Saint Augustine’s Invention of the Inner-Man: A Short Journey to The History of the Internality of the West

Abstract

Phrases such as inner-man, inner-self, inner-vision and inner-hearing occupy an important place in the philosophy of Saint Augustine (AD 354-430). Inner-man phrases are dominant to the Augustin ’ s explanations relating to knowledge. Besides function as a means to explain thoughts of Augustine relating to knowledge, these phrases also function as a means to connect his explanations relating to knowledge to other areas of Augustine ’ s philosophy. Before Augustine tazhere was internality also. For example in Jewishness it was thought as conscience which speaks to the individual from his inside. Saint Paul used it as the intelligent part of the soul, but Paul was influenced by Plato. But the person who uses inner-man phrases systematically and who develops an epistemology directed to subject ’ s understanding himself and who in this way starts the tradition of internality of the West is Saint Augustine.