Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
Augustine of Hippo, a central figure in the history of western thought, is also the author of a theory of reading that has had a profound influence on western letters from the ages of Petrarch, Montaigne, Luther and Rousseau to that of Freud and our own time. Brian Stock provides the first full account of this theory within the evolution of Augustine's early dialogues, his Confessions, and his systematic treatises.
Augustine was convinced that words and images play a mediating role in our perceptions of reality. In the union of philosophy, psychology, and literary insights that form the basis of his theory of reading, the reader emerges as the dominant model of the reflective self. Meditative reading, indeed the meditative act that constitutes reading itself, becomes the portal to inner being.
At the same time, Augustine argues that the self-knowledge that reading brings is, of necessity, limited, since it is faith rather than interpretive reason that can translate reading into forms of understanding.
In making his theory of reading a central concern, Augustine rethinks ancient doctrines about images, memory, emotion, and cognition. In judging what readers gain and do not gain from the sensory and mental understanding of texts, he takes up questions that have reappeared in contemporary thinking. He prefigures, and in ways he teaches us to recognize, our own preoccupations with the phenomenology of reading, the hermeneutics of tradition, and the ethics of interpretation.
Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
Previews available in: English
Subjects
Books and reading, History, Influence, Self-knowledge, Theory of, Science, Hermeneutiek, Spiritualité, Confessiones (Augustine, of Hippo, Saint), Lezen, Histoire, Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.), Savoir et érudition, Livres et lecture, Augustine, saint, bishop of hippo, 354-430, Spirituality, Meditation, Ethics, Knowledge and learningShowing 3 featured editions. View all 3 editions?
Edition | Availability |
---|---|
1 |
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
2
Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation
January 12, 1998, Belknap Press
Paperback
in English
0674052773 9780674052772
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
3
Augustine the reader: meditation, self-knowledge, and the ethics of interpretation
1996, Harvard University Press
in English
0674052765 9780674052765
|
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. [419]-453) and index.
Classifications
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Community Reviews (0)
Feedback?History
- Created April 1, 2008
- 11 revisions
Wikipedia citation
×CloseCopy and paste this code into your Wikipedia page. Need help?
July 29, 2024 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
January 8, 2023 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
November 11, 2022 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
September 17, 2022 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
April 1, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from Scriblio MARC record |