St. Augustine Essay Ideas

November 17, 2009 2:27 PM

I'm going crazy trying to come up with a topic for a paper on St. Augustine on Memory (ie, book X of the Confessions). I've been trying for days and I just am such a blank. Help brainstorming? I need to be arguing something. Thanks!
posted by howgenerica to Education (2 answers total)

The old standby this is to write on the connection between Thought, Utterance, and Memory with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Augustine equates each to Past, Present, and Future.

You'll want to peruse De Trinitate
posted by jefficator at 2:52 PM on November 17, 2009

You'll see memory is for him a glimpse into eternity, what we can participate of it. Explain such concepts from his texts (Confessions will do for that). That allows you to delve as much as you like / need into St. Ag.'s theories of time and importance of memory in knowledge. You could also relate that concept of memory with similar views over history, earlier ones such as Plato's anamnesis, or later like Leibniz's theories about monads having different degrees of awareness of the totality, for example.
posted by varoa at 3:47 PM on November 17, 2009