Philosophy

Phil

Interpreting Plato

Alfred North Whitehead once remarked that all of philosophy is but a footnote to Plato. This proves true in the case of St. Augustine's Confessions, where he specifies Plato's good as God by personalizing the forms, Eros, sin, and recollection. Specifically, Augustine's idea of "original sin," forgetfulness and recollection follow the philosophy of Plato, bringing them into the "God realm," rather leaving them in a figurative sense open for interpretation. In the Confessions, Augustine says that "the soul commits fornication when it is turned away from you and, apart from you, seeks such pure, clean things as it does not find except when it returns to you" (2.6.14). Here Augustine provides an overview of his idea of God: it is initially with God, because it must turn away, or forget, in order to leave God, but is left unsatisfied until it returns, or remembers. This is a direct use of Plato's theory that the soul of man originally dwells with the forms in