Before I even get into any interpretation of the writings of Augustine I will admit that I didn't really understand what he was trying to illustrate but here is my interpretation anyway. Augustine's writings are quite different from the other Greek philosophers that have been discussed as part of this course. He doesn't really get into the ideas of beauty in the writings assigned. Instead, he seems to try and illustrate a path toward morality and truth that centers around God.

He says that the senses are misleading when it comes to searching for the truth of things. The senses cause people to experience delight and enjoyment, but it provides nothing beyond that initial reaction. In this way, people become too wrapped up in the pleasure provided through sensory perception to see beyond the object of delight to the truth. In contemporary society Augustine's warnings about sensory pleasure as a distraction have been extremely illustrated in psychology experiments where the pleasure centers of the brain are stimulated. These people have been so caught up in the pleasurable sensation of these experiments that they would have forgone eating just to experience the pleasure.

To be able to see truth and go towards the path to divinity, Augustine says that a person has to see beyond the sensory pleasures and understand what the underlying meaning of the object is. This is where reason becomes the key factor in Augustine's theory on the path to truth. Reason serves as the interpreter of the senses. As Augustine points out, delight of the senses and delight through the senses are two totally different things (pg. 176).

To illustrate his point, Augustine takes each of the senses as separate elements. For example, hearing as a sense itself is just a bunch of sounds. Once reason is applied to these sounds they turn into symbols of something greater. It is only by transcending the initial sensory pleasure that any meaning can be ascertained. After applying reason to all the senses, Augustine explains literature, music, and geometry.

All of these concepts do not rely on any physical object and are, in Augustine's theory, preferred to any of the arts that use physical objects. As mentioned before, the physical object can lead one away from the truth by confusing reason with sensory pleasure. Hence, a hierarchy is established that places literature at the top of the arts. Like the other philosophers I have written about, this places the liberal arts in a secondary position because it can serve as a sensory distraction. Still, Augustine recognizes that the arts can serve an important purpose if they are created so that they can be interpreted by reason similarly to literature. Since he is approaching this from a religious standpoint, works of art that harmonize with the truth of God are the best works.

Within this definition, I find a slight problem. What exactly is the truth of God? The scriptures can be interpreted in a variety of ways. That is why there is so much division within Christianity. Therefore, a useful piece of art in one church may be total garbage to another church. Where does that place the artwork that is based on the ‘truth'?

The final point that I'd like to discuss is the concept of number. Augustine's illustration of reason applied to the senses turns the experience into an order and rhythm. He realizes that this interpretation places an understanding of numbers at the top of the skills necessary to find truth. He speculates that it may be a certain number which will be the discloser of universal truth (pg. 181). In physics, string theories are trying to find an underlying force that ties all the known forces together in a coherent way. The answers to the questions surrounding this problem would essentially explain the interactions of everything we currently understand. Physicists have a great understanding of numbers as mathematics is the language of this science. Does this, according to Augustine, place these scientists closer to the truth of God than religious leaders, who just rely on faith?

I think that measuring the arts by Christian standards excludes some very valid art. Offhand, the measure and proportion Augustine endorses disregards art that uses an aesthetic of unbalance as a tool to illustrate the underlying point. A just Christian view also excludes other artistic viewpoints that reveal concepts that may be just as important.