The Augustinian Tradition

Front Cover
Gareth B. Matthews
University of California Press, 1999 - 398 pages
Augustine, probably the single thinker who did the most to Christianize the classical learning of ancient Greece and Rome, exerted a remarkable influence on medieval and modern thought, and he speaks forcefully and directly to twentieth-century readers as well. The most widely read of his writings today are, no doubt, his Confessions—the first significant autobiography in world literature—and The City of God. The preoccupations of those two works, like those of Augustine's less well-known writings, include self-examination, human motivation, dreams, skepticism, language, time, war, and history—topics that still fascinate and perplex us 1,600 years later.

The Augustinian Tradition, like a number of recent single-authored books, expresses a new interest among contemporary philosophers in interpreting Augustine freshly for readers today. These articles, most of them written expressly for the book, present Augustine's ideas in a way that respects their historical context and the long history of their influence. Yet the authors, among whom are some of the best philosophers writing in English today, make clear the relevance of Augustine's ideas to present-day debates in philosophy, literary studies, and the history of ideas and religion. Students and scholars will find that these essays provide impressive evidence of the persisting vitality of Augustine's thought.
 

Contents

Alvin Plantinga I
1
Frederick J Crosson
27
Genevieve Lloyd
39
Martha Nussbaum
61
God and the Self according to St Anselm of Canterbury
91
Primal
112
InnerLife Ethics
140
On Being Morally Responsible in a Dream
166
Augustine and Descartes on Minds and Bodies
222
John Locke and Jonathan Edwards on Romans
233
John E Hare
251
Ann Hartle
263
Toward an Augustinian Liberalism
304
St Augustine and the Just War Theory
323
Augustines Philosophy of History
345
Dramas of Sin and Salvation in Augustine and Updike
361

Augustine against Consequentialism
183
Augustines Way in to the Will
195
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
383
Copyright

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About the author (1999)

Gareth B. Matthews is author of Thought's Ego in Augustine and Descartes and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

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