Reviewed by:

• Augustine's Political Thought ed. by Richard J. Dougherty
• Evan Dutmer

"Augustine's City of God is not a treatise of political or social philosophy." So begins Christian Tornau's section on political philosophy in his entry on Augustine for the Stanford [End Page 330] Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Evident in this remark is the ambivalence with which historians of philosophy have generally treated the political philosophy of the great late antique philosopher of northern Africa. Despite its suggestive title and its extended apologetical attacks on the Earthly City, the City of God is decidedly not a work of political philosophy in the traditional sense: it does not reason about the best form of government; it only rarely functions as a mirror for Christian princes; it recommends no real social or political reforms (e.g. the abolition of slavery); even the cities described have fluid, shifting citizenry of indefinite number (the Earthly City, for instance, turns out to be only loosely composed of earthly patriots—the denizens of the City of God walk in their midst). It is rather intensely protreptic, a proselytizing document that calls for the reader to leave the Earthly City (with its characteristic love, amor sui, viz. love of self) for the City of God (with its characteristic love, amor Dei, viz. the love of God).

Augustine's Political Thought proceeds from different starting points. Inspired by Ernest Fortin, the contributors to this volume search for a political teaching in the work of Augustine that, at times, is implicit or indirect. The City of God, which casts doubts on the efficacy of political theory as a project worthy of Christian attention, thus could be seen as containing a latent pessimistic political teaching. Further, even works not generally considered to be political in the Augustinian corpus—e.g. the Confessions or the early Cassiciacum dialogues—become candidates for political interpretation (see Michael Foley's chapter on the early dialogues and Douglas Kries's on Augustine's Confessions and Plato's Republic). Inspired by Leo Strauss's esotericism hypothesis—that numerous philosophers in (especially) the Platonic tradition have used an esoteric style of writing—contributors to this volume examine Augustine's point of contact with "classical political philosophy" (see especially Thomas Harmon's "The Few, the Many, and the Universal Way of Salvation: Augustine's Point of Engagement with Platonic Political Thought"). In Peter Busch's "Peace in the Order of Nature: Augustine, Giles, and Dante," interest in the supposedly continuous tradition of classical political philosophy extends to an intriguing medieval debate between Giles of Rome and Dante on the temporal and ecclesial-spiritual powers of the Pope.

Strauss's influence is evident in the only clearly explicated methodological commitment of the volume, contained in Dougherty's editorial introduction: "The contributions of this volume all take as a matter of utmost importance the task of understanding St. Augustine on his own terms" (1). Similarly: "The thrust of the essays is not simply putting Augustine into conversation with ancient or modern authors … but rather first coming to know with as much assurance as possible what Augustine thought. … To do so, one must honor Augustine's foundational work as much as one can, following the nuances of his argument and often recognizing the interplay between and among texts" (2). These comments follow Strauss in criticizing the perceived "historicism" of modern-day scholarship, encouraging, rather, close study of the "interplay" between texts in Augustine's corpus—and understanding "Augustine's own argument comprehensively" (2).

The appeal of many essays in this volume will depend on how plausible one finds these background interpretive commitments. Some might be skeptical about attempts to "understand Augustine's own argument comprehensively" (2) through "honor[ing] Augustine's foundational work" (2), while others may doubt just how much of Augustine's political thought can be gleaned from works on topics other than political philosophy. Last, those disposed to view Augustine's thought along roughly developmental lines might find it curious to draw from much earlier works in Augustine's...

审核人：

• 奥古斯丁的政治思想版。理查德·道尔蒂（Richard J.Dougherty）
• 埃文·杜特默（Evan Dutmer）

“奥古斯丁的上帝之城不是政治或社会哲学著作。” 因此，开始在他的奥古斯丁条目基督教Tornau对政治哲学部分斯坦福 [尾页330] 哲学百科全书。这句话很明显是哲学史学家普遍对待北非伟大的晚期古董哲学家的政治哲学的矛盾性。尽管它具有暗示性的标题，并且对尘世之城进行了广泛的道歉攻击，但上帝之城绝对不是传统意义上的政治哲学著作：它没有考虑最佳的政府形式；它很少能充当基督教王子的镜子。它建议不进行真正的社会或政治改革（例如废除奴隶制）；即使是所描述的城市，也有数量不确定的，不断变化的公民身份（例如，地上城市原来只是由地上的爱国者组成的松散组织-上帝之城的居民在他们中间行走）。这是相当强烈protreptic，一个传教的文件，为读者来电离开地支市（以其特有的爱情，阿穆尔绥，即自我的爱）为上帝的城市（以其特有的爱情，阿穆尔棣，即上帝的爱）。

奥古斯丁的政治思想源于不同的起点。受欧内斯特·佛丁（Ernest Fortin）的启发，该书的撰稿人在奥古斯丁的著作中寻求一种有时甚至是暗含的或间接的政治教导。在上帝之城，这使人们对政治理论作为一个值得关注的基督教项目的功效表示怀疑，因此可以被看作是包含潜悲观的政治课教学。此外，甚至在奥古斯丁语料库中通常不被认为具有政治意义的作品（例如，自白或早期的卡西夏公会对话）也成为政治解释的候选人（请参阅迈克尔·弗利（Michael Foley）关于早期对话的章节和道格拉斯·克里斯（Douglas Kries）关于奥古斯丁的自白和柏拉图共和国的论述。）。受利奥·施特劳斯（Leo Strauss）的神秘主义假设（在（尤其是）柏拉图传统中的许多哲学家都采用深奥的写作风格）的启发下，本卷的撰稿人研究了奥古斯丁与“古典政治哲学”的联系点（尤其参见托马斯·哈蒙的《少数，少数派许多，以及普遍的救赎方式：奥古斯丁与柏拉图式政治思想的交融点”。在彼得·布希（Peter Busch）的“自然秩序中的和平：奥古斯丁，吉尔斯和但丁”中，对所谓的古典政治哲学连续传统的兴趣延伸到了罗马和但丁之间关于罗马帝国的时空和教会精神精神力量的有趣的中世纪辩论。教皇。

Strauss的影响力可以从该书的唯一明确阐述的方法论承诺中得到体现，该书包含在Dougherty的社论导言中：“本书的贡献对于以他自己的名义理解圣奥古斯丁而言是极为重要的”（1） 。同样地：“论文的重点不仅是让奥古斯丁与古代或现代作家进行对话……而是要首先以尽可能多的把握来了解奥古斯丁的想法。……要做到这一点，就必须尽可能地尊重奥古斯丁的基础性工作。尽可能地遵循他的论点的细微差别，并经常认识到文本之间和文本之间的相互作用”（2）。这些评论是在施特劳斯（Strauss）批评现代学术的公认“历史主义”，鼓励而不是

在这一卷中，许多论文的吸引力将取决于人们对这些背景解释性承诺的合理程度。有些人可能对通过“荣誉奥古斯丁的基础工作”（2）“全面理解奥古斯丁自己的论点”（2）的尝试持怀疑态度，而另一些人可能怀疑奥古斯丁的政治思想能否从其他主题的著作中收集到。而不是政治哲学。最后，那些倾向于以大致发展的眼光看待奥古斯丁思想的人可能会发现，好奇地借鉴了奥古斯丁的早期作品...