La memoria en san Agustín: una revisión de su categorización como facultad en el De Trinitate
Keywords:
memoria, facultad, hábito, mente, trinidad, memoria, facultad, hábito, mente, trinidad.Abstract
In the De Trinitate, Saint Augustine discusses of a trinity within the soul: memory,
intellect, and will. These three realities have often been interpreted as if they were all
faculties or inner powers. This paper will propose a critical reconsideration of this
interpretation, with a focus on the notion of memory. Through textual and conceptual
analysis, it will be argued that Augustine’s account of memory is closer to a habit than to
a faculty in the strict sense. It will also be maintained that understanding memory as a
faculty problematically broadens the scope of its nature or domain. In this way, the article
seeks to qualify the classical characterization of Augustine’s trinity of the soul and to
open new avenues for its understanding. It will further be shown that, for Augustine,
memory cannot be reduced to a mere mechanism of retention or recall. Rather, conceiving
it as a habit allows for a clearer account of its relation to the soul and to that form of selfpresence
which precedes the actual exercise of self-knowledge. Whereas the latter
requires the operation of faculties such as intellect and will, memory appears as a constant
background, a stable disposition that safeguards the identity of the subject.
References
Agustín de Hipona. (1956). Obras de San Agustín V. Tratado sobre la Santísima Trinidad (De Trinitate) (L. Arias, Trad.). Edición bilingüe. Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos.
Agostino [Aurelio]. (1973). La Trinità. Testo latino dall’edizione maurina confrontato con l’edizione del Corpus Christianorum (A. Trapè & M. F. Sciacca, Introd.; G. Beschin, Trad.). Città Nuova.
Augustin. (1868). OEuvres complètes de Saint Augustin (O. M. Devoille, Trad.). L. Guérin & Cie.
Aristóteles. (1982). Tratados de lógica (Órganon). Biblioteca Clásica de Gredos.
Boecio. (2004). La consolación de la filosofía. Porrúa.
Boethius. (1984). Anicii Manlii Severini Boethii Philosophiae Consolatio (L. Bieler, Ed., 2.ª ed.). Brepols.
Bourke, V. J. (1951). The confessions of St. Augustine. Fathers of the Church, Inc.
Brittain, C. (2012). Intellectual self-knowledge in Augustine (De Trinitate 14.7–14). En E. Bermon & G. O’Daly (Eds.) Le De Trinitate de Saint Augustin. Exégèse, logique et noétique. (pp 313-330) Institut d’Études Augustiniennes.
Calabrese, C. (2022). Huellas de Dios en el espíritu humano: San Agustín, De Trinitate, Libro IX. Scripta Theologica, 54(1), 35–59.
https://doi.org/10.15581/006.54.1.35-59
Cheuk-Yin Yam, C. (2017). Augustine’s Intention in Poceeding from ‘mens, notitia, amor’ to ‘memoria, intellegentia, voluntas’. En M. Vinzent (ed.), Studia Patristica. Vol. XCVIII - Papers presented at the Seventeenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2015: Volume 24: St. Augustine and his Opponents (pp. 327-339). Peeters Publishers.
England, F. (2021). Christian self-formation: An Augustinian contribution. Acta Theologica, 41(1), 31–48. https://doi.org/10.38140/at.v41i1.5450
Gardeil, A. (1927). La structure de l’âme et l’expérience mystique. J. Gabalda Éditeur.
Gilson, E. (1987). Introduction à l’étude de Saint Augustin. Vrin.
Gouhier, H. (1978). Cartésianisme et augustinisme au XVIème siècle. Vrin.
Haratine, T. P. (2024). Augustine on memory, the mind, and human flourishing. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 32(6), 1220–1240. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2024.2315083
Janowski, Z. (2000). Index augustino-cartésien: Texts et commentaire. Vrin.
Martínez, E. (2022). Memory of Oneself, Memory of God. Religions, 13(6), 567. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13060567
Millán Puelles, A. (1967). Estructura de la subjetividad. RIALP.
Mourant, J. A. (1980). Saint Augustine on memory. Villanova University Press.
Nawar, T. (2022). Augustine’s master argument for the incorporeality of the mind. The
Philosophical Quarterly, 72(2), 422-440. https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqab020
Rodis-Lewis, G. (1955). Augustinisme et cartésianisme. Études augustiniennes. Sancti Thomae Aquinatis. (1970). Quaestiones disputatae de Veritate (Vol. XXII). Edición Leonina.
Sancti Thomae Aquinatis. (1973). In Aristotelis libros De sensu et sensato, De memoria et reminiscentia commentarium. Marietti.
Santo Tomás de Aquino. (2001). De Veritate, cuestión 10. La mente (Á. L. González, Trad.). Cuadernos de Anuario Filosófico.
Santo Tomás de Aquino. (1964). Suma teológica. Edición bilingüe. Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos.
Schell, P. (2004). La doctrina de la memoria espiritual en el De veritate. En Atti del Congreso Internazionale su L’Umanesimo cristiano nel III millennio: La prospettiva di Tommaso d’Aquino. (Vol. 1, pp. 675-689) Pontificia Academia Sancti Thomae Aquinatis & Società Internazionale Tommaso d’Aquino.
Schindler, D. C. (2023). Notes toward the definition of memory. Communio: International Catholic Review, 50(2). https://www.communioicr. com/articles/view/notes-toward-the-definition-of-memory.
Sciacca, M. F. (1955). San Agustín. Luis Miracle Editor.
Teske, R. (2001). Augustine’s philosophy of memory. En E. Stump & N. Kretzmann (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Augustine. Cambridge University Press.
How to Cite
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Sandra Timaure Gómez
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Those authors who have publications with this journal accept the following terms:
- The authors will retain their copyright and guarantee the magazine the right of first publication of their work, which will simultaneously be subject to the Creative Commons Recognition License that allows third parties to share the work as long as its author is indicated and his first publication in this magazine.
- The authors may adopt other non-exclusive license agreements for the distribution of the published version of the work (for example: depositing it in an institutional electronic archive or publishing it in a monographic volume) as long as the initial publication in this journal is indicated.
- Authors are allowed and recommended to disseminate their work through the Internet (e.g., in institutional electronic archives or on their website) before and during the submission process, which can produce interesting exchanges and increase citations. of the published work. (See The Effect of Open Access).
