Augustine's Inner Dialogue
The Philosophical Soliloquy in Late Antiquity

Identifies philosophy as a way of life in Augustine's early writings and his ability to blend literary and philosophical themes.

Brian Stock (Author)

9781108466806, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 August 2018

254 pages
23 x 15.3 x 1.5 cm, 0.4 kg

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.

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

Subject Areas: Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA]