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Augustine's Book 10 Of The Confessions

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In the book 10 of the confessions Augustine uses a writing method and style which is very personal and intimate, he varies from most first- person narratives, although he only talks about himself, he also draws the attention to his wrongdoings making book 10 very self-focused, and extremely guilt ridden. Book 10 of the confessions is almost like a very personal diary confessional, as he refers to himself as ‘I’ and God as ‘you’ as if he is having a personal conversation with God. For example “Let me confess, let me confess to you what I do not know of myself” (p.g. 22) this sentence reveals a very personal feelings that the speaker has, he narrates his sins and love for God to readers. Through this personal writing method Augustine not only …show more content…
Augustine uses the term memoria as a metaphor of a storehouse of memory in which the images of events we have experienced in our pasts are stored, retrieved, and re-stored sometimes in new places, these memories make us who we are. Another strength is Augustine’s approach to memories, is that memories can now be relived and re-experienced this has been proved by neuroscientists who say that memories are physical and can reactivated, this is a major strength in Augustine’s reliability, making his approach much more credible. However Augustine’s approach to the storehouse of memory can be flawed as he doesn't have access to any kind of physical knowledge of the nervous system, so ideas such as the fact that remembered skills are partially attributed to muscle memory would never occur to …show more content…
Augustine sees memory as an unconscious knowledge which we all obtain, and that memoires are already stored before we even learn of them and that they are just waiting to be identified. A fault in this approach is that memories are often misshaped and can often be of events you had wanted to occur which did not take place. Nonetheless, his division of memory into types is a strength in his approach; skill-memories, sensory memories, emotional memories. The images that Augustine talks about are "images" which can be tasted, heard, seen, etc., all without the things of which they are images actually being present. Although Augustine divides and explains each memory type they still manage to present new difficulties, thus creating another weakness to his method, for example how skill memories are not related to sensory memories. The pictures of the skills aren't stored; rather, the ability to perform the skill is stored in the

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