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• 1 Week 2

• 1.1 Augustine

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• What is the goal of Augustine's autobiographical descriptions of the sins of his past life? !

  Augustine addresses this work to God, and he wants to describe his sins to show that even if one does terrible things, God will be there to forgive you if you show real regret.
  He wants to show that sinning does not prevent you from becoming a just person. Even if you have not always been a good person, you can become good by converting to Christianity and not sinning

• Augustine speaks of a 'limit' with respect to 'love' that he did not keep. What does Augustine tell us about his sexual 'sins'?

  Augustine committed sexual sins just because they are sins. He sinned to sin, not because he genuinely had a desire to do the sexual things.

• How are love, friendship, sex, marriage, and love of God related according to Augustine? !

  Love is a good thing, and friendship is okay because it has some sort of limit to the love it contains. Sex is not necessarily a bad thing, but by marriage, it should be contained. All these things have or SHOULD have limits. You should take the love you feel towards others and turn this into another direction, namely into the direction of God.

• What reasons does Augustine give for his theft of the pears?

  He simply wanted to sin because of sinning, not because he was hungry or wanted the pears. He had no other reasons to do what he did

• What does Augustine tell us about 'peer pressure'? How does this relate to what he says about friendship?

  Real friends would never pressure you to do things that you would not want to do. Furthermore, peer pressure is not good and if people apply this to you, they are not your friends

• Augustine speaks about two 'sins' in this Book II: sexual excess and theft. Both of these sins are explained in terms of a 'corruption' or 'perversion' of some God-given goodness. Explain how this works in each case. (Hint: consider Augustine's discussion of 'mimicry' and 'backward imitation' in sections 13-14)

  Sexual excess and theft are perversions of God's perfections. By being excessively sexual or stealing, people try to mimic God's loving or having many things. Yet these things are of course not good to do. Sexual excess and theft are perversions of God's perfection, because man cannot reach that what God possesses, and therefore reaches to the bad version of God's goodness that can be found on earth.

• What (Neo)platonic elements can you recognize in Augustine's discussion of goodness, sin, the human condition, the relationship between body and soul, and the nature of God?

  Everything in the world stems from the one Good of God, there is nothing bad outside of that! The problem with pagan thought is that there is no intermediate force between God and the humans. This problem is solved by the creation of Christ.
  
  That there is some sort of nature of goodness in everything. All things strive to be perfect balanced, in harmony and therefore good by nature. All things want to share in this goodness

• 1.2 Boethius

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• Why, according to Lady Philosophy, are the Muses a bad influence on Boethius??

  The muses represent Boethius' self-indulgence, they will only keep his depression present. --> Only Philosophy could help him get out of his misery.

• How does Lady Philosophy react to Boethius' lamentation (klaagzang)? Why is she displeased with him?

  Boethius has lost his reason/philosophy and also himself. He is led too excessively by his emotions. Philosophy can help him get out of this place. 
  He forgot that he still has freedom of thought. He feels pity for himself, (even though he has also done many great things)

• Lady Philosophy aims to 'cure' Boethius of his depression, and uses medical metaphors to describe his way to health. What are the steps that they will take?

  She uses 'tough love'. Being cured is not always nice, while dwelling in your sadness somehow is, but it is necessary to go through this uneasy phase.
  She will start off with easy medicine : easy philosophy: and then later continue to harder and more impactful (also abstract) stuff.