Beyond mnemotechnics: confession and memory in Augustine

Augustine describes memory as a storehouse for images (conf. 10,8-11) that is not a repository; instead, the images undergo change in the process of placement (10,25,36) and are reordered. For Augustine, God also abides within memory, yet this memory must not proceed ex locis, for God must not be su...

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Bibliographic Details
Author:Dave Tell
Published: S.n., s.l., 2006
Volume:39
Pages:233-253
Periodical:Philosophy and Rhetoric
Number:3
Format:Article
Topic:- Works > Augustine writer > Rhetoric. Dialectic > Dialectic > Literary genres > Confessions
- Works > Confessiones > Topics > Memory
- Works > De Trinitate > Topics > Memory
- Doctrine > Man > [Doctrine de la connaissance] > [Signes. La parole] > [Parole/langage/langue] > [Confession intérieur / verbale]
- Doctrine > Man > [Doctrine de la connaissance] > [Signes. La parole] > [Parole/langage/langue] > [Verbe mental / proféré]
- Doctrine > Man > [Doctrine de la connaissance] > Memory > Memory - memoria > [Confessions X]
- Doctrine > Man > [Doctrine de la connaissance] > [Connaissance humaine de Dieu] > [Memoria Dei]
Status:Active
Description
Summary:Augustine describes memory as a storehouse for images (conf. 10,8-11) that is not a repository; instead, the images undergo change in the process of placement (10,25,36) and are reordered. For Augustine, God also abides within memory, yet this memory must not proceed ex locis, for God must not be subject to the changing of the object that, according to the mnemotechnic tradition, accompanies its placement. Examination of the De trinitate shows how Augustine remembers God without placing God: he does so through the rhetorical practice of confession, which is a way of remembering that which cannot be placed in the storehouses of memory. Confession is a performative remembering in which the object of memory is not contained in the mind before it is disclosed through speech. Rather, it is embodied in the speech act.

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