Will and Self in Augustine

Abstract

The crystallization of the Modern self can be found in Augustine's writings. He developed a discourse wherein central currents from Antiquity's reflections, religions, understanding of the world and of humanity are brought together and crystallized with the main components of Modern psychological self-knowledge: cognition, emotion and conation. Such a discourse provides the fundamental phenomenological material whereby one acquires the possibility of being able to think, to feel and to strive for something in a consciously reflective way. In fact it is only when the will is crystallized as an independent discursive component of understanding that we possess the complete possibility for being a self in the Modern sense. Augustine opened the gates to Modern self-consciousness-but he also infused his discourse with a double-bind, which is still troubling to our contemporary self-understanding and self-consciousness.