Rosemann, Philipp W. (2020) The Creative Word: Reflections on the Augustinian Episteme. Maynooth Philosophical Papers, 10. pp. 97-115. ISSN 2009-7751

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Abstract

Book XI of his Confessions contains Augustine’s celebrated ‘treatise’ on time. In reality, however, the ‘treatise’ is no such thing, but rather an integral part of a discussion of God’s creation through the Word: if God creates by speaking, as Scripture affirms, then how can God speak, given the fact that he must be thought not to be subject to time? What is a timeless word? While these are the questions that Augustine explicitly addresses in Book XI, there is something very important that he does not justify at all: namely, the possibility of speaking the world into existence. My paper investigates the episteme within which such a claim can make sense. How must one conceive of the relationship between the world and words to be able to assume that the latter can ‘make’ the former?

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Book XI; Confessions; Augustine; treatise on time; episteme;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Arts & Humanities > Philosophy
Item ID:	15423
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.5840/mpp20208249
Depositing User:	Philipp W. Rosemann
Date Deposited:	07 Feb 2022 15:11
Journal or Publication Title:	Maynooth Philosophical Papers
Publisher:	Maynooth University Department of Philosophy
Refereed:	Yes
URI:
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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