Autobiography/autofictionality, the constitution of time and historical consciousness in Augustine: The unity of 'Confessions' with regard to the vision of Ostia.

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Friedemann Drews
• Subject Area: Greek and Latin Philology ; Protestant Theology ; History of Philosophy ; Roman Catholic Theology
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 407958509

In literary criticism, the concept of autofictionality (in the sense of fictionalized truth made up by a narrator) is currently debated, e.g. as regards Ovid's Amores: Whereas in this work a distinction of discourse between factuality and fictionality can be found, this is not the case in Augustine's Confessions as I want to show in the monograph to be written. Although the most famous work by the church father cannot be considered as a mere report of historical facts, it is neither the product of pure imagination nor can it be called autofictional. Instead the objective of Conf. is self-knowledge (in the face of the Christian god Augustine believes in). This cognitive process consists in the reflection of such experiences that are of essential relevance to the life of the individual soul remembering and reflecting her/his past: This relevance, on the one hand, goes back to the 'events as such', insofar as they might have a historical core, on the other hand to the inner content a certain event has for the experiencing and remembering 'I', which cannot be factually observed, but has to be intellectually and emotionally comprehended. In order to be understood by the reader, this mental process of personal experience and self-interpretation has itself to become the subject-matter of the text without being 'fictitious'. In Conf., therefore, the narrator Augustine shows autobiographical interests strictly confined to self-knowledge and to his individual historical consciousness. The latter is immediately connected with Augustine's theory of time. In the light of the many studies devoted to this topic, it is to be shown why Augustine is neither a proponent of a merely physical nor of a merely subjectivistic understanding of time: According to Conf. 11, physical changes are constituted as actual time only by the cognitive activity of soul since it is soul that comprehends the relations of cause and effect as well as of 'earlier' and 'later'. Soul establishes the actual connection of past, present and future events and thus constitutes "the threefold presence" of past, present and future within the soul's act of cognition (for example, by grasping a melody in its completeness). 'Actual time', therefore, does not have to be the same for any soul/human being. However, the church father is not introducing the postmodern notion of 'alternative facts' (avant la lettre) here; for, according to his theory, there is the possibility to account for why something was (or is) experienced and comprehended by someone as such, in this way and not differently. There exists, therefore, a criterion why arbitrary contentions cannot hold truth-claims – also in distinction to fictional narratives that, as products of pure imagination, cannot, or do not have to, be accounted for in terms of having a clear truth-value. By discussing these questions and with regard to the vision of Ostia (Conf. 9), a new approach can be made to prove the inner unity of Conf..

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Karla Pollmann