Interpreting the Self: Dimensions of Conversion in Augustine’s Confessions

Many contemporary readers have reduced the richer meaning of conversion in Augustine's Confessions to merely its social, psychological, or philosophical dimensions. These constricted readings have often been compounded by the conflation of Augustine's understanding of "the self" with problematic modern and postmodern meanings of the term, thereby misconstruing the role Augustine's thought played in bringing about the Hermeneutic Revolution in twentieth-century philosophy and theology.Interpreting the Self addresses these issues by reading Confessions through the lens of Bernard Lonergan's dynamic account of the self as the subject of ongoing conversions--an understanding that emerged in large part through Lonergan's lifelong dialogue with Augustine's thought. The essays in part 1 disentangle the meaning of both the self and conversion from several prominent contemporary misreadings and argue that Lonergan's own Augustinian and hermeneutic turn in his later works provides an especially apt framework for interpreting Augustine's Confessions. Building on these insights, the essays in part 2 explore Lonergan's four distinct dimensions of conversion--intellectual, moral, religious, and psychic--positing that each reveals a different aspect of the transformation that unfolds across and beyond the books of the Confessions. Ultimately, the essays in this section contend that a mutual mediation of Augustine and Lonergan provides for a better understanding of each. Read more