Bloomsbury On the Memory of the Soul: Augustine and Bergson's Metaphysics

On the Memory of the Soul is bold metaphysical exploration of memory, time, and the human soul, guided by two of philosophy’s most profound thinkers. Uniting the historically disparate philosophies of Saint Augustine and Henri Bergson, this book offers a philosophical defence of the traditional assumption that human beings have a soul as their spiritual core. Exploring the remarkable idea that the soul necessarily has a temporal structure and that memory is key for human identity, Victoria Trumbull challenges prevailing neuroscientific and materialist models by showing how memory reveals the deep temporal structure of the self. As well as providing an original comparative study of these monolithic thinkers who share a peculiar intellectual kinship, this book also rehabilitates and reframes their ideas by placing them in the context of both historical and contemporary philosophical discourse surrounding mind—body dualism, the neuroscientific and computational theory of mind, and reductive materialism. With Bergson and Augustine, a novel conception of the relationship between memory, time, and the human soul is advanced that challenges the prevailing belief that the idea of the soul has no place in contemporary philosophy. Speaking to both the specialist and the intellectually serious nonspecialist, and uniting philosophy, theology, and contemporary science, On the Memory of the Soul invites the reader into a deep exploration of consciousness and selfhood, reanimating one of humanity’s most enduring questions: what is the soul, and why might it matter today?