Augustine's teaching on Human nature

• What did Thomas Hobbes say about human nature?

  In their natural state humans are essentially generous creatures and only act otherwise when situation and circumstance cause them to.
• what was the quote Thomas hobbes said?

  “Man in born free, and everywhere he is in chains”
• what did Hobbes say was the purpose of society

  the purpose of our society should be to remove barriers that had resulted in our loss of freedom and try and regain our natural state as helpful, just and social beings. 
• what did Rousseau say about humans?

  In their natural state humans are not co-operative but selfish and brutish (animal-like).
• What quote did Rousseau say?

  “The Life of man, solitary, poor, brutish, and short”
• How are humans different from animals?

  they recognise if they co-operate with each other life can become more tolerable. This, however, often has to be backed with the threat of force (the police, the army, the courts) to make sure we don’t go back to our selfish ways.
• What did Foucault say?

  “Human nature”, like any other quality, is taught to us. We are socialised and educated to think and behave in a particular way and what is considered to be “human nature” often happens to be exactly what the rulers of a society want from their subjects/citizens.
• What did Marx say?

  There is no such thing as human nature. Humans have to work and create to guarantee their survival, everything else they do is just a product of their environment. For example, business people will argue that humans are selfish and greedy because this is the behaviour that is rewarded in a capitalist society.
• When was Augustine born?

  Thagaste, North Africa in 354 AD.
• What sins did Augustine confess in his book 'confessions'

  •The theft of a pear from his neighbor’s orchard while a teenager.

  •His “God-less lust” during his adolescence. Encouraged by the riotous student clubs in Carthage that Augustine later described as a “hissing cauldron of lust”.

  •A child born out of wedlock with a woman he formed a relationship with while completing his studies (a source of great shame and embarrassment for his mother).
• What was Manichaeism?

  •God is not omnipotent and instead the world is a battlefield between forces of light and darkness.

  •The human soul is under the influence of both forces of light and dark (God and Satan).

  •They advocated extreme abstinence from all enjoyments of evil such as riches, lust, wine, meat or luxurious houses (asceticism).
• What was Platonists?

  They believed that the Form of the Good was in fact God (what they called, “the One”). They argued that some humans were capable of knowing the One by practicing and following virtuous practices and ascetic observances in this world. Soul and body ought to work in harmony but in practice the soul cannot control the body and that this was the source of unhappiness.