Augustine's Inner Dialogue: The Philosophical Soliloquy in Late Antiquity

by Brian Stock

Overview

Augustine's philosophy of life involves mediation, reviewing one's past and exercises for self-improvement. Centuries after Plato and before Freud he invented a 'spiritual exercise' in which every man and woman is able, through memory, to reconstruct and reinterpret life's aims. In this 2010 book, Brian Stock examines Augustine's unique way of blending literary and philosophical themes. He proposes a new interpretation of Augustine's early writings, establishing how the philosophical soliloquy (soliloquium) has emerged as a mode of inquiry and how it relates to problems of self-existence and self-history. The book also provides clear analysis of inner dialogue and discourse, and how, as inner dialogue complements and finally replaces outer dialogue, a style of thinking emerges, arising from ancient sources and a religious attitude indebted to Judeo-Christian tradition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780511861901
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/07/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	483 KB

About the Author

Brian Stock is Emeritus Professor of History and Literature at the University of Toronto. His previous publications include The Implications of Literacy (1981), Augustine the Reader (1996) and Bibliothèques intérieures (2005).

Table of Contents

Abbreviations; Preface and acknowledgements; Chronology; Introduction; 1. Toward inner dialogue; 2. Soliloquy and self-existence; 3. Order and freedom; 4. Narrative; Conclusion.