Stobaeus, Selections 2.7.13 (116.19–152.5 Wachsmuth 1884)

{13} From Aristotle and the other Peripatetics, on ethics.

(1) He says that character [ēthos] took its name from habit [ethos]; for perfection in those things of which we have the beginnings and seeds from nature [117] is achieved by habit and correct training. For this reason the [science] of character is concerned with habit and is concerned only with living creatures and most of all with human beings. For the others through habituation take on certain characters not through reason but by necessity, but a human being is moulded by reason as a result of habituation, when the <irrational> part of the soul is disposed according to reason. What is [here] called the irrational part of the soul is not that which is simply irrational, but that which can obey reason, and this is what the emotional [pathētikos] [part] is like, which is that which can admit virtue.

Andronicus’ paraphrase of the opening of the Categories as reconstructed by Moraux 1973, 102–3 from Simplicius, On Aristotle’s Categories 21.22–4, 26.18–19, 30.3–5 (= 6A) and Dexippus, On Aristotle’s Categories 21.18–19; what is underlined here is addition, what is not is as in the text of Aristotle (except that the text of Aristotle has ‘in common’ rather than ‘the same’, and ‘the account of the being’; on the latter point see the discussion below).

Of [things] that are said some are said without combination, others with combination.Of those that do not involve combination, those are said homonymously which have only the name the same, but the account that corresponds to the name is different. (Sharples 2008b, 280)

Ammonius, On Aristotle’s On Interpretation 5.24–6.6

None of those who have been seriously engaged with Aristotle’s writings thought it right to raise doubts about this book being a genuine work of the philosopher . . . except for Andronicus of Rhodes, the eleventh [head of the school] after Aristotle, when he heard him in the prologue of this book calling thoughts ‘affections [pathēmata] of the soul’ and adding ‘as has been said about them in the [work] On the Soul’. Because he did not see where in the treatise On the Soul the philosopher called thoughts affections of the soul, he thought that one of the two treatises, this one and the one On the Soul, should be declared as a spurious [work] of Aristotle, and he thought one should reject this one rather than the one On the Soul. But one should note that in many places in On the Soul we have imagination called by the philosopher ‘intellect that can be affected’.

Philoponus, On Aristotle’s On the Soul 27.21–8

On the basis of this passage [On the Soul 1.1.402a9] we refute Andronicus of Rhodes, who declared On Interpretation to be spurious. For when Aristotle says there that thoughts are affections [pathēmata] in the soul as has been said in On the Soul, Andronicus says that this is not found anywhere in On the Soul, so that it is necessary to regard either On the Soul or On Interpretation as spurious. But it is agreed that On the Soul is by Aristotle; so On Interpretation [must be] spurious. Now we say that here, by ‘affections [pathē] proper to the soul’ Aristotle meant nothing other than thoughts, so that this was what he meant in On Interpretation.

INTRODUCTION

When he opts for interior dialogue in preference to outer forms of discourse, Augustine makes a choice which has theoretical implications. In this chapter I turn to these considerations under the headings of images, words, time, and memory. His initial statements on these topics take place in the Soliloquia and De Magistro, where he expresses his views on the capacity of images and words to convey certainties, and in book six of De Musica, where he analyses the subjective experience of time. These discussions prepare the way for his reflections on comparable themes in later works, such as books ten and eleven of the Confessions. The result, I propose, is the West's first fully developed narrative philosophy.

I begin my exploration of these themes with a further reflection on the difference between narrative and non-narrative thinking, which has been touched upon in Chapter 3. In Augustine's view, narrative thinking has its basis in a sequence of sounds or images impinging on the senses, which subsequently pass through the sensus interior to the mind, whereas non-narrative thinking arises when the flow of words and images has ceased and the mind is able to determine the significance of what has been said.

INTRODUCTION

In the previous chapter I attempted to provide a sketch of some of the factors which contributed to Augustine's adoption of the soliloquy as his preferred form of spiritual exercise. Among these I singled out (1) the lengthy tradition of “spiritual exercises” in ancient thought; (2) Augustine's incorporation of interiorist themes into his outlook before joining the priesthood; (3) his discovery of Cicero's Hortensius, which convinced him of the value of philosophy; (4) his interest in Scepticism and Platonism, and the rôle of Platonism in providing a historical rationale for “Christian philosophy”; (5) his innovative thinking about body and mind, which abandoned the Platonic and Neoplatonic disdain for corporality in favour of a doctrine inspired by his reading of Paul, in which the body plays a central part in spiritual progress; and finally (5) his approach to interpretation, which encompassed his studies in grammar and rhetoric and was shaped into a powerful tool for inward self-scrutiny.

In this chapter I focus on one element in this group of forces, namely the soliloquy itself, and its use in the demonstration of self-existence. My argument is that Augustine is not only interested in refuting the Sceptical view that nothing can be known for certain, as he states in Contra Academicos and elsewhere, but that he also, and perhaps principally, envisages the cogito as an important element in constructing a narrative philosophy.

INTRODUCTION

In Chapters 1 and 2 of this study I propose the view that Augustine's soliloquies were intended to be understood as “spiritual exercises.” In Chapter 2, I outline the history of the soliloquy as a literary and philosophical genre in antiquity and discuss Augustine's use of soliloquies in handling one philosophical problem, namely the demonstration against Scepticism of the undeniability of the self's existence. In this chapter I am concerned with more general influences shaping Augustine's conception of such an exercise.

As a preface to the topic of general influences, I should like to return briefly to the question of Augustine's intellectual disorderliness in the dialogues. In the Introduction I tackled this question from the viewpoint of their disunifying features. I suggested that there are two sources of this apparent confusion, one of which, namely Augustine's implicit criticism of the external dialogue, is deftly introduced into the ongoing discussion of philosophical questions in order to create a favourable reception for his preferred alternative, the inner dialogue or soliloquy.

In general, the problem of the dialogues' disunity has been approached in one of two ways. The first was suggested by Pascal, who said that Augustine's sense of order includes even his digressions. In his view the non sequiturs break the flow of the discourse so frequently that they should be viewed as a principle of organization in themselves.

INTRODUCTION

In Augustine's writings ascetic, mental, or spiritual disciplines, such as the soliloquy, are constrained by predetermined forces, whose ultimate source is divine. Two of these forces are discussed in detail in his early writings, namely natural and historical laws. In this chapter Augustine's treatment of these subjects is taken up in a pair of works from the first years of his literary activity: De Ordine, composed in 386–387, and De Libero Arbitrio, begun in 387–388 and completed by 395.

These works confirm the direction for Augustine's soliloquies which has been suggested in Chapter 2. In the course of this discussion I attempted to show that there are two trajectories in his thinking on the topic of such spiritual exercises. First, he frames his discussion of the cogito within a narrative design which includes his personal life history as well as the history of civilization. Secondly, as he proceeds, Platonic, Neoplatonic, and Stoic approaches to the problem of personal improvement, which stress the autonomy of the self, are replaced by a dependent notion of the self based on biblical teachings, in particular those of Paul.

This transition from an autonomous to a dependent notion of the self is well illustrated by a reading of De Ordine and De Libero Arbitrio. In De Ordine, Augustine is largely psychological and philosophical in his thinking about the self.

In an earlier study entitled Augustine the Reader (1996) I attempted to trace the stages of development of Augustine's outlook as a reader and to situate this skill within his approach to meditation, interpretation, and the search for self-knowledge. My attention was chiefly devoted to the narrative books of the Confessions (books one to nine) in an effort to describe how Augustine's story of himself as a reader harmonized with what can be learned about his understanding of texts from his philosophical and theological writings in the period before and after the writing of his autobiography.

This book was initially conceived as a companion volume in which I intended to make a more detailed analysis of these problems within the writings known as “the dialogues” than was possible in Augustine the Reader. However, as the study progressed, this plan was gradually modified and eventually abandoned altogether. The topic of reading, with which my earlier book was concerned, is not absent from Augustine's early writings, as Catherine Conybeare has recently reminded us, but only emerges with clarity in De Doctrina Christiana (396) and the Confessiones (397–400). In the decade before these works were composed Augustine had other interests as well, and one of these is taken up in the pages that follow. I am referring to the use of inner dialogue as a “spiritual exercise” and to the rôle which such exercises play in the formation of a narrative philosophy and theology.

The subject of this study is a literary and philosophical genre which is defined in the writings of Augustine of Hippo as the soliloquy (soliloquium). This is a type of rational dialogue (or dialogue with Reason) in which questions are asked and answers given within the mind of a single person. In the pages that follow I examine Augustine's use of soliloquies in the works known as his “dialogues,” as well as in the Confessiones, De Civitate Dei, and De Trinitate.

I am chiefly concerned with one use for soliloquies in these works. This is Augustine's development of a consistent philosophy of narrative between roughly 386 and 400 and the application of that philosophy to his conception of the self. The book's organization is intended to reflect this progressively developing concern with soliloquium, narratio historica, and personal identity. I begin in Chapter 1 with a review of the influences that shaped Augustine's conception of inner dialogue. Chapter 2 deals with an important example of this type of discourse in his early writings, namely his demonstration of the existence of the self. In Chapter 2 I also introduce the theme of the narrative self, toward which, I argue, he orients his reiterated uses of this demonstration in the years leading up to his conversion to the religious life. Chapter 3 discusses soliloquies and narratives in the dialogues devoted respectively to order and free will, namely De Ordine and De Libero Arbitrio.

In this study I have proposed that the soliloquy, or inner dialogue, was Augustine's major type of spiritual exercise in works written between 386 and 400. This literary form was also employed in works written at later dates, for example in the Confessions, On the Trinity, and The City of God. His use of inner dialogue thus illustrates the continuity in his approach to metaphysical questions during the period in which theology replaced philosophy as the major discipline occupying his scholarly interests.

Augustine worked within an ancient tradition of such exercises which included such authors as Plato, Cicero, Seneca, and Plotinus. He drew inspiration from the Psalms, gospels, and Pauline epistles, and from exemplary Christian life histories, for example those of St. Antony, Paulinus of Nola, and his friend, Alypius, the remnants of whose vita may have been incorporated into the Confessions. Given the eclectic nature of his education, he was able to view the formal features of the soliloquy in the perspective of three disciplines, namely rhetoric, philosophy, and theology. But it was the philosophical dimension which chiefly interested him in the critical years between the writing of his dialogues and the Confessions, as well as later works, such as On the Trinity, in which books eight to fifteen revisited philosophical problems taken up at Milan, Cassiciacum, and Rome. He called this form of inquiry the soliloquium and it was he who brought this type of dialogue into the orbit of Western philosophical tradition.