Augustine's inner dialogue
Subtitle: the philosophical soliloquy in late Antiquity
By: Brian Stock
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 240
ISBN-13: 9780521190312
Description: "Augustine's philosophy of life involves 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. 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"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Abbreviations; Preface and acknowledgements; Chronology; Introduction; 1. Toward inner dialogue; 2. Soliloquy and self-existence; 3. Order and freedom; 4. Narrative; Conclusion.