Recollecting the infinite: refining and defending St Augustine's constructivist account of memory and imagination via contemporary cognitive neuroscience

Two questions motivate this thesis. First, what is the theological significance of constructivist dimension of Augustine of Hippo’s account of memory (and expectation)? Second, despite historical and contemporary challenges to constructivism, can Augustine’s constructivist account of memory be refined and rigorously defended in the contemporary context? The North African Church Father, Augustine of Hippo (354-430), is "perhaps the greatest Christian philosopher of Antiquity". Despite Augustine’s considerable influence on Western philosophy and theology, his very radical constructivist account of memory (and expectation) has not been given the attention it is due, neither has its immense importance to Augustine’s theological edifice been recognised. I plan to rectify these oversights in this thesis.
Constructivism can be traced back to Augustine's Confessiones although it is only recently gaining ground in contemporary philosophy of memory. In Book X of his Confessiones, Augustine situates memory (remembering the past) and expectation (imagining the future) in the same area of his interior world. This means, for him, memory and expectation are co-functional cognitive abilities. When I assert that a cognitive process α is co-functional with another process β, I mean β's functionality is significantly dependent on α's functionality and α's is significantly dependent on β's; Such that a disruption to α ‘s functionality will significantly affect β‘s functionality and vice versa. This is because α and β share a significant number of entities and activities that give rise to their respective phenomena.
In addition to being co-functional with imagining the future, Augustine asserts that memory is "woven together" from stored monomodal images acquired from experience. What I term 'monomodal images' are sensory images acquired from experience which are sorted and stored according to their sensory modes or categories: i.e., gustatory; tactile; auditory; visual; olfactory. Augustine’s constructivism is foundational to his epistemic claims concerning divine ontology. For him, God is known and encountered in memory. "...on learning about you, you remain in my memory, and there I discover you". Like memory, future-directed imaginings also depend on the weaving together/construction of these monomodal images. By asserting that remembering the past and imagining are co-functional, Augustine rejects his contemporaneous leading model of memory, Plato’s “wax-tablet” model. For Plato, memory is analogous to a "wax-tablet" on which experiences are imprinted to be later retrieved as memories. An archival view of memory is still, according to Mary Carruthers, the "governing model" of memory in all Western cultures. The received view in philosophy of memory is contra the Augustinian one, in that memory and expectation are regarded as disparate processes belonging to separate cognitive faculties.
In Part I, I consider the first question on the theological significance of Augustine’s constructivist account of memory and expectation. I identify the hitherto overlooked theological significance and I argue that Augustine’s epistemic claims on how a sensing being knows and remembers God depend on his constructivist account of memory. If this is true—and I go on to robustly argue that it is—then constructivism’s theological significance is that it validates Augustine’s epistemic claims. An upshot of constructivism’s theological significance is that those serious historical and contemporary problems facing constructivism simultaneously undermine Augustine’s epistemic claims. Similarly, a defence of Augustine’s constructivism simultaneously preserves his epistemic claims on how God is known. I end Part I on Thomas Aquinas’ account of memory, a synthesis which circumvents the problems facing Augustine’s but at the expense of Augustine’s epistemic claims on how God is known.
In Part II, I consider the second question concerning how Augustine’s constructivism can be refined and rigorously defended in the contemporary context despite historical and contemporary challenges. To refine and defend Augustine’s constructivism, I propose an account of memory and future-directed imagination which is consistent with recent findings in cognitive neuroscience and for which I invent the term, 'embodied constructivism'. Inspired by Augustine’s account of memory and expectation which he constructs from his contemporaneous science and philosophy, embodied constructivism draws on contemporary cognitive neuroscience and philosophy of memory. Embodied constructivism follows, in certain respects, Thomas Aquinas’ account of memory, a synthesis of Augustine’s soul/body dualist account and Aristotle’s proto-embodied theory of memory. Like Aquinas' synthesis, embodied constructivism is a synthesis of an embodied theory of cognition with a constructivist theory of memory.
Embodied theory of cognition holds that cognition is generated from an organism’s navigation of, and embeddedness within its, environment. Unlike Aquinas’ synthesis, Embodied constructivism retains the constructivist dimension of Augustine’s account and goes further than Aristotle’s proto-embodied theory of memory in its incorporation of embodiment. As I argue, because embodied constructivism retains the constructivist dimension of Augustine’s account of memory, it preserves his epistemic claims concerning how God is known and encountered in memory. Later in Part II, I arrive at a theological insight from the proposed account of memory. The theological insight, on anamnesis in relation to collective liturgical action, is on how the embodied and constructivist remembrance of Christ in the Eucharist realises the Body of Christ. The thesis ends on the summits of human perceptual experience in Augustine’s and Aquinas’ respective schemata of the human mind. From these summits of human perceptual experience, I argue for, and sketch, a foundation for neuroscience-engaged ethics of attention. Thus, as I argue and demonstrate in this research, Augustine’s constructivist account of memory continues to be theologically, philosophically, and scientifically relevant in the contemporary context.
This thesis’ foci on Augustine’s constructivism and its theological significance are unique within Augustinian studies and, indeed, in theology in general. The secondary focus on the scientific aspect of Augustine’s account is also unique given the seemingly disparate sets of skills such a focus requires: an ability to engage with primary texts in Latin and a familiarity with contemporary cognitive neuroscience, I bring both skillsets together in this research. By discovering the hitherto overlooked theological significance of the constructivist dimension of Augustine’s account of memory, I offer a new direction in Augustinian studies and in theology in general. Previous engagements on memory in theology do not focus on the model of memory, instead they take for granted that theological inferences follow from the model of memory being used or assumed: that is, if the model is at all discussed. In this work, I demonstrate the importance of models of memory to theological work using Augustine’s epistemological theology as a paradigm. As I argue, the constructivist dimension of Augustine’s account of memory is pivotal to his theological edifice. It is important, therefore, that subsequent work, in science and religion or further afield, take seriously models of memory from which philosophical or theological inferences are drawn.
After arguing for the theological significance of Augustine’s constructivism and describing his account of memory, I identify problems with Augustine’s account of memory. The analysis required to lay bare these problems is multidisciplinary in nature. The primary methodology is philosophical analysis which draws on cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology, religion, and theology. Some of the argumentation techniques I use involve mathematics (geometry, set theory) and logic (propositional and property predicate). In examining Augustine’s schema of the human soul and the world in which the soul resides, some of the areas I cover include, philosophies of memory, time, imagination, and self; metaphysics (of worlds); soul/body ontologies; embodied cognition; liturgical action and anamnesis; ethics (of attention). The multidisciplinary nature of the analysis offers an in-depth engagement between the research’ fields of focus: cognitive neuroscience; religion; philosophy of memory. From the interface between philosophy and theology from antiquity as well as contemporary cognitive neuroscience and philosophy of mind; the former are kept relevant, and the latter's assumptions and methodologies are further scrutinised.
By proposing and constructing an account of memory, embodied constructivism, I refine and defend Augustine’s constructivist account of memory and imagination. The construction of embodied constructivism is a multidisciplinary endeavour which draws on findings in contemporary cognitive neuroscience; studies in experimental psychology; cutting-edge theories in philosophy of memory. Embodied constructivism not only defends Augustine’s constructivism thereby persevering his epistemic claims on how God is known, but it also offers philosophical and theological insights, and it has social as well as ethical implications. Embodied constructivism is, thus, an innovative model of memory which is ground-breaking in its scope: it is consistent with scientific findings, it aligns with philosophical understandings, and it offers fresh insights in theology and philosophy. Consequently, embodied constructivism refines and defends Augustine of Hippo’s constructivist account of memory and imagination on which rest his epistemological theology on how a finite, sensing, cognitive being conceptualises, knows, and recollects the infinite being of God.