Self In Confessions

Confessions records Augustine's early life,which not only expounds his theological thoughts,but also carries his theory of how-to-cognate-ourselves.And this theory is closely related to his Christian belief.Through the analysis of the concept of self and other related theories in Confessions,this paper restitutes Augustine's theory of self-cognition.In Augustine's understanding,the very action of our cognition could only be performed in the world.And humans,which have body and spirit,and the world are both created by God.And our body and spirit are identical which could only be differentiated in cognition action.Therefore,people acquire knowledge simultaneously through these two components.However,Augustine emphasized that this kind of cognitive behavior is nothing about cognate-ourselves,but just the external actions of knowing the world.Only when people retrospect themselves inwardly,the active subject that has been latent in the cognitive behavior will appear.On the one hand,Augustine believes that this active subject is the actual premise for self-cognition;On the other hand,this subject is just a clear and active one without any contents.In order to know themselves,people must endow the subject some contents from the world.Contrary to the ordinary understanding of time and space,Augustine argues that God is eternal and ubiquitous by his nature.And people,as active subjects,measure time in our minds and contact the world through space.Under this revolutionary idea,time and space are dissolved,and people simply stand at the point of present to obtain their original knowledge.Furthermore,Augustine demonstrated that God,as the creator and the regulator,coexisted with the world.Thus,people know themselves in a relationship with the world and with God.Knowing the world and God is to know themselves.So,the very original knowledge obtained by the subject is the knowledge of themselves.In the end of this paper,based on theory of selfcognition,the issue of self-identity in Confession is also analyzed.