Mapping the Summit of Human Perceptual Experience: From St Augustine’s mansio to Thomas Aquinas’ habitatio

In this paper, I map the summit of Augustine of Hippo’s schema of human perceptual experience as laid out in his De Quantitate Animae (Lt. On the Magnitude of the Soul). As I analyse, Augustine uses Neoplatonist participatory metaphysics in his construction of the seventh gradus of the (human) soul. The gradus are degrees of functionalities the soul possesses. There are strong parallels between Augustine’s schema of the gradus and that of Neoplatonists, Porphyry and Plotinus. What is common to all three accounts—i.e., of Augustine’s, Porphyry’s, and Plotinus’—is the notion of ascent. That is, a progression from the sensible dimension to the intelligible dimension of the interior world, wherein the soul resides. Another important commonality is that by ascending the soul is divinised. A divinisation that is realised in mystical union with the One. Similarly, for Augustine, at the seventh gradus the soul unites with, and remains in, God.

From this analysis, I propose that in addition to understandings from Neoplatonism, Augustine constructs his schema from an exegesis of John 14. Augustine describes the seventh gradus as a mansio—i.e., an abode wherein the soul resides in timeless, undisturbed peace. To me, the word ‘mansio’ has echoes of John 14.2, in which Jesus tells his disciples that in his father’s house there are “many mansions”, ‘μοναὶ πολλαί’ in Greek (monai pollai). Both Augustine’s mansio and John 14.2’s μονη (mone, sing.) mean ‘a staying or remaining.’ I ask if the use of μονη in John 14.2, in turn, reflects of a Platonic conception of eternity as ‘μένειν ἐν ἑνί’ (Timaeus 37d): i.e., a place wherein eternity is ‘to remain in unity.’ 

Augustine’s conception of a timeless, eternal world is more than likely influenced by Neoplatonist, Plotinus’ theory of eternity from his On Eternity and Time, which is in turn influenced by Plato's Timaeus 37d[1]. As I see it, Augustine's description of the soul at the seventh gradus as abiding in the place God eternally resides carries Plotinus’ re-conceptualisation of eternity in which the One eternally is. The One being the cause of all that exists. Further, both Christianity and Neoplatonism have the paradoxical notion of plurality within a unity. However, there is an important difference between Neoplatonist conception of the One and Johannine's recognition of the Father. ‘The Father’ is a personification of the unity Neoplatonists refer to as The One. In turn, Neoplatonism’s The One is described as ‘The Father’ in Plato's Timaeus. Thus, I conclude that Augustine’s seventh gradus as the summit of human perceptual experience, in God, is a synthesis of Neoplatonism and Johannine theology. Similarly, Thomas Aquinas’ summit of perceptual experience is a synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy and Augustinian theology. 

Hence, I trace Augustine’s schema of the summit of human perceptual experience as the mansio (seventh gradus) to Thomas Aquinas’ schema as the habitatio. I argue that Aquinas’ schema of the summit of perceptual experience is also shaped by metaphysics of participation via his use of Augustinian theology. Whilst Augustine’s mansio takes us beyond this life into eternity, Aquinas’ habitatio is the summit of joy during one’s earthly life. I use the term habitatio to denote Aquinas’ endpoint of human perceptual experience for two reasons. One) Aquinas uses ‘habitatio’ at least once to refer to the ulterior end of an intention, which extends beyond the end of an action[2].

The second reason why I use habitatio for Aquinas’ endpoint of human perceptual experience, is this. It is a play on the word ‘habitus’ which Aquinas uses to describe the dispositions that take one to the ultimate end. Aquinas’ notion of habitus parallels Augustine’s gradus. The habitus, like the gradus, refer to dispositions. Unlike the gradus, the habitus are restricted to the intellect. Specifically, to the possible intellect, the possible intellect along with the agent intellect form the intellectual faculty within the schema of human cognition. Aquinas’ conceptualisation of the possible intellect’s habitus can be traced to Aristotle’s notion of ἕξις(Gk, hexis). For Aristotle, hexeis (pl.) or states/dispositions are ‘things in virtue of which we stand well or badly with reference to the passions’[3]. Hexis is acquired via habits; good dispositions ‘result from often doing just and temperate acts’[4]. Similarly, for Aquinas, from the possible intellect’s habit of turning towards the agent intellect, one acquires good habits that take one to an ultimate end in God. That is, to a habitatio.

In constructing his habitatio, Aquinas intricately interweaves seemingly disparate philosophy and theology. The notion of ‘beatus’ is a theologising of Aristotelian concept of ‘eudaimonia’: i.e., ‘flourishing’ or ‘happiness'. Thus Aristotelian ‘eudaimonia’ is, for Aquinas, a beatitude achieved when a soul is united with God. Using Pseudo-Dionysius, Aquinas states ‘For perfect happiness, the intellect needs to reach the very Essence of the First Cause. And thus, it will have its perfection through union with God...’[5]. In Aquinas’ schema of the summit of human perceptual experience, the soul contemplating God in the eternal world knows God’s essence and existence. Whereas Augustine makes no such ontological or epistemological distinction in his schema wherein the soul knows God simpliciter.

To end, I note that both Augustine’s ‘mansio’ and Aquinas’ 'habitatio' connote the concept ‘home.’ An important aspect of the concept ‘home’ for both schemata is its social dimension. At the summit of human perceptual experience, it is not only the individual, but a community of persons in mystical union with God: Implying the Neoplatonist idea of a plurality within a unity. Another important aspect of the concept ‘home’ is as the place from which one comes, and to which one returns. The idea that the ultimate destination of a soul is to return to its origin is a key feature of Platonist/Neoplatonist metaphysics of participation which, as I characterise, shapes Augustine’s and Aquinas’ respective schemata of the summits of human perceptual experience. 

[1] Ennead III, 7

[2]See Thomas Norton, The Metaphysics of the School V.2 (London: Macmillan, 1881).

[3] Nicomachean Ethics, 1105b25–26

[4] NE, 1105b2-4

[5] ST Ia-IIae Q3 A.8 Respondeo