They return from the meal to find Licentius composing poetry. During the meal, Licentius has got up to sing. Augustine wishes him well in his pursuit of poetics, but wishes he would spend more time on philosophy.
Augustine and Alypius get back into their argument again: does the wise man know that he knows wisdom? Alypius tries the "seems" trick again, but Augutine doesn't bite. So Alypius agrees that a wise man knows wisdom--by definition. Augustine then asks if "the wise man can be found?" [3.4.10]. If he can't be found then the debate is over, but if he can be found, all questions are settled (presumably not the "how?" however).
For Augustine what this means is that either wisdom can't be identified, and that it is nothing, or that reason, as configured in the human mind, can't detect wisdom. Alypius counters that this does not mean the whole project of the Academicians should be thrown out, their withholding of assent is still important.
Assent should not be given because someday the position one holds now can be proven false, argues Alypius. Augustine rebuts that Alypius has just proven his point that the Academicians are beat. Augustine asks--will the Academicians say you should not assent to the truth? No, they would say that the truth can be found (and if found, assented to). To find the truth, then, one must be guided by divine spirit (something Alypius said back in 3.5). Augustine returns to poetry and the image of Proteus. Proteus, in Virgil's Georgics, is a figure of truth. Proteus reminds us not to be deceived by false images nor deceived through the senses. Augustine is happy that they agree so much using Cicero's definition of frienship as "accord," he finishes by launching into a monologue.
AUGUSTINE'S MONOLOGUE
Augustine first critiques the pomposity of the Academicians.
He then moves on to critique the idea that we can't know anything by suggesting that even if we are uncertain, we still know something.
Augustine then argues that even though the Academicians argue that perception is misleading we are not wrong when we identify what we see as world. So, what seems so to us is world. Augustine argues here for a kind of univocity in that even if we are asleep or insane we are both of these things in world. The world gives us information mediated by laws--so seeing a bent bar in the water is truth because the water effects the bar and gives us certain kinds of visual information--it seems bent. If it appeared straight, we would say this is false (though what Augustine is not exactly explaining is how we know that the visual trick of the water's refracting powers is truth to begin with). Augustine calls these things that interfere as ""intervening causes"--so seeing things refracted is not "wrong" because we know about intervening causes. In other words, it doesn't seem right, but it is because of these intervening causes. Truth is external to our biases.
The senses, then, give us kinds of truth. But, Augustine asks what do they contribute to our search for truth? Augustine argues that individual senses will always give pleasure or displeasure to the individual but the highest good will still be found with the mind.
Augustine then defends dialectics in finding truth. A man can't be happy and sad. If there is one sun, then, there can't be two. The same soul couldn't not die and be immortal. Augustine returns to the problem of the Academicians and perception as it relates to wisdom. A simplified version would run: if a wise man identified something as wisdom, why would he say no to it? A wise man is assenting to more than "mere opinion" [3.14]. Wisdom isn't nothing.
Augustine goes on to argue that someone who assents to nothing, does nothing. This is a similar argument in Dante's Inferno with the Neutrals. These people did nothing in life, they stood still. In death, they are wanted neither by Heaven nor Hell and condemned to always be in motion--stung by wasps and flies, following a blank banner. For Dante, it would have been better if they would have chosen Hell than to have done nothing in life. Dante laments that there are so many. For Augustine, as well, this constant deferring of assent is as good as standing still. One must assent as part of the search for wisdom.
I'll conclude with Against the Academicians in the next post.
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