The Church Father Bob invokes in dialogue 23 as the precedent for the "third position." Bob reads Augustine's "third term" — the soul that "hovered over the contradictions in Greek society," resolving the antinomies the phonetic alphabet had opened — as a first, abstract solution to the cul-de-sac, one that dominated for two thousand years as the Christian soul. The new "superposition" — the interior landscape — would "reform the Augustinian soul," but on Bob's account it must this time pass through the nothing rather than float above the contradictions.
Across the dialogues
Enters as the historical precedent for the "third position" — his soul hovering above Greek contradictions is the model the new superposition must reform, this time by going through the nothing rather than above it
Bob makes Augustine the precedent for the "third position" — his "third term," an "abstract billiard ball, a mind, a soul" hovering over the contradictions the phonetic alphabet opened in Greek thought, is what the new superposition must "reform," except that this time the soul "has to go through the nothing" instead of floating above it.
"a soul that hovered over the contradictions in Greek society."
Becomes a shared reference point for two opposed readings — Kroker's scholarly retrieval and Bob's lived self-description, both resting on the end-of-empire environment rather than the theology
The patristic period is recast as a media situation rather than a religious one — which is what lets Bob occupy it personally and Kroker cite it academically from opposite ends.
"that the fathers of the church were living in a modern environment in the desert, I guess, end of the Roman Empire kind of period."
Connections
Bob casts Augustine's "third term" as the soul that resolved the antinomies the phonetic alphabet opened in Greek (Hellenic) thought after Plato.