There are so many publications on the work of St Augustine, especially the Confessions, and they are so frequent, that questioning their pertinence is inevitable. This volume, however, brings evidence that new perspectives, which provide renewed vigour to Augustinian studies, are still possible.
The book comprises eight essays and, as the introduction suggests, aims to ‘provide a sample of the wares of Augustine the philosopher’. Since the Confessions constitutes not only the most influential work by the saint (even at its time, as he tells us in his Retractationes), but also the one that provides the most fecund variety of subjects to be investigated, it is to that work that the collection is dedicated.
The first essay, ‘Augustine's Anti-Platonists Ascents’, by P. King, focuses on Book 7 of Confessions, particularly on Augustine's ascetic struggles, whose ‘weight’ made him unable to fix his eyes on God. In King's view, Augustine's issue lies on consuetudo carnalis, translated by the author as ‘sexuality’. Several fragments of the Confessions support that theory which, nevertheless, places Augustine in opposition to the ascesis articulated by Plato (most notably depicted in Symposium), and in the works of Neo-Platonists (examples are given by Plotinus and Porphyry), who see sexual drive as the impulse behind ascension. Thus, Augustine's ascesis must have another source: St Ambrose. The Bishop of Hippo, however, is more specific than his colleague from Milan, and makes it clear that it is God alone who can make him see Him – a description that already points to his theories on grace.
‘Practical Rationality and the Wills of Confessions 8’, by T. Ekenberg, makes considerations on will according to the accounts of the agonising period before St Augustine embraced the Catholic faith. His aim is to build a theory of the will that fulfils Anthony Kenny's requirements, containing ‘a treatment of voluntariness, a treatment of intentionality, and a treatment of rationality’. Ekenberg reveals how, in Augustine's anguishes articulated in Book 8, reason is either unable to impose its dictates on will, or it sabotages itself. From the collapse of rationality, he is able to extrapolate four distinct conceptions of will, each of which attributes different characteristics to reason and to will itself. As in the previous essay, the need for grace in the resolution of Augustine's sufferings is brought to light.
In Book 10 of the Confessions, where the turmoil prior to his conversion is no longer the subject, we are informed that joining Catholicism does not provide Augustine with the joy that would satisfy him: he remains miserable, dragged by the weight of his own weaknesses and of habit. In ‘Happiness in Augustine's Confessions’, N. Wolterstorff contrasts Augustine's idea of happiness with ancient philosophers’ eudaimonia and beatitudo. While the latter claims that a happy life consists in ‘living well and doing well’, i.e. an activity, for Christians it means an experiential state whose realisation is prevented by the many temptations described in Augustine's Book 10. Even after his conversion, he does not achieve a reform of himself that enables him to feel happy. Nor would the absence of miseries cause him to be happy, since all desire can be frustrated on earth. Only God is able to provide true joy in the future life.
S. Menn, ‘The Desire for God and the Aporetic Method in Augustine's Confessions’, shows how the saint uses aporiai as the motor of his narrative, so to ‘reconstruct perplexities that he went through some ten to fifteen years before the time of composition of Confessions, to try to induce similar perplexities in his readers’. Menn construes the search for God as the main aporia, the one that allows us to clarify our comprehension of Him and His relationship with us. How can we know Him? And if we search for Him, do we not already know who He is? Resorting to Plato's Meno, Menn demonstrates in which way the rejection of Platonic reminiscence appears in the tenth book of Confessions, and how Augustine takes the search for truth to which we all tend as the solution for the aporia. The temptations in Book 10, dealt with in the previous essay, are revisited here, reminding us why Augustine is unable truly to delight in Truth.
In ‘The Life of the Mind in Dramas and Dreams’ M. connects two distinct episodes in the great work of St Augustine: his engagement with theatre and his approach to erotic dreams. M. dispels what has been called the ‘paradox of tragedy’ – in fact, the three ‘paradoxes’: (1) the anomalous psychological phenomenon (‘Why … a person should wish to experience suffering by watching grievous and tragic events which he himself would not wish to endure?’); (2) the diminished response phenomenon (‘A member of the audience is not excited to offer help, but invited only to grieve’); and (3) the phenomenon of nonexistence (‘If the human calamities, whether in ancient histories or fictitious myths, are so presented that the theatergoer is not caused pain, he walks out of the theatre disgusted and highly critical’). He demonstrates that the same paradoxes may surface when we examine the occurrence of dreams and reveals, resorting to Augustine's analysis of imagination, that the saint is not able to free himself completely of guilt when it comes to morally reprehensible dreams.
In ‘Thinking Eternally’, P. Helm elicits the two descriptions now adopted of the temporal series: the A-account, understood from the position of someone or something in time; and the B-account (Bertrand Russell et al.), understood from a position outside it. His aim is to show how Augustine, when approaching time, alternates between both perspectives without contrasting indexical thought (characteristic of A-account) to non-indexical thought (characteristic of B-account); instead, his examination of time takes either the point of view of the creature, or the point of view of the Creator. This seems to be the essay that demands the highest degree of abstract reflection in this collection.
The mind's privacy, that is, our inability to know directly what is in other people's minds, is the starting point for B.D. Dutton's essay, ‘The Privacy of the Mind and the Fully Approvable Reading of Scripture: Augustine on Genesis 1:1’. We learn that, due to that privacy, we are not able to know what the authors of the Scriptures (ultimately, God) actually wanted to say. Therefore, we must be satisfied with an approvable reading instead of the extremely difficult one that can disclose ‘the plenitude of meaning’ – the reading that captures the same meaning that the author desired for the propositions. Consequently, an advantageous reading might be enough, one that conveys some truth, but not necessarily the author's. This, as shown by Dutton, is the fundament Augustine resorts to when justifying his reading of Genesis 1:1 in response to the possible opposition from his Catholic colleagues.
Finally, C. Tornau returns to Books 12 and 13 of the Confessions in ‘Intelligible Matter and the Genesis of Intellect’. Once again, Augustine's interpretation of the first book of the Scriptures is the main focus. Tornau returns to Neo-Platonic philosophers in order to show how Augustine uses and changes the notion of unintelligible matter, adapting it to the Christian theology of creation. Unlike what had been said by Plotinus, for Augustine intelligible matter also carries potentiality.
Albeit composed of essays that reveal amazing erudition, the philosophical themes dealt with in this volume come only from a few books of the great work of the Bishop of Hippo. Its sources are mainly Books 7–13, the analysis of which is permeated by brief mentions to earlier books. There is, however, a large amount of philosophical material that could have been explored in the sections of Confessions dedicated to the saint's childhood and youth.
Nevertheless, the collection manages to portray the richness not only of St Augustine's thinking, but also of his philosophy in comparison with that of other great thinkers. The authors in this book often evoke important figures of the history of Western philosophy (Platonic, Neo-Platonic, Stoic, Christian, Modern thinkers, etc.), and thus the relevance of Augustinian thinking is constantly underlined.
