The Epistemological Background of Augustine's Dialogues

This paper tackles three questions: (1) why did Augustine choose the literary genre of the philosophical, 'scenic' dialogue for his early works after his conversion? (2) Why did he soon abandon this model in favour of teaching, 'non-scenic' dialogue? (3) Why, once he was a priest, did he no longer compose dialogues? I argue what follows. (1) Augustine's early choice of the 'narrative' kind of dialogue should be explained by taking into account the metaphilosophical background of the Cassiciacum dialogues: according to the model of 'philosophia' embraced by Augustine at Cassiciacum, full conversion to philosophy required the practice of community dialogue, and no genre was better suited to represent and attest such a lifestyle choice than the 'scenic' dialogue. (2) Behind the choice of 'non-scenic' and teaching dialogues from 'Soliloquia' onward there is an epistemological reason, namely the Theory of the Internality of Truth understood according to the Paradigm of Inherence, which claims that truth is 'in' the soul as in its ontological 'subiectum'. (3) Despite the fact that in his last dialogue 'De magistro' Augustine replaces the Paradigm of Inherence with the Paradigm of Presidency (i.e., truth sits in front of and presides over the mind), the reasons behind Augustine's abandonement of the literary dialogue were not epistemological.