Augustine’s hermeneutics reduces all reading to enjoying or using

Evidence

Augustine proceeds by dividing wholes into two parts: “There are two things on which all interpretation of Scripture depends, the process of discovering what we need to learn, and the process of presenting what we have learnt” (I.I). ”All teaching is teaching of either things or signs” (1.2). By the first major distinction, we are ready for love: “There are some things which are to be enjoyed, some which are to be used, and some whose function is both to enjoy and use” (1.3). Both enjoyment and use are variations on love: “To enjoy something is to hold fast to it in love for its own sake. To use something is to apply whatever it may be to the purpose of obtaining what you love” (1.4). — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 162 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

But there was a wide gulf here between the two men. Emerson, freed from weed pulling, wrote up his journal and composed an essay, and kept up with modern scientific advance. What did Thoreau do with this broad margin of leisure? “I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery … while the birds sang around, or flitted noiseless through the house.” — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 797 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Bourget’s account reduces the literary temperament to a few simple psychic elements — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1318; Augustine divides all things into those to be enjoyed and those to be used. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab: A History of the…, 162; Nietzsche reduces all knowledge claims to will-to-power purposes — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 271 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Augustine divides all things into those to be enjoyed and those to be used. #corroborates (0.97) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 162
• Thoreau prized receptive idleness over productive use of leisure #complicates (0.72) — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 797