The problem of linguistic interpretation in relation to the inner word
Abstract
This paper explores the relationship between the Stoic-based inner word and the linguistically manifested outer word in the expression and cognition of the Christian initiation in doctrinal interaction. Whereas in the ancient philosophical schools, human teachers conveyed wisdom, the Christian Church Fathers, who defined themselves as philosophical schools, taught about truth in the inner forum of the soul. In Augustine’s philosophy of the soul concerning intellectual cognition, concerning the origin of the inner word, we look at the relationship between sign and thing in cognition from a logical and semantic perspective based on the Platonic and Stoic traditions. This perspective, in the context of the rhetorical culture of the early Christian era, highlights a kind of inophia between the inner word (λεκτόν) and the outer word. The relevance of the topic is justified by the semantic impact of the paradigm shifts in the field of faith formation, due to changes in the meaning of linguistic forms, on the cognition and thinking of the mind. From the epistemological horizon of induction teaching, I investigate whether the phenomenon of language deterioration in the use of language impairs cognition and thinking. Those who look for sources of educational science under the aegis of pedagogy's history are always in a distinct position since they research knowledge formation, whereby they can form the right to access knowledge in any discipline. They may do so as they deal with cognition itself, and thus neither can they disregard the origination of the inner word nor the explication of its concept. My approach is to ask whether the language vocabulary of religious students allows the transmission of specific beliefs, and how the negative linguistic phenomena affecting thinking, amplified by digital transmission of knowledge and what is called „linguistic design”, hinder the actualisation of the spiritual capacities and possibilities that are given by thinking, in the field of cognition and the resulting action and behaviour.
Introduction
In early Christian theology, initiatory discourses were powerful talks designed to stimulate the minds of the students with the intention of inspiring imaginative powers. This is why hearing has been considered of paramount importance in Christian preaching and initiation since the history of the first Christians. Correct hearing affects the mind through the mediation of sound, where spiritual images appear to the cognizer. This word is first spoken, but it leaves the mouth of the teacher not only in the form of signs, but also in the form of intelligible content which is experienced in the soul, by regarding thought not as a process of change, but as a kind of coming forth. For the word is not formed by the completion of the act of cognition, but the word is the performance of cognition itself (Gadamer, 2006, o. 457). The process of Christian initiation takes place in a system of signs. Perception, and therefore speech and listening, are also temporal. And sound can only exist by gradually ceasing to exist in the meantime (Ong, 2002, o. 31–32, 89). There is a particularly significant contradiction in this fact in the inner word, in the external verbal expression.
The study of linguistic signs and conceptual frameworks in teaching interaction is essential since the teacher always communicates the content that is being thought about and learned in some external linguistic form. Language as a reality, for man living in an objective reality, constitutes a separate world within this reality because for man language is not only an occasional means of communication and reflection. The linguistic hypothesis put forward by Sapir-Whorf rightly points out that linguistic relativity determines thinking, because what is thought can only be communicated by means of existing concepts, and therefore the communicator is forced to think everything in such a way that he can express it (Sapir, 1985, o. 162).
The approach is not new, however, because the problem of the conceived and the spoken word was already a major theme of Hellenistic philosophical movements. The Stoic-based lexicon, whose Latin equivalent, the dicible, is used and explored by Augustine, is inescapable because it is only possible to ascend to the thought-sense without being bound to language. This arises from the fact that languages can in any case capture a narrower intellectual content than that which is internal, the thinkable, which we can call the internal word, as opposed to the communicated word, defined as an external word, expressed in a given linguistic form. If, on the basis of the Platonic distinction, we define what is thought as an inner word (λόγος ἐνδιάθετος) as opposed to external knowledge (λόγος προφορικός), that is, knowledge communicated in a concrete word, that is, in a linguistic form, we are faced with a certain communicative inophia of an absolute nature in relation to the outer word and the inner word.
When we grasp a word that means knowledge, we transform it by simultaneously bringing it into our own mental realm of cognition and putting it into our memory. Here, in the formation of knowledge, a new system of knowledge is formed on the basis of similarity, a formation which may also affect older knowledge, which highlights the spatial and temporal immateriality of the soul (August. Beata uita, 2.8).
However, this act of cognition can only take place if the word is given meaning in the mind, i.e. the cognizer can form a concept of knowledge, which is also the formation of images in mental cognition. Augustine’s vision of the soul is based on the soul’s relation to truth. He finds this truth within himself, within himself, and he recognizes it not as knowledge received from without, but as knowledge given a priori within the mind, as self-knowledge gained through the experience of being, in God. This knowledge of God, based on the knowledge of being, recognises the perceived word in truth by means of the judging intellect which reports on the senses (August. Conf., 10.6.10).
The need to conceptualize is a necessary part of thinking, but also a dangerous part, because the truth or falsity of something is not guaranteed by the knowledge of the concept alone, but can only be recognized at the epistemological level of intellectual judgments, where the authority justifying the basis of intellectual judgments is experienced. Thought therefore seeks the notion of truth from man’s self-understanding, independently of the spirit of the age, because it does not depend on the reality that can be experienced, but it does act with a realistic claim to reality, because our knowledge points to the knowledge of causes, since cause necessarily precedes effect. This contradiction, however, is only apparent. Our experience is not only in the material world, but also beyond it, in spiritual cognition, but the two operate in synthesis. Cognition is a psychological process, but in cognition there is always a difference between the soul of the cognizer (or more precisely, his spiritual faculties) and the thing to be cognized. Augustine experiences cognition and understanding in the encounter with the intellectual ground that makes all intellectual judgments possible, what he calls illumination.
The philosopher is characterized not by his knowing but by his not knowing, this docta ignorantia, that is, philosophy as a desire for knowledge, the pursuit of wisdom, relies on a fundamentally self-critical reflection, which is a paradox. For the thinker judges his own ignorance to some extent, but what can be the basis of this intellectual judgment? How can we investigate what we do not know? In the case of our discoveries, how can we be sure that what we thought we had found is what we did not know before (Pl. Meno, 80c–e)? The question is significant because the specific philosophical knowledge is not the knowledge of objects, but rather the knowledge of the conditions that enable objects to manifest themselves as objects for the cognizer (Nyíri, 2003, o. 12–14). However, we cannot know the meaning of signs without knowing the reality they represent. In the doctrine of the faith, the words used for signification must represent things that exist in real reality.
The importance of interpreting linguistic signs
For the seeker after wisdom, as well as for those who interpret Scripture, Augustine gives concrete guidance on the most appropriate way to search for unknown words and signs. Interpreting Scripture at that time also required knowledge of Greek or Hebrew. However, Augustine, who worked mainly with Latin translations, suggested that when interpreting words and texts in a foreign language, one should either seek help from the speaker of the language, or compare the various translations available (although this also requires some skill), or learn the foreign language itself. Sometimes, however, as we see in today’s education, we do not understand the words and expressions of our own spoken language. This is not a new problem, and according to Augustine, it can be improved by regular speaking (and being spoken to by a teacher) and reading (August. De doctr. christ., 2.14.21).
Augustine also interprets the actualization of knowledge as a sign of good understanding and right judgment, which, through the will, moves the knower to goodness as a result of the truth he has come to know.
Augustine did search for the fountain of knowledge learned through sounds, but he excluded their penetration into memory through the senses, where he sees no trace of the sounds of the fleeting, fleeting word, but he understands meaning as a value, not merely as a relation or a rule. In his analysis, he says that he keeps these things/knowledge taken from the free sciences in his inner being, which he identifies neither as a place nor as an image stored there, but their images have nevertheless entered memory, where they can be stored and retrieved. But how? For he knows that when he learned these things, he did not believe in the ideas of others, but examined them in his own mind, and, finding them correct, he put them into his memory, so that he could retrieve them again. Does he enquire where these things were which he himself inwardly recognised, and how he judged them to be true? Augustine comes to the conclusion that they were in some way already in his memory, and from there he knew them, having been brought out of him by the impulse of someone else, which he could not have recalled without the word of warning (August. Conf., 10.9.16–10.10.17). This points to the fact that the truth which had acquired form (was known) was already given in its essential form in the soul as a priori fundamental truth. There is rich philosophical reflection in this interpretation. For it is through memory that man cognizes in a concrete way, i.e. here and now.
Since today information exists outside the human mind and can be easily stored by technical means, it can be understood as a separate, independent reality. Meaning, however, is different because it presupposes the processing and interpretation of information, i.e. we cannot speak of meaning without the presence of an information processing system. Today, the problem of interpretation is no longer about the importance of the meaning of words, but what they are understood to mean in speech or in the written text.
Speech, communication, which is the means of oral teaching, is in fact only a sign of the thing, the perception and understanding of which takes place in the forum of the mind, by means of a specific exchange of signs between persons. In the interaction of communication, the content of communication is constituted by the formation of sounds and the juxtaposition of words denoting things, by their deliberate ordering. The latter is not insignificant, since communication can be full of ambiguity and doubt, because the interpretation of the communication is highly context-dependent. Each word composed of sounds is only provided by meaning via their rendering with another word (preceeding or following it). Some words have no meaning without context, or without other words, and the intended meaning of the sequence of expressions can be further influenced by emotions, pronunciation, tone, and the timbre of the speaker or the receiver. Thus, one cannot ignore the antecedents and the afterlife of the utterance of the words, which is far from being the same in the speaker and the receiver, especially considering the differences in our knowledge regarding our stored memory.
Despite the fact that human language (any spoken language) is considered a rational system in form, it has an inherent inner deficiency that makes it impossible for a human being to express exactly what he wants. One cannot even fully convey and transmit one’s own knowledge to another person with its exact conceived meaning, even if the communicator and the hearer speak the same language and think in their minds in that language.
In fact, the mind’s own language of thought is not inherently bound to any language; the cognizer is endowed with the ability to operate with words merely by man’s capacity for symbolic activity. We carry the knowledge of things as an inner word; it is born in thought but remains in the soul. Then, when we communicate it to others, we apply to this inner word the form of the outer word, or its expression by other signs, so that the outer sign creates in the soul of the hearer that which does not leave the soul of the speaker by the communication (August. De Trin., 9.10.15). The formal language of man, in which he thinks, is so peculiar that his knowledge and thoughts can only be fully known in the thought (as it is), which is, however, disturbed and narrowed by the effort of oral communication. Man therefore seeks words to express his thoughts, but these words always remain insufficient to express himself. Since man cannot fully communicate himself, the things he creates are necessarily less than he is. Even if he could communicate himself, the creation could at most only be equal to the creator himself. The Logos is on a par with the Father precisely because in the Son the Father expresses himself fully. In fact, this is the difference between the divine word and the human word.
However, human behaviour and relationships are enormously affected when the words communicated make sense in the mind of the other person, because behaviour is a conscious search for the meaning of words. In the process of teaching about faith, the process of language deterioration or meaning distortion, which affects the form of linguistic communication, is particularly influential, since the fundamental characteristic of the content of faith is that it has remained unchanged for 2000 years. This fact is also influential if we take into account the process of dogma development, which stems from man’s natural need to understand what he believes. To do this, however, he is not content with inward thought, and in the process of communication he seeks universal forms of expression and forms concepts of the object of cognition. But conceptualisation is always a kind of delimitation, though necessary, because if we do not give things names, we are surrounded by disorder in the world. And the correct interpretation and knowledge of a concept is necessary because if we name something, we have taken possession of it in some way, because separation is also the basis of ordering. The rational operations of separation and combination, the cognitive activity of the human intellect, make this conceptualisation and ordering possible. Speech is first and foremost a warning which, through words and concepts, influences the functioning of the intellect, which is the purpose of initiation, and which goes beyond the meaning of words, because it is fundamentally about events affecting the mind.
In theological debates, the playing field of dogmatics often ignores this, leading theorists down a dead end of conceptual thinking, which is precisely why doctrine is unchanged in theory, but due to language deterioration, we do not mean the same thing by each word. Since faith is by hearing, faith is transmitted in words that can be expressed in human language (August. De Trin., 9.7.12) as a carrier layer must necessarily be the broadest base on which truths of faith can be built. In addition to multilingualism, the interpretation of Christian doctrine will differ in every language. Thus preserving the Latin language in the Catholic Church serves the exact purpose of having the least divergence on the grounds of translations.
Words are needed for contemplation, and the will’s intention is expressed in an intellectual search for meaning, which triggers further contemplation on words deep within the person, whereby he interprets himself differently, and then at some point in this interpretation goes beyond the limits of words. This mental act, however, can only be understood and conceived within the mind, but its expressibility (becoming an external – uttered – word, forming a concept of it) always remains limited. Nevertheless, all interpretation has a linguistic character, so that linguistic interpretation is still the general form of interpretation.
In teaching, no speech is uttered, and there is no speech made that would not connect the speaker with the listener. But understanding means first and foremost applying to oneself what is understood (Gadamer, 2006, o. 400). Meanings are produced in the processing of experiences that emerge in the cognizer’s mind, which, following Gilles Fauconnier, have more recently been called mental spaces, which play a major role in the cognizer’s meaning-making. They can be regarded as conceptual packages evoked by the cognizer during speech by the activities of the mind as a small activated area of the mind, but which relate to only a small part of the world, i.e. do not consist of memory, but structure the understanding of speech. Conceptual thinking explicitly favours the so-called narrowing of mental spaces, precisely in the sense of the delimiting function inherent in concept formation.
Location and time determinants are considered to be the building blocks of mental space, through which concepts can be used to algorithmise elements. However, the complete access to the images of cognition during thinking is characterised by the abstraction of space and time when the cognizer operates with memory images, from where the cognizer always reflects on the highlighted images in a concrete way, i.e. by leaving the image of space and time. In the case of cognition, however, it is to be noted that the cognizer does not perceive everything the is experienced or cognized; neither does he utters them in words in space and time, nevertheless cognition is in the soul. (August. De Trin., 9.10.15). We find that to communicate meaning, not only is it necessary to understand the concept in the mind, but also to know the language. A person who is not good at speaking may wrongly associate the concept he has in mind with a vocal form that has a different meaning, or also could associate the sounds uttered with an inappropriate concept in thought. In this case, the concept in thought and the meaning of the sound are different.
The relationship between linguistic signs and images
For this reason, Augustine often deals with memory, considering it to be of paramount importance among the spiritual faculties. He compares it to a vast hall in which the many images the senses have collected of various things through the channels of bodily perception are stored like treasures. Memory stores everything in groups according to the way they perceive it. But by its function of storage, it is not the things themselves that memory stores, but only their mental images (August. Conf., 10.8.9). Memory is indispensable for perception, since it is also necessary for the operation of bodily perception, to remember, for example, the details of the visual field in vision, which create the image seen, and the syllables that follow each other in listening to speech acts, so that the sentence can make sense. Memory, in Augustine’s aspect of investigation, is the outstanding mental faculty of the soul, a part of human nature, which is considered by Augustine where everything we think exists, the space of the perceived images of things to be lifted up by the mind in any mode of thinking.
These are the images that are not present in the mind. Man’s perceptive faculty and his perceptive intellect are different, but they are nevertheless united, because the soul does not cease to act upon the bodily sense. Memory seems to be the forum of all knowledge. It is here that the mental images, the images of the imagination, are placed, which constitute the point of connection between the external and the internal images, since the images stored in memory can only be lifted out by imagination, through memory. Aristotle himself writes of the close connection between memory and imagination: Aristotelian philosophy considers memory to be a kind of link between reason and perception, calling both parts of the soul, an activity. Memory, the philosopher argues, is a collateral activity of reason, but it is itself a part of primary perception, and memory is not without imagination, that which is directed to things that can be imagined (Arist. De an., 450a). In Augustine’s conception of the soul, however, memory, reason and will form one life, one soul, one being (August. De Trin., 10.11) and are therefore not accidental.
The difference between imagination (φαντασία) and memory is that while imagination is the preserver of forms perceived by the senses, memory is the preserver of aspects perceived by evaluation (Aquinas ST I, q.78 a.4). The task of “memoria”, however is not limited to the storage of memory images, since it is not sufficient for thinking in itself, since these images must also be recalled in order to be contemplated in the mind. In order to retrieve the right images from memory, the more the image of the thing stored in memory stands out, the more it resembles the image to be recalled as a kind of filter image. When Augustine speculates on the way in which intellectual knowledge came into his memory, he refers to the teachers who communicated it, and he himself feels that the knowledge must have been there when it was formed by the new images and that he had come to recognise them (their a priori forms).
Memory, as a repository of knowledge, stores forms, so form is actually the very mode we call a way of thinking or as an actualised way of thinking, a way of behaving. We can actually understand it as a mode of being. But what exists is necessarily also in motion, because what lives/exists is alive. We can also consider movement as a kind of side-effect or concomitant of existence. Thinking is also an action, which means opining (opipatio), which is characterised by the operation of sorting out between knowledge. The system of relations stored in memory represents the causal relations between these forms which is the property of knowledge, that cognizance itself possesses.
The mind pairs shapes and forms in the mind through thinking, through memory, in the process of cognition. It does this partly by receiving and forming sensory cognitions and partly by forming a priori cognitions as potential forms. The images that are thus produced are the results of the image making (ideation itself), which we can view in relation through the association of images. A relation between the image and reality on the one hand, and between the individual images (pictures) in the mind on the other. The result is a kind of knowledge in the mind, stored by memory, whereby we recognise the causal links between the individual images.
These are the concepts that we recognise from within, not through the images represented by our senses, i.e. they are not seen through the sensory images, but as they are and through the concepts themselves (Harrison, 2013, o. 66). This is always more than the delimiting concept itself, however, since the understanding of images is done through the concrete recollection of other similar images, abstracted from the concept of space and time, by means of the mind’s own language, which is actualized in the inner word by comprehension . The fact that we call this inner word a word is only metaphorical, since it is linguistic in function but not linguistic or pre-linguistic, and thus in fact it may be identified as the intelligible language of thought (Harrison, 2013, o. 73–74).
The poetic features of language
So, the mind has its own language for thinking, which can always capture the internal content of knowledge, but transforming it into an external linguistic form can cause loss of meaning or distortion. It is true that the generality of gender, and the construction of classificatory concepts, is quite remote from linguistic consciousness. For if in speech one transfers meaning from one concept to another, one does so because of some common property. This basic metaphor of language can also express similarities. These can be phenomena of things, or the particularity of the meaning of the thing itself for us (Gadamer, 2006, o. 428). But the factors that influence the change of languages are also in flux, and these changes can be summarised in the general concept of the Zeitgeist. For the child of the age always judges and knows himself in terms of his age which he knows and uses the concepts of. t. Since all thinking is also judgement, the ordering scheme of the mind works on the principle of not being satisfied with mere images, but of arriving at the original knowledge of things through reason. In looking at the practice of cognition, we can start from Augustine’s interpretation of the word that by hearing words we do not know words, since words themselves only lead us to ask the truth within us, but the meaning behind the words we learn from the Inner Teacher within ourselves (August. De mag., 36.1, 38.1–2).
Thus the word only gives a sign, and then ascends into the divine intellect, where it consults with the Truth that oversees the human mind, while being taught by the one with whom we are speaking. All understanding in the soul is an interaction with the Teacher Within, which is a kind of illumination, and also an inward ascent as the intellect comes to itself and confronts its own functioning. Hence it may be asserted that when the intellect knows itself, the word it expresses about itself constitutes knowledge that is identical to and equal with it in every respect. Therefore, this knowledge is both of image and of word, because there is complete similarity, since the intellect, the knower, and the known are the same (August. De Trin., 8.11.6). Therefore, in teaching, the listener does not grasp everything that is communicated to him orally by the concepts, and therefore the most essential would be to grasp the understanding, which is the object of the activation of the inner perception in the initiation. In fact, the words of initiation are directed towards the grasping of spiritual functions, the way in which knowledge is generated, naturally by means of images and linguistic topos, which the essential feature of linguistic expression (e.g. its metaphorical character) can represent in images through the principle of similitude. The device of metaphor transfers meaning from one domain (one concept) to another, thereby creating new meaning. This transfer capacity is the poetic feature of metaphor, which enables it to create images from the existent (Hartmann, 2007, o. 48). This transfer can also be performed on meanings, which may lay a basis for the degradation of language.
But fundamentally, it is to perceive and discover the workings of the soul that is the intention of teaching, to which memory gives a prominent role. In Augustine’s interpretation, virtue is the unfolding of the faculties of the soul, which is achieved by perfect reason, whereby perception is subordinated to memory, that is, insight is gained. And the aim of reason is ultimately to see God, which is perfect virtue (August. De mag., 6.13).
This is why Augustine speculates that the soul (animus) can be identical with memory (memoria) (August. Conf., 10.14.21). Just as the food that enters the stomach loses the character of taste when it is consumed, the knowledge, experiences and emotions stored in memory become neutral in terms of taste, but are nevertheless incorporated where the learning situations of knowledge require it, and this becomes the procedure of processing itself, which is the comparison of signs of things, the discovery of correlations and mutual relations carried out on the basis of determining the degree of similarity. But what makes it possible to retrieve and identify the images of memory, that is to say, to recognise the forms. to find concrete similarity? When we think of something, the similarities between the memory images begin to emerge from this hall, because the characteristic shapes of the parts already recall all the similar images. The same thing happens in the case of the invention of a priori knowledge, when the analysing mind finds something, because then it also brings out of the given set of knowledge the similar forms of knowledge from the mind by the movement of the intellect. And we can speak of these only if, in addition to the images of the sound forms of words acquired through the bodily senses, we can also find in memory the incorporeal concept of the things themselves (August. Conf., 10.14).
But memory also has a perceptual dimension, since the soul, in a state of union with the body, reaches images by turning to images, and therefore memory is also necessary for the perception of bodily sensations. In the case of vision, the process of seeing cannot take place without memory storing the image-parts seen in the glances, the direction of which is given by the aspectus of the intellect. And understanding is the perception of intelligible truth.
Initiation, which aims at purifying the intellect from the passions, is intended to promote the functioning of the inner senses, which seeks to set in motion that upright gaze of the soul which initiates right reflection (recte ratio), from which right, virtuous actions (recte facta) flow. This presupposes the upright gaze of the soul (aspectus rectus), by which the soul sees the divine Reason, that is, the Word. This formulation, as Gábor Kendeffy points out, derives from the Stoic notion of a straightened truth that does not deviate from the truth. The Stoic concept conveyed by Cicero is the right/straightened reason (ὀρθός λόγος), from which the straightened, i.e. right actions (κατόρθωμα) arise. This is what makes it possible for wrong actions, which have become irrational in the passions, to be rationalised, i.e. to become again straight, i.e. right. István Perczel points out an extremely significant conclusion of Augustine, for he shows that the organ of divine vision is the Holy Spirit himself, that is, not the created soul, but the uncreated creative Spirit. The significance of this is that only the like can know the like (Perczel, 1999, o. 123–126).
The constitution of concepts and common agreement
For the soul to recognize the right, it must in some way actually remember its concept. For changing concepts do not change the intelligible realities they represent. Incorrect names affect the formation of cognition, since the transfer of meaning is correct only along the lines of realistic similarity.
Even Plato, in Cratylus, explored the relationship between common agreement and the naming of things, because he observed that the effect of conceptual changes on the essence of things in the course of teaching influences the functioning of the intellect. In Plato’s dialogue on the philosophy of language, he actually etymologizes, which, according to the ancient interpretation, means true reckoning. In his theory of the correctness of names, he investigates whether the sounds themselves have an original, given meaning, which can form the basis for the syllables and the meaning of words (as names). His hypothesis is that the names of things are coded descriptions, the elicitation of which leads to the discovery of the true nature of things (Long & Sedley, 1987, o. 195).
For Plato assumes that the meaning of words is not based on common agreement alone, which can change from time to time, and therefore, he believes, they must have their original, certain meaning.
Plato made similar observations when examining names, as we see today with the phenomenon of linguistic design and linguistic transmission. On the one hand, he notes that the unwarranted insertion and removal of letters can change the meaning of words to such an extent that they sometimes mean the opposite of what they are meant to mean (Pl. Cra., 418b). This is a loss of value because when we name something we are communicating something which, prior to the communication itself, is in any case what is meant in the sense. And in this doctrine, we order things according to their nature (Pl. Cra., 388b), but the question arises, where do we get the names we use to name things? For speech is true when it tells things as they are, but true speech must be true in whole and in part or it cannot be said to be true (Pl. Cra., 383c). Gadamer refers to the inner word by the name of what is thought (gemeint) in the mind, and points out that the word that names a thing names it as what it is because it itself has the meaning by which the thing thought is named. But in addition to this, something else is represented in it besides that which it itself represents. The reason is that the word names the thing in a more intimate and spiritual way than the representation and resemblance which appear in the representation of the thing, which Plato calls μίμησις (Gadamer, 2006, o. 410).
The Greek term μίμησις was interpreted by Plato to mean the imitation of the representation of reality, so the context of its original meaning was mapping (as representation), the universal exploration of reality, rather than imitation. Plato primarily applied imitation to the use of signs in communication, because he identifies as an inherent intention that humans seek to imitate with their bodies in the act of expression what they wish to convey. For example, he illustrates the concepts of up with the hand raised and down with the hand held down. The body can thus imitate what it wants to express by its intentional movements (Pl. Cra., 426a–b).
Despite the countless number of signs, Augustine considers words to be the most appropriate means of expressing ideas (August. De doctr. christ., 2.4). But words are only suitable for communicating human ideas if there is agreement among their users as to their meaning. Can such agreement guarantee the truth of words, especially when they are subject to changes in time and application? What, in the case of individual words and names, guarantees that they express the essence of things, whether they are basic words or derived words, as Plato speculates (Pl. Cra., 422d)? If a new word, badly formed, contains an element that does not belong there, it cannot be beautiful and it spoils the essence of the original basic word (Pl. Cra., 433c). It is therefore possible for a correct base word to convey false knowledge by its inflection. In the formation of mental cognition, this is manifested in the fact that if the name does not represent the essence of the thing, it becomes an empty φάντασμα instead of φαντασία. For a term cannot be true if the components are not true in themselves.
On the phenomenon of common agreement, Augustine affirms that the appropriation of meaning and the explanation of meaning of metaphorical unknown signs is based on mere human appropriation of meaning, without causality (August. De doctr. christ., 2.23–24). Since humans always seek to establish a certain similarity in the creation of the signifying relation in order to make the signs as similar as possible to the things they signify. But one thing may resemble another in many ways, and signs do not exist as conventions among men until they are agreed upon (August. De doctr. christ., 2.25.8). Plato argues in a similar way, for if naming is a matter of convention, it has meaning to those who have known things before and have agreed upon them. However, it is not insignificant whether they agree on what is now the name of the things or on the opposite thereof (Pl. Cra., 433d–434a).
Meaning in this way cannot be the rule of use of a sign because it can change with habit and time, reflected by the spirit of the age. Plato in his Cratylus assumes that the names of things (onoma) follow from the essence of things named and are not based on arbitrary convention, as the Sophists, for example, held. In Greek, the word used to denote agreement is nomos, which also meant law, as well as custom. And by the natural correctness of things was meant genuineness, which, if language were really only an object of agreement, could hardly mean unchanging correctness, to which any change in time could be perceived (Pl. Cra., 383b).
Plato also understands speech as an action, which has its own autonomous nature, and it is a legitimate demand that it should be expressed in the correct naming of things (Pl. Cra., 387d).
The similarities between the views of Plato and Augustine are highlighted by Robert Markus. According to Markus, it is regrettable that Augustine, apart from distinguishing between the two types of signs and noting their uncertain boundaries, does not discuss the importance of these cases, which can be considered prima facie either symptomatic or symbolic in their meaning. He seems content to fall back on the traditional dichotomy of meaning – ‘from nature’ and ‘from convention’ – although he applies this in a novel way within the framework of his theory of the two types ofsigns. The background to this, according to Markus, may be the classical discussion of the Platonic question of Cratylus. This can be justified, on the one hand, by the fact that the Stoic and Epicurean disagreement on this topic was a commonplace at the time, about which Augustine probably had second-hand information. On the other hand, Augustine’s editorial principle of placing the debate on signs as a basis for inference and on language under the same heading of signs, and distinguishing between the two main types of signs, is thought-provoking. Beyond this, Augustine does not seem to have addressed the question of whether words have meaning. He merely assumed that, if signs have meaning, they are signa naturalia, and not language. He bought a unified treatment of all kinds of signs at the cost of an oversimplification of the problem of linguistic meaning: he identified the distinction between alternative bases of meaning within language with the distinction between linguistic and non-linguistic meaning (Markus, 1959, o. 75).
This simplification, however, was somewhat compensated for by Augustine’s showing the inner mental operations in their function, thereby pointing to the forms of knowledge imprinted in the soul, which derive from a divine wellspring, as in Plato’s conception. Augustine, like the Stoics, does not interpret the formation of images as a passive process, because it requires assimilation, since attention is directed towards it, thinking must do something with it, must assent to it, i.e. accept it. What we acquire intellectually, by insight, by reason, is either a mathematical or a metaphysical certainty, which are irrefutable. The sign is therefore the connection of the senses to thought through the information of the sensory form/shape. In Karfikova’s interpretation, it is very similar to the Stoic use of the disembodied meaning λεκτóν, or σημαίνον as signified. (Karfiková, 2020, o. 12)
Augustine deals with the verbum in relation to the intellect, which he defines as a divine word, understood as an inner word. He uses the verbum cordis to denote it, as the mirror and image of the divine word (Gadamer, 2006, o. 419–420), that is, this word contains all that is contained in knowledge, and thus the word is true (August. De Trin., 15.11.20). The grasping of this inner word was aided by the acceptance of the Incarnation, which was the word’s being for Augustine. His distinction is Stoic-based, for he regards the disembodied inner word as the word that shines in the inner being as the verbum cordis, as opposed to the vocalized word (vox verbi), which he uses simply as vox, which can only be a sign. Augustine uses the analogy of the Incarnation to illustrate the externalization of the inner word (August. De fide et symb., 3.4).
In such an interpretation, strictly speaking, we cannot even speak of a sign-theory with regard to the inner word in Augustine, since the inner word is the inalienable, inherent property of the intelligent soul, which is only available in its own soul (August. De Trin., 8.6.9). The outwardly vocalized word is the sign of the inward, intellectual word, to which, if we understand it as a word, the Word really corresponds. Like the Incarnation, the inner word, which has become an external sound, is not transformed by utterance into a sound (August. De doctr. christ., 1.12.13). For Augustine, the word does not become a mere sign, but rather expresses being, in the sense in which Gadamer understands the truth of the thing in speech: which is actually in the thought of the unified thought of the thing. The word, then, is the access to this being, which, like a sign, has the function of being in its application by referring to something, but the sign can only exist on something else. Since a sign has meaning only in relation to a sign-using subject (Gadamer, 2006, o. 412–413), its intelligible content must also become intelligible to the soul in relation to a subject. This refers to the person of Augustine’s Teacher Within, who is the Logos itself.
As Markus puts it, sign theory can be understood primarily as a theory of inference, based on Augustine’s reflection on meaning (Markus, 1959, o. 62–65). From this point of view, however, its associativity is more salient, primarily because of the representation of images, which is a specific feature of the formation of knowledge. In the mystagogical initiation stage, according to Harmless, the signs stimulate logical reflection, which can be called associative rather than discursive, because it has poetic rather than philosophical features. Indeed, the speaker chooses images on the basis of similarity, which he illustrates by striving for conceptual clarity (Harmless, 2014, o. 425–426). In the case of the use of newer, commonly accepted, incorrectly manufactured words, the errenous splicing can actually detract from the true meaning of the word.
Conclusion
Understanding is only possible along the lines of truth if we name something on the basis of something that corresponds to the archetype, or idea, of objects. Nevertheless the archetypal image of the idea is realized in the name (i.e. whether its name is given by nature), can only be judged by someone who is acquainted with what is considered to be the natural truth of this name, that is, it is necessary to know the true essence of correctness to make such determination. In Plato’s reasoning, things can only be known by their true, natural names by the gods (Pl. Cra., 391a–b), thus concluding that it is in the names of eternal things that one can find verisimilitude, correctness, which he thinks can be derived from some divine power (Pl. Cra., 397b). Thus he gives as an example the Greek etymology of the word man, which he derives from the most intimate essence of man: man is the living being (being) who alone is capable of examining (i.e., searching) what he sees (i.e., experiences) and of reflecting on it (Pl. Cra., 399c).
Thinking is the mental activity which is carried out by the mind’s dual activity of memory in the forum of the soul, using sensory experience, and which can be carried out by the thinking person capable of mental vision without the presence of directly experienced sensory images. Plato had thus reached the point of separating the individual sounds, but the phonetic vocabulary of the Greek language could not provide him with a system of sounds that could be found in and deduced from the basic words, since at that time some Greek sounds did not even have their own names (e.g. Ε, Υ, Ο and Ω) (Pl. Cra., 386a).
For the existence of the faculty of thinking, which Plato also defined as a basic human trait only makes sense, if thinking has an intention which he referred to as an orientation towards the correctness of things. Augustine was inclined towards common agreement, but he did not really explore its foundations. This research, however, cannot be overlooked in today’s doctrine of the faith, since the phenomenon of linguistic transmissibility through new expressions of linguistic design does not build on the basic metaphorical properties of language, and therefore most of the transference of meaning does not take place along lines of similarity that often miss the point. This leaves logic as a pedagogical tool, which even the ancient Stoic philosophy of the inner word had already stated to be the science by which we know things, because it studies what belongs to meaningful discourse (logos), and therefore includes phonetic and semantic aspects of language, stylistics and epistemology. It is particularly striking that Platonic-inspired Stoic logic conceived of language as an atomic structure, just as Plato, in his analysis of the Cratylus, searched for the smallest element of meaning and thus arrived at sound (Long & Sedley, 1987, o. 188–189). Within this, epistemology is the yardstick, since, in relation to inner speech, reasoning and judgement can be conceived as a mode of intelligent speech. Augustine, who also excels in the representation of rhetorical style, can contribute to this intellectual clarity by revealing the dynamic structure of the soul’s image, which reflects the workings of the soul, since, despite the spirit of the age, the essence of man, the workings of the soul, remain unchanged.
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