But there is a third way in which Augustine extends the notion of the homo rationalis—and it takes us, once again, into the realm of liminality, of transitional ideas. We have already touched upon it, in discussing the distinction between the rationale and the rationabile. The rationale, it will be remembered, is ‘what uses ratio, or could potentially use it (uel uti posset )’ (ord. 2.11.31). We could connect this with the notion of the dicibile in De Dialectica. (This, of course, depends upon the assumption that De Dialectica is authentically by Augustine. I believe that the text we have represents his notes—or possibly those of a student—for a further dialogue, never completed. Why I link the text to Augustine ought to
become clear from what follows here.43) In the course of the work—
which, as it survives, covers only a few paragraphs—Augustine is discussing the distinction between ‘sign’ and ‘thing’ (signum and res) with which he is later to launch his De Doctrina Christiana. He proposes the deWnition of a word (uerbum): ‘a word is the sign for any thing, which is uttered by someone speaking and could be understood by someone listening’ (uerbum est uniuscuiusque rei signum, quod ab audiente possit intellegi, a loquente prolatum: dial.5.7). The word for ‘could’ is in the subjunctive: the force is not that the word is necessarily understood, but that it could— potentially—be so. He goes on to show that the word/thing relation- ship also contains two units which are, as it were, intermediary. The uerbum(word) is what is actually spoken. There is also res ipsa, the actual thing. But in between lies the dicibile, which is ‘what the mind holds, not the ears’, and the dictio, which is a word spoken to signify something else, instead of on its own account, propter se—a Wgure of speech? a metaphorical usage? the concept is under-explained. The dicibile, how- ever, is glossed more fully. ‘What I have called dicibile is a word; and yet, it does not signify a word, but what is understood in a word and contained in the mind’ (quod dixi ‘dicibile’, uerbum est, nec tamen uerbum, sed quod in uerbo intellegitur et animo continetur, signiWcat ). It is the mental process associated with uttering, hearing, or reading a word: the un- articulated moment of cognition by which the word is understood.44It
is, in fact, a potential word: the sayable.45
That this should indeed be connected with the idea of the homo rationalis as someone ‘who uses reason, or could potentially use it’ is made clear later in the work. Augustine is now discussing the notion of ambiguity; in this instance, he is attending to the ideas contained in words, in whatever form they are encountered (‘even in spoken
43 Jackson discusses the authenticity question in the introduction to his edition—Wrst on
historical grounds, then with a quantitative study. It seems that the question is fairly securely settled in favour of Augustine’s authorship; Ruef, in Aug-Lex, points out that the burden of proof now lies on the opponents.
44 This is my own explication. Jackson (edition,126) remarks on the ‘diYculty’ of inter-
preting dicibile. Dicibile ‘would not seem to be merely a thought or an idea in the psychological sense of those terms, but Augustine does not tell us how it is related to thought’ (127).
45 Compare the Stoic concept to lekton; Michael Frede explains it as ‘what gets said by using
the appropriate expression in the appropriate way’ (109), but adds that to lekton is also (1) what is signiWed by the expression used to say something; (2) what the speaker has in mind/thinks when he utters the expression. See ‘The Stoic notion of a lekton’, in Stephen Everson (ed.), Language(Cambridge,1994), 111. See also Emil Orth, ‘Lekton¼dicibile’, Helmantica, 10 (1959), 221–26.
expressions’)—as opposed to ambiguity in written words, which is conWned to misunderstandings generated by seeing words on a page. He gives as an example the multitude of diVerent things embraced by the word homo—of which, he says, the ultimate deWnition is the now- familiar animal rationale mortale. The deWnition is demonstrably correct, says Augustine, if ‘every human being contains those same things and nothing else does except a human’ (omnis homo eadem contineatur et praeter hominem nihil: dial.9.17). He adds that, given time, he could defend the deWnition even in the case of those who are asleep or drunk or in a rage (dial.9.17)—presumably, though he does not say so, with the notion of potentiality: were they awake or sober, these people would be found to be rationales.
Through mobilizing the idea of potential, the criteria for being a homo rationalisinstantly become more Xuid. One does not have to attain a certain point of achievement in the progress towards being a homo rationalis; simply being potentially capable of using ratio is suYcient. This is a very satisfying notion. It also bespeaks aWtting optimism about human nature—which is, after all, God’s creation. Suddenly, the ‘ig- norant and the infants’ are automatically included in any human claim to divinity and immortality.46
This prompts us to recall yet another way in which the framing of De Beata Vitais amusingly out of kilter with its contents. In the preface, addressed to Mallius Theodorus, we read of three diVerent types of allegorical sailor, each trying to attain the harbour of philosophy. The Wrst is the sailor whom the ‘age in control of ratio has embraced’ (note that it is the stage of life, not the sailor, which is the subject of the verb): he comes quickly to port. At a certain stage of the man’s life, ratio is mastered—or masters him—and wisdom is attained. It looks, in fact, as if this is partly an elegant compliment to Theodorus: when such a sailor gets to port, he erects ‘the brilliant standard of some work of his’.47
Meanwhile, during the dialogue, Monnica says at a crucial point of the debate: ‘If ratio compels this, I cannot deny it’ (si hoc cogit ratio, non possum negare: beata u.3.21). Yet, as we have seen, she does implicitly deny the conclusion; ratio is not the compelling force. The whole dialogue is, in a
46 The status of women here is doubtful: however neutral the term homo, Augustine’s list of
possible contents for the word is resolutely masculine in gender. But we may infer from his treatment elsewhere that they are, in fact, included.
47 The context of the quotations: unum [genus nauigantium] est eorum, quos ubi aetas compos
rationis adsumpserit, paruo impetu pulsuque remorum de proximo fugiunt seseque condunt in illa tranquilli- tate, unde ceteris ciuibus . . . lucidissimum signum sui alicuius operis erigunt: beata u.1.2.
sense, about the loss of that easy mastery exempliWed by the sailor of the preface: about realizing that the controlling force of dialectic is simply not suYcient to approach the true truth. There is no speciWc moment at which the ‘age in control of ratio’ embraces the seeker. There is, indeed, little meaning to be attached to being ‘in control of ratio’ (compos rationis), if it is the potential to use ratio alone that brings one closer to God.