Philosophical Epistemology in Irenaeus

Abstract: Scholars have largely neglected Irenaeus’s philosophical psychology and related sub–fields, including his philosophical epistemology. This study argues that Irenaeus in fact implemented philosophical epistemology throughout his writings. To demonstrate this thesis, the article first introduces two approaches to epistemology that were current in Irenaeus’s era. The first approach is intellect–based epistemology ( noēsis ), which held that truth is attainable by means of the mind’s contemplation of intelligible realities. The second approach is sense–based epistemology ( aisthēsis ), which held that the human being can attain knowledge through a complex process. In this process the soul’s sense–perceptive faculty acquires data through the fleshly organs of sense perception. This data is stored as memory within the soul and subsequently sorted and analyzed in successive phases of pre–rationale and rationale analysis, which yield knowledge. Having outlined these ancient approaches to epistemology the article examines potential evidence of both in Irenaeus’s extant writings. It finds that there is little reason to conclude that Irenaeus accepted noetic epistemology. However, there is plentiful evidence to corroborate the thesis that Irenaeus accepted a form of sense–based epistemology, which he deploys in relatively sophisticated and complex arguments at multiple points throughout his corpus.