St. Augustine's Metaphysics of Rhythm

Abstract of the research:

The Latin concept numerus is extremely significant for it reflects the reality of antique spirit which entered into its imperial period. As the Roman state embodied in objectivity the substantial principle of antiquity – subordination of everything particular to universal (which is the core of metaphysical thought), the determination of rhythm in Latin culture as number evidences that in the form of this concept antiquity not only elevated particular beauty of existence to universal beauty but also immersed the beautiful into the logical as its substance.

Nevertheless, in St. Augustine’s interpretation of rhythm numerus as the logical principle is not simply an ontological root of the finite. It is inwardly differentiated into the objective and subjective, being a concrete totality, the idea. Meanwhile, it lacks for the same thing as all antiquity: it is not known as a real contradiction, and that is the reason why the Absolute remains abstract and is not known as its own process in which finite subjectivity, I becomes necessity of the infinite substance. So, in his doctrine the contents of the science of music have not the value of man’s self-conscious activity.

Initially St. Augustine’s logic of rhythm is divided into the aspects of nature and finite spirit. In nature the primordial logical stratum is mechanics, and the most exemplifying form of this rhythmic is regular celestial circulation forming the universe’s poem. In the sphere of physics rhythmic is obvious in the hierarchy of natural elements. In organics the highest species is animal rhythms manifesting animatedness by means of which one makes the transition to the rhythmic of self-knowing subjectivity – to finite spirit. Here one discovers the soul’s rhythms ascending from the corporeal to the incorporeal, and rhythms of state constitution and those of world history. However, within these frames the concept of rhythm does not attain its complete subjectivity, so it is required to pass on to rhythmic in art and science as forms of its self-consciousness.

It is the theoretical aspect of spirit that is mostly realized in St. Augustine’s conception of artistic rhythms, so their classification is carried out in the moments of intuition, representation and thought. The rhythmic of artistic intuition is characterized by a complex intentionality and differentiation in accordance with which hearing and sight are recognized to be ideal forms of intuition. The most paradoxical is St. Augustine’s vision of rhythms of artistic representation. On one hand, he admits that images are superior to sensual perceptions; on the other hand, confessing exclusively the immediate way of spirit’s determination he views rhythms of memory, phantasies and phantasms as only shameful similarities and imitations of sensual bodies. Artistic thinking is formed by rhythmic of natural judgment which is not developed, though, in the determinacy of its element and is close to Kant’s aesthetic judgment.

Its insufficiency as thinking is the condition of the further progress of St. Augustine’s metaphysics of rhythm to the level of scientific cognition of rhythmic. At the beginning its content does not manifest itself in the form of its perfect rationality and is not posited by but is given to thinking, so the reason of science is found in the form of external authority. This is the stage of grammar (metric). The highest (that is philosophical) stage is the science of music in which thinking of rhythmic is determined freely, depending on itself because rhythmic determinacy is viewed as reflected in its reasonable ground, substance for which are taken numbers and their correlations as purely intellectual entities. Thereby the metaphysical principle of spiritual formation, such as antiquity in general and St. Augustine in particular understood it, should be considered to be accomplished.

But in spite of all the necessity of its metaphysical ascent logic of rhythm in St. Augustine’s thought is not realized in the full form of its concept as far as it is confronted by unsublated concreteness of finite rhythmic. That is why St. Augustine’s metaphysic of rhythm shows neglect towards the sphere of the particular, finite subjectivity and historical context. The 18th century German aesthetics of verse was to make up for this incompleteness. The new understanding of rhythm stated in opposition to St. Augustine’s metaphysical substantialism the modern principle of actual self-consciousness which was originally realized in the flesh of naturalism and genetic explanation of rhythmic and then purified and enhance to the form of its transcendental conception. The extremes of substantialism and subjectivism in the interpretation of rhythmic are joined by means of the concreteness of speculative thinking which is the standpoint of this research.

Key words: Augustine, metaphysics, rhythm, verse, music, number, art, science, history, reason, philosophy, antiquity, Christianity, self-consciousness