AUGUSTINE'S INTEREST IN SCEPTICAL ARGUMENTS

It is necessary to consider Augustine's treatment of scepticism for two reasons: historically it enables us to evaluate an important and ongoing aspect of his intellectual growth; philosophically it helps us to understand the claims he wants to make about the importance of belief as distinct from knowledge, and the priority of understanding to both. It is principally on Cicero's Academics that Augustine's writings on scepticism, and more generally on epistemology, depend. Such material was not available in the Neoplatonic texts with which he became familiar. His knowledge of Plato's Meno and Theaetetus was derivative, and he knew nothing of Aristotle's Analytics or of any Stoic or Sceptic epistemological texts in Greek.

We get to know, at least in part, by communicating with other people. Augustine's account of given signs shows that he held such communication to be flawed, but not impossible, in our fallen condition. Speakers are able to express at least part of what they wish to express, though hearers will not necessarily be able to understand them. If we want to pursue the matter further, therefore, we must consider the learning capacities of the hearer, or rather not only his learning capacities qua hearer (or reader), but more widely how Augustine supposed that he acquires beliefs, information and understanding of a variety of types of subject-matter.