Practice question · Select all that apply
Which are true of the pear theft in book two?
Hints
- Ask why Augustine dwells on so trivial an episode.
- The difficulty for him is a wrong done for no gain whatsoever.
Show the answer
- B. The pears were not wanted or eaten
- C. It is chosen because the wrong had no motive
- D. Augustine was not hungry
Why
The episode is chosen for its motivelessness. Theft for gain is easy to explain; throwing worthless pears to pigs while not hungry is not. Augustine wants a case where the attraction was the wrongness itself, since that is what his account of the will has to explain.
Practise Augustine’s Confessions: the Invention of Interiority
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