The Guise of the Bad in Augustine's Pear Theft
In the second book of his Confessions, Augustine of Hippo presents his famous juvenile Pear Theft as an apparent case of acting under the guise of the bad. At least since Thomas Aquinas' influential interpretation, scholars have usually taken Augustine's detailed discussion of the case to...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
[2018]
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| In: |
Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2018, Volume: 21, Issue: 1, Pages: 71-89 |
| IxTheo Classification: | KAB Church history 30-500; early Christianity KAE Church history 900-1300; high Middle Ages NBE Anthropology VA Philosophy |
| Further subjects: | B
Augustine
B Evil B Joint action B Aquinas B Guise of the good |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | In the second book of his Confessions, Augustine of Hippo presents his famous juvenile Pear Theft as an apparent case of acting under the guise of the bad. At least since Thomas Aquinas' influential interpretation, scholars have usually taken Augustine's detailed discussion of the case to be dispelling this guise of the guise of the bad, and to offer a solid guise of the good-explanation. This paper addresses an important challenge to this view: Augustine offers two different guise of the good-explanations in his text rather than just one, and the two explanations seem to be mutually exclusive. A number of more recent attempts to reconcile Augustine's two lines of explanation are discussed and found wanting, and a new suggestion is made. The proposed solution focuses on the Pear Theft as a joint action, and it departs from the Aquinian interpretation in that it accounts for a way in which the guise of the bad-hypothesis survives the explanation. |
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| ISSN: | 1572-8447 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10677-017-9854-6 |