The Teacher by Augustine: A Analysis of the Significance of Signs

In this section of The Teacher, Augustine first posits that “nothing is learned through its signs” (The Teacher 10.33.115). Meaning that if someone doesn’t have an understanding of the thing a sign signifies, they can’t understand the meaning of the sign. If someone does have an understanding of the thing a sign signifies, they don’t learn anything from the sign.

He gives an example to explain:

“…and their sarabarae were unchanged.” (The Teacher 10.33.119).

When it is explained that sarabarae refers to a certain type of head covering, Augustine asks whether he learned what the head is or what coverings are from hearing words.

He makes the point that the first time he heard the word ‘head’, he was just as confused as to what ‘head’ meant as he was when he first heard the word ‘sarabarae’. Only by noting when the word ‘head’ was used did he understand that the word ‘head’ is used in reference to the head, something he already was familiar with.

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If a sign is to make sense, one must be familiar with the thing that the sign signifies otherwise the sign is meaningless.

Anticipating a possible objection, Augustine then address the usage of finger pointing in explanations. If Augustine asks what ‘head’ is and someone points to a head, pointing-out could be thought of a as a sign for head. Augustine says no, pointing-out is a sign for the exclamation “Look!”; it is through looking that teaches one to associate ‘head’ with the object seen.

Addressing another possible objection, he explains storytelling. The only way a story is learned and understood is through words and signs, words might then be thought to teach about something. Augustine replies that all the things needed to visualize the story were already known to us and the story reminded us, not taught us, of them.

That being said, the acceptance of the story as true is believed rather than known. Augustine then argues: what you know you must believe. But not everything you believe you necessarily know. There is a usefulness to believing things that one doesn’t know but accepts as true.

Moving on to how perceptions are formed, Augustine says that everything a person perceives is perceived “either by one of the bodily sense or by the mind” (The Teacher 12.39.8-9). The former is named sensible, the latter is named intelligible. Things that are sensible are present at hand or could be present at hand, the only way to learn of sensible objects is to observe them or sense them.

Things that are intelligible, “namely intellect and reason” (The Teacher 12.40.30) are the things that refer to ideas derived from the “inner light of Truth” (The Teacher 12.40.31). These are ideas that are learned not by explanation but by inner contemplation. A person can’t be taught about these ideas because they could speak on these matters if questioned. The words of the questioner do not teach that person anything, rather they prompt the one who is questioned to learn from within.

Augustine says that Christ dwells in each of us and since Christ is the “everlasting wisdom of God” (The Teacher 11.38.49), understanding of things that can’t be perceived sensibly come from the wisdom of Christ within us. That is why a person questioned is able to answer about topics such as virtue even if he is unfamiliar with the words associated with them.

Sometimes, when a question is posed on a topic, the answer isn’t clear to the respondent. Augustine says that happens because that person didn’t consult the entirety of the light within themselves. But by questioning that person part-by-part, that person comes to understand each of the parts that make up the whole. They understand the whole of the topic piece by piece.

Furthering his argument that nothing is learned from words, when a person hears an assertion either “(a) doesn’t know whether it is true, (b) knows that it is false or (c) knows that it is true” (The Teacher 12.40.66-68). In (a) the person has an opinion and either accepts or rejects it, in (b) they reject it, in (c) they know it to be true by witness. In none of these cases does the person learn anything from the words spoken as they judge the validity of the words based on the knowledge they already possess. It is from the conclusions, contemplation, and perceptions the person has that they judge and form an opinion on the words one hears.

Words can’t teach because a person who doesn’t have any knowledge of a subject can say words about that subject without knowing what the words mean. Words can’t teach, because someone who doesn’t know anything about a subject couldn’t teach someone else about that subject. Even if a hearer understands the words spoken, the understanding came from prior knowledge and inner contemplation and not from anything taught by the words.

Words can’t teach because people can be in agreement over a concept or idea but in disagreement over the words that explain that concept or idea.

If words can’t teach, then when a teacher ‘teaches’, the thing a student learns is not the ideas of a teacher but the disciplines that the teacher teaches. They don’t learn from the words stated but consider within themselves whether truths have been stated. Teachers do not teach but prompt the person to learn from inner Truth.

Augustine then says that words are not useless—people just don’t learn from them. Learning happens within people. God who places truths in our hearts is the only real teacher of us all.

Upon the reading this passage, it is easy to immediately reject Augustine’s assertion that words don’t teach. After all, the majority of the people reading have spent a sizable amount of time going to school where during class activities words are used and something is learned. We can explain something using words so another can grasp what we are talking about however, upon deeper contemplation, we realize that all the words we know the meaning of are known because at some point during our lives we learned the very basic vocabulary of the language.

Our parents did so by putting up objects to our face and said the name of that object repeated, and so we understood that the object being waved in front of us is called the word our parents were saying. When people around you say words while doing, discussing, or looking at things we learn the names of those things. This sort of learning happens all through our lives.

After building up a basic vocabulary, we can then explain things we don’t know about in terms of things that we do know. But, the only reason why we can visualize things that we don’t know about is because we frame them in terms things we do know. In essence, all of our understanding of sensible things is due to us actually sensing those things or them being described to us in terms of things that we have sensed.

The best argument to understand what Augustine is asserting is how adults learn a foreign language. Say an adult person is placed in a foreign country where no one speaks the same language that the adult individual speaks. That person would have to learn how to communicate with the native population. So that individual would attempt to communicate using gestures, pointing out things, or doing anything so that a native person can try to understand what the person is trying to say. That person might learn a word or phrase in the native tongue for what he is trying to say. But in learning that new word, he did not learn anything new about the thing that he was trying to say itself. All he learned was a new sign for that word. He learned that new sign by the sign being told to him while the thing he was trying to say being pointed out or occurring. Again, nothing new is learned about the object being talked about—only more signs and words to represent that object.

Another argument for Augustine’s assertion is an observation on the process of learning. If learning occurred through words, then anything that a teacher ‘teaches’ using words would be immediately understood by a student. If all the words used by the teacher are known to the student and the language is familiar to the student—then it stands to reason that anything said by the teacher would be understood by the student. That is not the case. For example, in a mathematics or science class, even if the teacher explains a mathematical concept or scientific theory in words that a student knows, it’s common that a student can still not grasp that mathematical concept or scientific theory. It’s only after further thought, contemplation, different perceptions, and various point of view of the concept or theory does that student eventually understand the concept or theory—and apply it in practice.

To further this point, some ‘teaching’ styles focus on rote memorization. In these cases, the students memorize or ‘learn’ word for word whatever it is that the teacher wants them to memorize. When these students are asked anything about what was memorized, they can say words about the concept or theory they memorized. However, when these students are asked to apply what they know, they tend to struggle. If words could teach us, committing them to memory would not only teach the words but all that they stand for and how to put them into practice. In this case, student could know the words but not have a clue how to apply the concepts they stand for.

In regards to the inner Truth that Augustine speaks of, the best evidence of this inner Truth are the morals that exist in cultures throughout the world. For example, some form of the Golden Rule exists in every major religion. Many of these religions, at the time of their origination, couldn’t have possibly been in contact with another religion to be influenced by it. If we accept that a perfect God reaches out to all of his people and places the same truth in each person for them to discern and discover, it stands to reason that the fundamental morals of each religion be very similar—and they are in vast majority of major religions.

Words, like anything else we use to communicate, are a tool. Words are a vehicle to convey a message about a referent. If we are unfamiliar with the referent, the message can’t be understood. Words then can’t teach us their referent for we must know the referent to understand the words.