances, des dissemblances et des métamorphoses, la raison d'être d'une telle créa-tion. Une plongée au coeur du Moyen Âge à travers une histoire totale de l'art médiéval et de ses images. Isabelle MARCHESIN, maître de conférences habilitée à diriger des recherches à l'université de Poitiers, est spécialiste des images médiévales. Ses recherches l'ont conduite à s'intéresser à la figuration du son musical dans les enluminures, à l'exégèse visuelle et à la théorie de la vision, à la géométrie proportionnelle et aux liens entre sciences et figurations, en particulier pour l'époque carolingienne et ottonienne. Elle est actuellement conseillère scientifique pour l'art des IV e-XV e siècles à l'Institut national d'histoire de l'art.

Mit wechselnden Strategien verteidigt die Philosophie bis heute ihre Form der Erkenntnis gegenüber den konkurrierenden Erkenntnisidealen der empirischen Wissenschaften. Es geht ihr letztlich um eine Wahrheit, die allen Menschen zugänglich ist, um eine Erfahrung, die alle teilen können. Um eine befreiende Wissenspraxis, die sich gegen die Bevormundung durch wissenschaftliche und politische Experten wendet.
Der vorliegende Band untersucht die historischen Weichenstellungen im Selbstverständnis der Philosophie: die Entstehung der antiken Erkenntnispraxis, sowie deren Krise angesichts des Erfolgs der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaften. Aber vor allem wie Philosophen erneut ihren Anspruch auf eine eigene Form der Erfahrung begründeten.
Dank seiner klaren Sprache eignet sich „Die Erfahrung der Philosophen“ auch als eine historische Einführung in die Philosophie und ihre Methoden.

Novamente, agradeço aos Profs. Drs. Carlos Arthur Ribeiro do Nascimento e Luis Alberto De Boni, pela generosidade sempre presente em nossos contatos, pelas indicações e sugestões críticas, leituras, partilha de textos e, não poderia deixar de fazer notar, pelas boas conversas com o Prof. De Boni, altas horas em rede social, no fuso anterior e trocado de Padova...rs À Profa. Dra. Paula Oliveira e Silva e ao Prof. Dr. Marcos Roberto Nunes Costa, pela acolhida de textos de minhas pesquisas junto à Ciuitas Augustiniana, bem como pelas observações sempre valiosas e instigantes. Ao Prof. Dr. Giovanni Catapano, pela receptividade em nossas tentativas de contato, bem como pelo interesse em nossas pesquisas e textos publicados, com preciosas informações e sugestões. Aos amigos Rogério Silva e Roney Andrade, respectivamente gerentes das Livrarias Loyola e Vozes, agradeço pelos anos todos de amizade, atenção, apoio, indicações e troca de informações, pelo esforço na publicação de nossos textos, e pelos descontos sempre atraentes nos livros, claro...rs Por fim, minha gratidão a familiares e pessoas amigas que, nesse período, estiveram comigo ombro a ombro: meu tio Antonio Vítor Petrucci dos Santos (a quem dedico esta pesquisa), meus primos Odorico Luis Petrucci dos Santos Neto, Rosana Petrucci dos Santos

Katolik Hıristiyanlığın en önemli teorisyenlerinden biri olan ve 1303 yılında Papa VIII. Boniface tarafından aziz ilân edilen Augustinus (354-430), felsefe ve teoloji arasında kesin bir ayrım görmemiş, felsefeyi Hıristiyanlığın inanç öğelerini temellendirmek için bir araç olarak kullanmıştır. En önemli eserleri arasında yer alan Îtiraflar, Hıristiyanlık Öğretisi, Gerçek Din Üzerine ve Tanrı Devleti gibi eserlerinde "İnanmak için anlamak gerekir, anlamak için îmân etmek!" mottosuyla yaptığı Kitâbı Mukaddes yorumlarıyla Katolisizmi şekillendirmiş, ilk günâh öğretisini Manicilik ve paganlıkla mücâdele amacıyla kendi perspektifinden yorumlamıştır. Roma İmparatorluğu'nun yıkılmasıyla sonuçlanacak gelişmeleri paganlığın terk edilerek Hıristiyanlığa geçilmesiyle ilişkilendiren paganlar ve kendi varlıklarından bile şüphe duyan akademiacılar karşısında Hıristiyanlığı savunmuştur. Eserlerinde kullanmak üzere Grek ve Latin klasiklerinin yanı sıra, döneminin hemen tüm bilimlerini incelemiş, insan doğası ve din arasındaki ilişkiye dâir yaptığı değerlendirmelerle düşünce târihinde pek çok araştırmacıyı etkilemiştir. Gençliğinde benimsediği Manicilik'in etkisiyle Tanrı'ya ulaşmak için dünyâdan ve dünyevî zevklerden tümüyle uzak durmayı hayat tarzı hâline getirmiş, insanın Tanrı'yla ilişkisi hakkında görüş ve düşünceleriyle Katolisizmin en büyük teorisyenlerinden biri hâline gelmiştir. 1

En esta ponencia se examina el papel que juegan los sentidos en la descripción del conocimiento de Dios en algunos pasajes del obispo de Hipona y, en especial, algunas descripciones que hacen uso de metáforas "gustativas" (tropología del gusto).

The legend of the disappearance and apotheosis of the first king of Rome is a problematic case for the ancient historians, some of which do not hesitate to present doubts about the contents of tradition and attempt a rationalistic interpretation of the fact. In civ. 3,15 Augustine treats the episode with a discussion similar to a scholastic quaestio: he refers the opinion of Cicero on re p. 2,17-20, the first to separate historical reality and celebratory superstructures, praises objectivity but with new arguments affirms his own point of view to define also in this way the distance between pagan orientation and the Christian vision of history. Moreover, the comparison between the Augustinian text and Livy 1,16, also known in ancient times in scholastic practice, shows that Augustine, in relation to Romulus, does not want to reconstruct events as a historiographer, but to evaluate them from a cultural point of view; the corresponding synthetic version of Florus (1,1), from which some isolated elements of style seem to pass to Augustinian prose, offers other elements for evaluating the readings of the Bishop of Hippo and his method of selecting sources.

This review article explores a new indispensable reference work on the reception of
Augustine. It offers an overview of its content, structure, and methodology, as well as
a critical assessment of its overall contribution to the study of Augustine. Goethe once
remarked that, in the world, there are just a few voices, yet so many echoes. Augustine
is definitely among the ‘few voices’, which have provoked all manner of friendly and
unfriendly echoes. It is particularly important to realize that, apart from explicit
citations and references in western literature, Augustine has also profoundly shaped
medieval and modern culture through the subtle dissemination of his ideas into various
spheres of life. This reference work not only provides a description of the current state
of the reception of Augustine, but also adds the new results of the diligent work of the
contributing researchers and identifies several topics that still need to be investigated.

The paper is the draft of an introduction (+ the Italian translation of the letters) for the letters written by Jan Hus in his detention (November 1414-July 1415) in Constance. Please get in touch  for the text (still unpublished, to be published within the year with Marsilio).

ÖZET:
Aristoteles’in insanı “konuşan hayvan” olarak gören bakış açısından hareketle Friedrich Nietzsche’nin “insanı aşma” amacı “dili aşma” amacı şeklinde yeniden yorumlanmalıdır. Nietzsche, dili dille aşmak için susma kabiliyetinin merkezi bir rol oynadığı yeni bir konuşma bulmuştur. Nietzsche’yi bir ‘kentaur’dan bir ‘yalıçapkını’na çeviren, yani sanatın, bilimin ve felsefenin melez bir konuşmasının sözcüsünden sonsuz dinginlik içinde hayatın derin ıstırabını ve neşesini şakıyan bir deniz kuşuna dönüştüren onun sessizlik ustalığıydı. Bu makale, Nietzsche’nin yazılarındaki “sessizlik” (Schweigen) kavramının metinlerarası bir okuması yoluyla filozofun dilin aşılması amacında esaslı öneme sahip farklı sessizlik türlerini ortaya koymayı ve sadece ne hakkında konuşmadığını değil, aynı zamanda konuşmasında nasıl sustuğunu da göstererek onun “sessiz konuşma”sının temel niteliklerini açıklamayı amaçlamaktadır. Susuşun köle ve efendi ahlaklarına ait iki ana türü birbirinden ayrıldıktan sonra Nietzsche’nin “kış uykusu” ve “tefekkür” olarak kavramsallaştırdığı “çileci sessizliği” dili aşma amacıyla nasıl uyguladığı gösterilmekte, felsefesi karşısında çağdaşlarının benimsediği sessizlik ile dönemin siyaseti hakkındaki düşmanca suskunluğu ele alınmaktadır. Nietzsche’nin öznel, kısa ve öz, yumuşak ve yüksekten konuşma üslubunu irdeleyen bu makale, “aynının bengi dönüşü” fikrinde en mükemmel ifadesini bulan sessiz konuşmasının felsefesinin metafizik yanına denk düştüğünü iddia etmektedir.

In his De imaginatione, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola argues that men are not rational animals but animals slaves of their imaginations. Under the impulse of these imaginations -he explains -they think and act. Pico also writes that the imagination is the cause of false judgments and vain opinions, especially in philosophy. This idea seems a phisophical mistake because the imagination is considered the unique responsible for defects of wrong propositions, even if it is not evidently the faculty from which proceeds the emission of the judgment, that depends rather on reason and intellect. This paper attempts to investigate the association between imagination and falsehood, immediately before and immediately after the De imaginatione, to understand if the thesis by Pico is really just a mistake. My research has shown that the idea that the imagination is a cause of falsehood is already present in medieval philosophy (explained by Thomas and Augustine). However, medieval philosophers never confuse the activity of imagination with the task of reason and intellect. In the Renaissance, instead, something changes, because there is the linguistic habit to use the terms imaginationes, phantasiae and similar as synonyms of vain or unreliable opinion. So in my paper I argue that the study of De imaginatione can be useful to analyse the philosophical reasons of this change. Nelle numerose storie filosofiche di fantasia e/o immaginazione i capitoli, o pure solo i cenni critici, relativi a Umanesimo e Rinascimento rendono tutti conto di uno stesso dato. Tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento -si avvisa -il concetto di imaginatio trasloca, quanto ai suoi più frequenti impieghi, dall'ambito della psicologia e della gnoseologia alla metafisica e alla cosmologia, uscendone 'potenziato'. Non designa più, semplicemente, una facoltà dell'animo a metà tra sensibilità e intelletto, ma una forza mediatrice tra individuo e mondo, capace di sintonizzare il primo sulle modalità operative dei principi che reggono il secondo. Dei suoi prodotti poi, le imaginationes, non interessa soprattutto la funzione, per i meccanismi della conoscenza ordinaria, di ingranaggi indispensabili nel passaggio dall'immediatezza della percezione all'universalità richiesta al sapere scientifico, ma si esalta l'eccezionale possibilità di farne dei 164 Lucia Pappalardo trasmettitori, in un codice più vicino ai sensi, delle idee che sono legge e trama intelligibile dell'essere, altrimenti inaccessibili alle menti umane 1 .

The verse from the Song of Songs, " I am black and beautiful " , quoted by Tyconius in the Rule II of his work Liber regularum, represents a famous passage considered a characteristic of his concept of the bipartite church. The African Donatist lay theologian became famous mostly for his seven rules of the interpretation of Scriptures as well as for his arduous critique of the Donatists who denied the universality of the church and limited her exclusively to the territory of North Africa. The aim of the present article is to analyse to which extent Augustine had got use of Tyconius's book in the period of his polemic with the Donatists, and whether its reading could, eventually, have stood at the origin of his choice of biblical texts, the ones he commented on as a preacher between the years 406–407. In the selected texts I have observed a certain predilection for a particular set of scriptural quotations used both as an argument and as an illustration to support Augustine's and Tyconius's thought concerning the universal-ity of the church. Despite the fact that we have no direct proofs about the inspiration sources of Augustine's anti-Donatist preaching between the years 406–407, the similarities in the use of scriptural citations used by both authors show that Tyconius's Book of Rules might have stood at the origin of Augustine's inspiration and argumentation. However, it does not prove a direct influence of Tyconius on Augustine's teaching on the ecclesia permixta and on the ecclesiastical tolerance since the bishop of Hippo, unlike Tyconius, does not see the church as a twofold body, rather he understands it as a mixture in which the good and the bad are in time mixed in together.

This article, for the first time, analyzes one of Augustine’s sermons in order to find out to what extent he was acquainted with Mani and his teachings. Once again it turns out that the former Manichaean auditor was very well acquainted with Manichaean belief and practice. One piece of data in sermo 182, namely that Manichaeans could make polemical use of the expression Libera nos a malo in the Lord’s prayer, even seems to be unique.

The article aims to give an overall overview of St Augustine's attitude towards the Gnostic-Christian Manichaeans. First, a historical overview, mainly based on his Confessions, outlines Augustine's acquaintance with the members of the Manichaean Church and his familiarity with their writings. Second, the place of the Manichaeans in a considerable number of Augustine's other works is discussed. It is in particular in his many anti-Manichaean writings that the Church Father displays his intimate knowledge of the Manichaeans' myth and their doctrines. Third, a summary is given of the research on the impact of the Manichaeans on Augustine. It is concluded that, from his early years onwards and to the very end of his life, the Manichaean Christians were a real and powerful force to him.

La vicenda del martirio di Perpetua, narrata nella relativa Passio, è molto presente nell’immaginario e nella pratica liturgica delle prime comunità cristiane, soprattutto in Africa, e viene trattata da Agostino in serm. 280-282 e serm. 1 Erfurt. Il presente saggio intende illustrare come lo scrittore interpreti la vicenda con una particolare attenzione a presentare il personaggio principale e i compagni non soltanto badando a esigenze pastorali ma con cura stilistica ed efficacia compositiva, e indaga costanti e peculiarità rinvenibili nei diversi testi, cercando di evidenziare la personalità di Agostino scrittore.

review of A. Hoffmann, Augustinus, De utilitate credendi / Über den Nutzen des Glaubens, Freiburg etc. 1992 & A. Hoffmann, Augustins Schrift De utilitate credendi: Einleitung, Übersetzung, Kommentar, Diss. Münster 1991, in: Vigiliae Christianae. A Review of Early Christian Life and Language 47 (1993) 288-291;

Augustinus De Civitate Dei ya da Türkçesiyle Tanrı Devleti’ni Vizigotların 410’da Roma kentini istila edip yağmalamasını imparatorluğun Hıristiyanlığa dönmesinin lanetine bağlayanlara karşı Hıristiyanlığı savunmak için yazdı. Bu eseri felsefe tarihinde önemli kılan biri çökmekte, diğeri ise yükselişe geçmekte olan iki farklı dünya anlayışının tam ortasında, ikincisinin meşruiyetini sadece teolojik kanıtlara değil, aynı zamanda ilkinin politik ve toplumsal kusurlarının yeni din anlayışıyla birlikte ortadan kaldırılmakta olduğu iddiasına dayandırıyor olmasıdır.

Ortaçağ düşüncesinde, "inanma" ile "bilme" etkinliklerinin sınırları belirsizleşmiştir. Bu durumun ortaya çıkmasında en önemli etkiye sahip düşünür, herhalde, inancını felsefî bilgi aracılığıyla gerekçelendirmeye çalışan Augustinus'tur. Onun bu tutumu, "olduğu bilinen" ile "olduğuna inanılan"ın, "bilgi" ile "inanç"ın birbirinin içine geçmesine öncülük eder. Bu durum kendisini özellikle onun varlık ve bilgi felsefesinde gösterir.