Augustine and the Limits of Memory: Augustine’s Account of Memory and its Contemporary Theological and Ethical Significance

This study explores Augustine’s account of memory and argues for its significance as a constructive resource for contemporary theological and ethical reflection on memory and related loci. In doing so, my project contributes to and expands historical understandings of Augustine’s account of memory while evincing its significance for contemporary theological, philosophical, and ethical reflection. In Part I (Chapters 1 and 2), I trace the diachronic development of Augustine's account of memory across his corpus—including well-trodden texts such as the Confessiones and De Trinitate, as well as under-explored texts apropos memory such as his Cassiciacum dialogues, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Sermones, and anti-Pelagian writings. In doing so, I argue and demonstrate that Augustine’s account of memory involves more than just the binary of self-knowledge vis-à-vis knowledge of God, but entails a constellation of uses, themes, and arguments involving ‘wisdom’, ‘redemption’, and ‘rest’. I will go onto explicate Augustine’s account of memory as an exercitatio animi meant to orient our entire being and life towards God in wisdom, redemption, and rest. In Part II (Chapters 3 to 5), I explore how these three categories of use in Augustine’s account of memory might become ‘operational’ as constructive resources for contemporary reflection on self-deception (‘wisdom’), remembered past harms (‘redemption’), and testimony at the limits of personal memory (‘rest’). Finally, to conclude, I suggest how Augustinian memory might serve to resource and enrich nuanced accounts of shared recollection, responsibility, and hope amidst what Stanley Cavell calls the separateness of our human condition.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Wu, Abraham

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Fergusson, David

• Augustine
• Memory
• Theology
• Religious Ethics
• Self-Deception
• Forgiveness
• Testimony
• Confession

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/b1246e81-11b6-44f9-8a48-1c8d16a7b023/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

Author Identifier

0000-0001-9778-5550

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/392526