Inner Dialogue in Augustine and Anselm

Gareth B. Matthews
Philosophy, Massachusetts at Amherst

Abstract  In the Theaetetus, Plato has Socrates propose that thinking is a discussion
the soul has with itself. But Plato never wrote a philosophical work in the form
of an inner dialogue. Augustine’s Soliloquies is the first such work. Writing in this
form, Augustine is inspired to treat what can be expressed by “I exist” as a philo-
sophically significant piece of knowledge and to entertain Berkeleyan idealism as
a serious hypothesis. He also presents two philosophical perplexities concerning
prayer, which he leaves unresolved. Anselm’s Proslogion, which is both a prayer and
an inner dialogue, offers a robust response to perplexities of the sort that troubled
Augustine.

In Plato’s dialogue Theaetetus, Socrates tells his young interlocutor what

he means by “thinking” (dianoeisthai ). According to him, thinking is, he
says,
a talk which the soul has with itself about the objects under its consideration.
Of course, I am only telling you my idea in all ignorance; but this is the kind of
picture I have of it. It seems to be that the soul when it thinks is simply carrying
on a discussion in which it asks itself questions and answers them itself, affirms
and denies. And when it arrives at something definite, either by a gradual pro-
cess or a sudden leap, when it affirms one thing consistently and without divided
counsel, we call this its judgment.  (Theaetetus 189e–190a)

.  All references to Plato’s Theaetetus are to Plato 1992. Likewise, all references to Meno are
to Plato 1981, and all references to Gorgias are to Plato 1987. For the purpose of precision, I
cite the dialogue name and standard Stephanus pagination in all three cases.
Poetics Today 28:2 (Summer 2007)  doi 10.1215/03335372-2006-023
© 2007 by Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics
284 Poetics Today 28:2

The “picture” of thinking that Plato has Socrates present here is meant
to be, I think, perfectly general. It seems not to be focused on philosophical
thinking in particular, though, of course, the account is meant to include
such thinking. However, although Plato wrote many dialogues, he did not
write any that has the form of a soul’s dialogue with itself. We are left to
assume that, even if an inner dialogue precedes or accompanies each of
the speeches in Plato’s “outer” dialogues, Plato thinks of doing philosophy
paradigmatically as a genuinely social activity.
I added “paradigmatically” to that last claim, since there is at least one
passage in a Platonic dialogue in which the “outer” dialogue breaks down
and Socrates has to continue on his own. It is in the dialogue Gorgias,
where the obstreperous Callicles challenges Socrates to have a dialogue
with himself:
Callicles: Couldn’t you go through the discussion by yourself, either by speak-
ing in your own person or by answering your own questions?  (Gorgias 505d)

Somewhat surprisingly, Socrates complies. “It looks as though I have no

choice at all,” he responds; “let’s by all means do it that way then.” He
adds:
I’ll go through the discussion, then, and say how I think it is, and if any of you
thinks that what I agree to with myself isn’t so, you must object and refute
me.  (Gorgias 505e–506a)

Here is part of Socrates’ philosophical dialogue with himself:

Is the pleasant the same as the good?
It isn’t, as Callicles and I have agreed.
Is the pleasant to be done for the sake of the good, or the good for the sake of
the pleasant?
The pleasant for the sake of the good.
And pleasant is that by which, when it’s come to be present in us, we feel
pleasure, and good that by which, when it’s present in us, we are good?
That’s right.
But surely we are good, both we and everything else that’s good, when some
excellence has come to be present in us.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

But the best way in which the excellence of each thing comes to be present in
it, whether it’s that of an artifact or of a body or a soul as well, or of any animal,
is not just any old way, but is due to whatever organization, correctness, and
craftsmanship is bestowed on each of them, Is that right?
Yes, I agree.  (Gorgias 506c–d)
 Matthews • Inner Dialogue in Augustine and Anselm 285

Socrates moves on, in his conversation with himself, to the conclusion that
it is the self-controlled soul that is a good soul. Unsurprisingly, his own self
agrees with him on this point.
Quite obviously, the responding half of Socrates in this “exchange” is
only a “yes” man. But, of course, this is often true of the interlocutors that
Socrates encounters in Plato’s dialogues. So the mere fact that Socrates’
responding self is so agreeable should not disqualify this passage as an
example of philosophical dialogue with oneself.
Is there anything about this “dialogue” between Socrates and himself,
besides the lack of disagreement, that seems to form or shape the investi-
gation? I think not. It comes about in response to an uncooperative inter-
locutor. The most we can learn from it is that a Socratic elenchus can make
no significant progress without the cooperation of an interlocutor.

1. The Invention of Philosophical Inner Dialogue

The idea that there might be some special advantage, or at least some dis-
tinctive significance, to doing philosophy with oneself, and especially as an
inner rather than an “outer” dialogue, does not, so far as I know, appear
in classical Greek philosophy. In fact, the first example of a philosophical
inner dialogue is Augustine’s Soliloquia, written in the winter of 386, over
seven centuries after Plato’s Gorgias and Theaetetus.
.  One might want to count the report of Socrates trying to solve a problem in a trancelike
state at Symposium 174d–175d and 220c–d as philosophical inner dialogue. But Socrates does
not report what occurs to him in these episodes; rather, Plato has other characters describe
Socrates’ conduct from an external point of view.
.  As noted by Scholes and Kellogg (1966), however, soliloquies and examples of dialogue-
like interior monologue appear in ancient literature before Augustine. Still, no one antici-
pates Augustine in every respect—that is, in conducting an inquiry by inner dialogue on
a philosophical subject or in a philosophical manner. Homer reports in his narrative the
deliberations of various characters at moments of decision (e.g., in Iliad XI.402, XVII.97,
XXI.562, and XXII.122). In these passages, the scene focuses on the interior monologue of
a character deliberating over alternative courses of action, one honorable, the other dishon-
orable. In the moment of decision, they utter the formula to themselves, “why does my heart
within me debate these things?” (Homer 1961) and settle on the honorable course of action.
Unlike the two Symposium scenes (see note 2), here we have direct reports of a soul’s interior
conversation. But however much these passages may anticipate some features of the interi-
ority of Augustine’s soliloquies, they should not be counted as philosophical for three reasons.
First, as I shall argue later, Augustine’s conception of a soliloquy clearly has in mind inner
dialogue with distinguishable interlocutors, not interior monologue. Second, these conversa-
tions do not, as the latter part of Theaetetus 189e–190a specifies, consist in a series of ques-
tions and answers in the manner of a systematic inquiry; they are deliberations over a single
question. Third, the purpose of these deliberative monologues is practical, not speculative,
theoretical, critical, or reflective. For more on these Homeric passages, see Scholes and Kel-
logg 1966: 178–81.
286 Poetics Today 28:2

Augustine’s Soliloquies begins with this remarkable passage:

When I had been pondering many different things to myself for a long time, and
had for many days been seeking my own self and what my own good was, and
what evil was to be avoided, there suddenly spoke to me—what was it? I myself
or someone else, inside me or outside me, I do not know. But this is the very
thing I struggle greatly to know.  (Soliloquies 1.1.1)

Augustine calls this disembodied speaker “Reason.” The whole of the work
is then a dialogue between Augustine and Reason.
Who is this inner speaker, Reason? Phillip Cary, in his book Augustine’s
Invention of the Inner Self (2000), suggests that the Soliloquies is itself an “explo-
ration of the identity of Reason” that can be understood as “an attempt to
work out a concept of divine presence in the soul” (87). At a minimum,
Reason is the rational provocateur within the mind of Augustine that leads
him into philosophical inquiry.
Reason advises Augustine to pray. There follows a prayer, first to God
the Father, then to God the Son, then to God the Holy Spirit, and finally
to God the Trinity. After Augustine has concluded his prayer, there follows
this exchange with Reason:
Augustine: There! I have prayed to God.
Reason: What then do you want to know?
Augustine: All these things that I have prayed for.
Reason: Sum them up briefly.
Augustine: I want to know God and the soul.
Reason: Nothing more?
Augustine: Nothing more.

Scholes and Kellogg consider other authors, besides Homer, who have written passages
worth briefly mentioning. Medea’s soliloquy in The Argonautica (bk. III, ll. 772–801) is not
interior, since it is spoken aloud. A passage in Habrocomes and Anthis (bk. I.4, ll. 1–3, 6–7) by
Xenophon of Ephesus and another in Daphnis and Chloe (bk. I, pts. 14 and 18) by Longus also
represent vocal speech and so fail to be interior in the Augustinian sense. Dido’s interior
monologue in Vergil’s Aeneid (bk. IV, ll. 534–52), like the Homer passages, has neither a
dialogue construction nor a philosophical purpose. In Myrrha’s soliloquy in Ovid’s Meta-
morphosis (bk. X, ll. 319–58) the young woman constructs a series of dialectically opposed
arguments on the propriety of incest (she desires her own father); in the end, she ignores all
the arguments, in which philosophical questions about relativism figure prominently, and
settles her dilemma on emotional grounds. Since the final conclusion does not ensue from
the arguments, Myrrha’s inner debate is not philosophical in the sense that Plato’s defini-
tion of thinking implies or Augustine’s Soliloquies exemplifies. All these works and passages,
accompanied by interesting analysis, come from Scholes and Kellogg 1966: 283–92. (I owe
this important reference to an anonymous reader of Poetics Today; thanks also to Jonathan
Lavery for his help with the formation of this note.)
.  References to Augustine’s Soliloquies are to Augustine 1990. For the purpose of precision,
I use standard references to the book, soliloquy, and page number.
 Matthews • Inner Dialogue in Augustine and Anselm 287

Reason: Then begin your search. But first of all explain how, if God were to
be shown to you, you would be able to say: “That’s enough.”
Augustine: I don’t know how He should be shown to me so that I might say,
“That’s enough.” For I do not think that I know anything in the way in which I
desire to know God.
Reason: What are we to do, then? Do you not think that first you must know
how God would be satisfactorily [satis] known to you, so that when you have
come so far you would not seek further.
Augustine: I think so indeed, but I don’t see how this can come about. 
(Soliloquies 1.2.7)

The object of Augustine’s desire, the very thing that he wants, is to know
God in a way that he will find satisfying. But he does not know what it
would be to have a satisfying knowledge of God. So as he himself con-
fesses, he does not really know what the object of his search is. His puzzle-
ment over this matter is a close relative of Plato’s Paradox of Inquiry, to
which I shall return later on (see section 2).
In book 2 of the Soliloquies, Augustine and Reason begin to reflect on the
merits of doing philosophy in the form of an inner dialogue. When Augus-
tine tells Reason that he is ashamed of what he has conceded so far in this
conversation, Reason replies:
It is ridiculous to be ashamed, as if we had not chosen [to conduct] conversa-
tions in this form for the very reason [we did]. These conversations, because
we are talking with ourselves alone, I want to be called and written, “Solilo-
quies,” a novel and perhaps crude term, [but] suitable for the thing to be
shown.  (Soliloquies 2.7.14)

Reason goes on to point out that, in the usual interpersonal dialogues, it

will be hard to find anyone who is not ashamed to be defeated in argument.
To avoid feeling the shame of defeat, one may well become unreasonably
obstinate and so thwart the whole purpose of rational discussion. Reason
concludes:
It was for that reason that the most peaceful and most profitable procedure was
for me to question and answer myself, and so, with God’s help, search for what
is true. So, if you have committed yourself too quickly anywhere, there is no
reason for you to be afraid of retreating and setting yourself free; there’s no way
out otherwise.  (Soliloquies 2.7.14)

There is, of course, a certain irony here. Reason admits to having coined
the (Latin) term soliloquia for the dialogue he is having with Augustine

.  Here, and elsewhere, I have made small changes in the Watson translation. See Augus-
tine 1990.
288 Poetics Today 28:2

“because we are talking with ourselves alone.” But Reason had also pointed
out, at the beginning of book 1, that Augustine would need to commit these
conversations to memory, so that they could later be written down. Thus,
although the inner dialogue that follows is meant to be an inner forum in
which Augustine pursues a philosophical inquiry in the privacy of his own
thoughts, it was also meant, from the very beginning, to be shared with
others. “Don’t bother to look for the encouragement of a large number
of readers,” Reason cautions Augustine; “if there is something for a few
of your fellow citizens, that will be enough” (Soliloquies 1.1.1). Still, even an
inner dialogue, shared later on with only a few readers, opens up the pos-
sibility of being shamed by the inadequacy of the replies one has given to
one’s inner conversation partner.
Perhaps Reason’s idea is that one can make a later judgment as to
whether to share an inner dialogue with a reading public. By contrast,
one’s response in a real “outer” dialogue is automatically open to the ridi-
cule of others.
In this connection, it may be interesting to note that soliloquia and its
cognates in other languages have come to be used as much or more for
a monologue as for an inner dialogue. The Oxford English Dictionary, after
noting that “soliloquia” is a term introduced by Augustine, gives as the first
meaning for the English word “soliloquy” this disjunction: “An instance of
talking to or conversing with oneself, or of uttering one’s thoughts aloud
without addressing any person.” The Oxford American Dictionary gives only
“the act of talking when alone or regardless of any hearers, esp. in drama”
plus, secondarily, “part of a play involving this.” Augustine himself clearly
had in mind not just a monologue, but rather an inner dialogue.
Is there any evidence from Augustine’s Soliloquies that doing philosophy
as an inner dialogue has influenced the content of Augustine’s responses
to Reason? Perhaps the most striking evidence of such influence is an
apparent willingness to take seriously what might otherwise be considered
ridiculous questions. Consider this exchange, from near the beginning of
book 2:
Reason: You who wish to know yourself, do you know that you exist?
Augustine: I do.
Reason: What is the source of your knowledge?
Augustine: I do not know.
Reason: Do you feel yourself as a unity [more literally, a simple, simplicem]
or a multiplicity?
Augustine: I don’t know.
Reason: Do you know that you move?
Augustine: I don’t know.
 Matthews • Inner Dialogue in Augustine and Anselm 289

Reason: Do you know that you think?

Augustine: I do.
Reason: Therefore it is true that you think.
Augustine: It is.  (Soliloquies 2.1.1)

To a modern reader, this passage may seem rather ho-hum. Being famil-
iar with Descartes’s “cogito, ergo sum,” we are not at all surprised to have
Reason ask Augustine, “Do you know that you exist?” If we are surprised
by anything at all in this passage, it will doubtless be not the ridiculous-
ness of the questioning, but rather the lameness of the responses and the
absence of any serious follow-up by Reason. We might have expected Rea-
son to say something like this:
So this is the source of your knowledge that you exist: You know that you think,
and you know that anything that thinks, exists; so you may conclude that you
exist.

Or perhaps something like this:

In fact, in order to be mistaken in thinking that you exist, you would have to
exist. So you cannot be mistaken in thinking that you exist.

In fact, Augustine did actually develop reasoning like this to support his
claim to know that he exists, but only later on in his philosophical career.
Six or more years after he had written his Soliloquies, Augustine wrote the
second book of De libero arbitrio (On Free Choice of the Will ). This work has
the form of a dialogue between Augustine and his friend Evodius. In the
following passage from that work, we can see that he had already devel-
oped his cogito-like reasoning:
Augustine: I will first ask you whether you yourself exist. Or do you perhaps
fear that you might be mistaken even about that? Yet you could certainly not be
mistaken unless you existed.
Evodius: Yes; do go on.  (On Free Choice of the Will 2.3.)

Here we have a bit of reasoning that is remarkably close to Descartes’s

cogito. It incorporates the crucial move, “Yet you could certainly not be
mistaken unless you existed.” But now we may be disappointed that this
passage does not have the form of an inner dialogue. If it were presented as
an inner dialogue, it could be shown to be epistemologically more basic
than, for example, Evodius’ knowledge that Augustine exists or his knowl-
edge that there is a material world common to both him and Augustine.

.  References to On Free Choice of the Will come from Augustine 1993. For the purpose of pre-
cision, I use standard references to the book and chapter of this work.
290 Poetics Today 28:2

Augustine’s Soliloquies is an experiment with a new form of philosophical

writing. The experiment does produce some interesting results. But as we
shall see, the immediate payoff in that work itself is less interesting than
Descartes’s for its long-term influence, both on Augustine himself and on
later thinkers.
In book 11 of the City of God, probably written in 417–18, thirty years after
the Soliloquies and perhaps twenty-five years after book 2 of On Free Choice of
the Will, Augustine returns to Reason’s question from the Soliloquies, “What
is the source of your knowledge that you exist?” This time he presents his
most polished response in a form a little closer to an inner dialogue. He is
reflecting on the unsettling questions of the Academic skeptics, who sup-
pose that we cannot know anything. Of course, if Augustine does not know
anything, he does not know that the Academic skeptics exist either. But he
can still take the Academic challenge seriously, even if it comes from only
imaginary skeptics. He writes:
The certainty that I exist, that I know it, and that I am glad of it, is indepen-
dent of any imaginary and deceptive fantasies. In respect of those truths I have
no fear of the arguments of the Academics.
They say, “Suppose you are mistaken?”
I reply, “If I am mistaken, I exist. A non-existent being cannot be mistaken;
therefore I must exist, if I am mistaken. Then since my being mistaken proves
that I exist, how can I be mistaken in thinking that I exist, seeing that my mis-
take establishes my existence? Since therefore I must exist in order to be mis-
taken, here can be no doubt that I am not mistaken in my knowledge that I
exist.”  (City of God 11.26)

This passage reminds a modern reader of Descartes’s much more famous

cogito. To be sure, Descartes, after establishing his own existence in Medi-
tation II, goes on to establish his nature as a thinking thing to prove the
existence of God and, finally, in Meditation VI, the existence of the “exter-
nal world.” Augustine does not produce any similar reconstruction of what
he knows on the foundation of his “si fallor, sum” (“if I am mistaken, I
exist”). But he does use his version of the cogito to put down the inner
skeptic who suggests to him that he does not really know anything at all.
Clearly, it was Augustine’s dialogue with himself, as reflected in his Solilo-
quies, that first suggested to him the importance of the knowledge each of
us has that we can express by saying to ourselves, “I exist.” No ancient phi-
losopher had thought that “I exist” could be used to express a philosophi-

.  References to City of God are to Augustine 1984, using standard references to book and
chapter.
.  I explore the connections between Augustine and Descartes in Matthews 1992.
 Matthews • Inner Dialogue in Augustine and Anselm 291

cally important truth. Augustine seems to have come to the thought that
it can through his inner dialogue with Reason. “Do you exist?” is thus an
example of what might otherwise be supposed to be a ridiculous question
that doing philosophy as an inner dialogue encouraged Augustine to take
seriously.
There is also evidence in Augustine’s Soliloquies of a willingness to
consider not only apparently ridiculous questions, but also extravagant
hypotheses. Consider, for example, the attempt in book 2 to explain what
it means to say that something is true and what it means to say that some-
thing is false. One suggestion Augustine and Reason consider is that the true
is that which actually is what it appears to be. Here is part of their exchange:
Reason: Do you believe that corporeal things, that is, the objects of sense,
can be grasped by the intellect?
Augustine: No.
Reason: And do you think that God, in order to know things, uses the
senses?
Augustine: I don’t dare to make any rash assertion about that, but in so far
as conjecture is allowed, God in no way uses the senses.
Reason: We conclude, therefore, that only the soul has sensation.
Augustine: Yes, draw that conclusion, in so far as probability will allow it.
Reason: What about this then: Do you grant that this wall here, if it is not a
true wall, is not a wall?
Augustine: There is nothing I would grant more easily.
Reason: And that nothing is a body if it is not a true body?
Augustine: Yes, that is the way it is.
Reason: Therefore, if nothing is true unless it is as it appears to be, and if
anything corporeal can appear to be only to the senses, and if only the soul can
have sensation, and if something which is not a true body is not a body at all, it
follows that body can exist only if soul exists.
Augustine: You are pressing me excessively, and I don’t have any response. 
(Soliloquies 2.4.6)

At this point Augustine sees that the line of reasoning Reason has been
drawing out of him is leading to what he must regard as an outlandish con-
clusion—the idea that there would be no material world if there were no
souls. Yet, apparently, he is unable to see how he should have responded to
Reason so as to avoid this conclusion.
A little later, Reason makes explicit some of the implications of the con-
clusion that Augustine wants to avoid, even though he fails to understand
how to avoid it:
There are not stones deep in the bosom of the earth, nor anywhere at all for that
matter, where there are not those who observe them.  (Soliloquies 2.4.7)
292 Poetics Today 28:2

To a modern reader, these two passages may sound remarkably like George
Berkeley’s maxim “To be is to be perceived.” Admittedly, Augustine and
Reason soon reject the premise that has led them to draw such unwanted
conclusions, namely, that the true is that which actually is what it appears
to be. Still, it seems that doing philosophy as an inner dialogue has freed
Augustine to pursue hypotheses that he might not otherwise have put
forward.

2. The Paradox of Inquiry

I want to return now to the puzzle at the beginning of book 1 of the Solilo-
quies, the puzzle about how he can coherently pray for satisfactory knowl-
edge of God when he does not know what it would be to have such knowl-
edge. I said earlier that this puzzle is a close relative of Plato’s Paradox
of Inquiry. The worry is that only someone who has already acquired a
satisfactory knowledge of God could know what it is to be in this state. But
if that is right, then no one can aim at gaining such knowledge. Either one
already has it and so, for that reason, cannot aim at gaining it. Or else one
does not have it and so, not knowing what it would be to have it, cannot,
for that reason, aim at gaining it.
At the very beginning of the Confessions, Augustine presents a related
puzzle about prayer:
Grant me Lord to know and to understand which comes first—to call upon you
or to praise you, and whether knowing you precedes calling upon you. But who
calls upon you when he does not know you? For an ignorant person might call
upon someone else instead of the right one. But surely you may be called upon
in prayer that you may be known.  (Confessions 1.1.1)

This puzzle is somewhat more complex than the one in book 1 of the Solilo-
quies. This time Augustine is not puzzled about how one can want a satis-
factory knowledge of God when one does not really know what a satisfac-
tory knowledge of God would be. This time he is puzzled about how he
can ask God, in prayer, to help him come to know God, when, as it seems,
he would need to know God to be able to direct his request at the right
being.
These two puzzles, one from the beginning of the Soliloquies and one
from the beginning of the Confessions, bear an important resemblance to
the Paradox of Inquiry in Plato’s dialogue Meno:
.  References to Augustine’s Confessions are to Augustine 1991, using standard citations to
book, chapter, and paragraph.
 Matthews • Inner Dialogue in Augustine and Anselm 293

Meno: How will you look for [virtue], Socrates, when you do not know at all
what it is? How will you aim your search for something you do not know at all?
If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing that you did
not know?  (Meno 80d)

The context in which the Meno paradox arises is a discussion of the nature
of virtue. Socrates had said at the beginning that he does not know at all
what virtue is. He invites Meno to say what it is, and Meno tries to comply.
Socrates finds theoretical difficulties in each of Meno’s attempts to offer a
definition of virtue. Finally, Meno admits defeat and offers a classic state-
ment of Socratic perplexity. He had thought, he says, he knew very well
what virtue is. Indeed, he adds, he had given many fine speeches about
virtue. But now, after being subjected to Socratic questioning, he does not
know what to say (Meno 80a–b).
The Paradox of Inquiry has two parts.10 First, there is the Targeting
Requirement for Inquiry. If Meno and Socrates are to be able to inquire into
what virtue is, they must be able to aim their inquiry properly. It must
truly be virtue that their inquiry is aimed at, or else what they come up
with will not be an account of the right thing. But how can they aim their
inquiry correctly if they do not already know what virtue is? Second, there
is the Recognition Requirement for Inquiry. They must be able to recognize a
suggested analysis of virtue as the right account. If they cannot do that,
they will not realize that they have found out what it is, even if they should
happen to arrive at what it is. But how will they be able to recognize the
right account of what virtue is if they do not already know what it is?
Augustine’s perplexities are similar to those articulated by Plato in the
Meno. In the Soliloquies, as we have seen, Augustine wants to have satisfac-
tory knowledge of God. But he does not know what it would be to have sat-
isfactory knowledge of God. The puzzle Reason presents to him concerns
especially a problem about recognizing that he has arrived at a satisfactory
knowledge of God. “Do you think,” Reason asks, “that first you must know
how God would be satisfactorily known to you, so that when you have
come so far you would not seek further?” Augustine agrees but does not
know how to meet that requirement.
If anything, meeting the Recognition requirement as Reason presents it
to Augustine is more daunting in an inner dialogue than in an outer one,
such as the Meno. If I tell another person that I want to have a satisfactory
knowledge of God, I can draw on that other person’s understanding of

10.  I provide a more comprehensive account of this paradox in Matthews 1999: 53–65. See
also White 1974, Nehamas 1985, Ferejohn 1988 and Benson 1990.
294 Poetics Today 28:2

what it would be for me to succeed as well as on my own. But in an inner

dialogue with my own Reason, I have no access to a conception of what it
would be to succeed except my own.
Augustine’s puzzle at the beginning of the Confessions seems to concern
both the Targeting Requirement and the Recognition Requirement for
Inquiry. Augustine says there that he wants to ask God for help in coming
to know him. But how can he target his request at the right entity unless
he already knows God? We could add that he will also want to be able to
recognize that it is God who is helping him to know God. And how can he
do that unless he already knows God?
Socrates, in Plato’s Meno, has a better response to the Recognition
Requirement for Inquiry than he does to the Targeting Requirement. Thus
Socrates presents the Doctrine of Recollection, according to which each of
our souls has innate knowledge of virtue from a previous life. As we might
want to put the point, finding the right analysis of virtue, according to the
Doctrine of Recollection, is a little like going to the airport to meet some-
one that one has not seen for a very long time. In advance, one may not be
able to offer even a good description of the person one hopes to meet. But
once she or he appears at the airport, one recognizes her or him immedi-
ately. Similarly, the philosopher seeking to determine what virtue is will
not be able to specify in advance what virtue is. But perhaps, from a latent
knowledge of what virtue is, the searcher will be able to recognize it once
it has been found. So much for the Recognition Requirement.
With respect to the Targeting Requirement, Socrates in Plato’s Meno
seems to be unable to do anything more than warn us inquirers against
being fainthearted. We will be better persons, he says, “braver and less idle,
if we believe that one must search for the things one does not know, rather
than if we believe that it is not possible to find out what we do not know
and that we must not look for it” (Meno 80b).
Augustine’s situation at the beginning of his Confessions is roughly simi-
lar to Meno’s. Augustine had spent nine years as a Manichean “hearer”
or apprentice.11 After his conversion to Christianity, Augustine clearly
thought that the Manichean god whom he had sought to know during
those nine years of apprenticeship was, in fact, not the true God. Now he
not only wants to get to know the true God, he also wants to get help from
the true God in getting to know him. But how can he know how to target
his request for help at the right being? Although he does not seem to know
how he can do that, he does think he will be able to recognize the true God

11.  I provide a longer account in Matthews 2005a: 9–14.

 Matthews • Inner Dialogue in Augustine and Anselm 295

should he happen to find him. “You [O God] have made us for yourself,”
he assures himself, “and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (Confessions
1.1.1).12 His idea seems to be that we can be sure we have found God when
our soul ceases to be restless.
Augustine’s response to the Recognition Requirement assumes, of
course, that he and we can distinguish between ceasing to be restless
because of having found God and ceasing to be restless because we have
despaired of ever finding him or simply because we have become weary
looking for him. But the problem posed by the Targeting Requirement,
which in Augustine’s case is a problem about targeting the request for help
from the true God in getting to know the true God, is never answered
directly.
As I have said, the puzzle at the beginning of the Soliloquies seems to
be solely a recognition problem. We are left to assume that if and when
Augustine ever does have a satisfactory knowledge, he will recognize that
he has it and be able to say to himself, “That is enough (sat est)” (Soliloquies
1.2.7). But the targeting problem remains. How does he know what to aim
at in searching for a satisfactory knowledge of God?
For a rather mundane computer-age analogy to Augustine’s two puzzles,
we can think of a lifelong bachelor who goes on the Internet to find a wife.
Suppose the man provides a very detailed description of what he wants in
a wife. His most important requirement will doubtless be that she make
him happy. But how can he know, as a lifelong bachelor, whether there is
anyone out there who can make him happy and, even more to the point,
what special combination of qualities she must have to succeed in making
him happy?
Like Augustine’s Soliloquies, his Confessions prayer is, of course, meant to
be “overheard” by his readers. His paradoxical request for help from God
in making sure that it is God he is addressing is meant to model for his
readers a healthy candor about difficulties they, too, might have in direct-
ing their prayers to the true God. In a structurally similar way, Descartes
expects the readers of his Meditations to “overhear” his inner thoughts on
whether he can discover anything about which he is so certain that he can-
not doubt it. Descartes models for us readers a procedure we can carry out
to reconstruct, for ourselves, what we each individually know (see Rorty
1983; Hatfield 1986; Vendler 1989; and Rubidge 1990). However, whereas
Descartes models for us a way to put our knowledge on indubitable foun-

12.  Henry Chadwick, in his translation of the Confessions, notes the parallel claim in Plo-
tinus’s Enneads (6.7.23.4) that the soul finds rest only in the One.
296 Poetics Today 28:2

dations, Augustine models for us a way that each of us, through faith, can
come to know the true God.

3. Resolving the Paradox of Inquiry

Perhaps the boldest and most impressive attempt to deal with Augus-
tine’s Divine Targeting Problem is that offered by the greatest Augustinian
philosopher of the Middle Ages, Anselm of Canterbury.13 Anselm’s most
famous work is his Proslogion. In it he presents what has come to be known
as the “Ontological Argument” for the existence of God. The Greek term
Proslogion means “allocution” or “address.” The person being addressed is
God. So the Proslogion is a prayer. But, like Augustine’s Confessions, it is a
prayer meant to be “overheard” by his readers.
The Proslogion begins with this admonition to the “little man” within
him:
Come now, little man [or puny person, homuncio], fly for a moment from your
affairs, escape for a little while from the tumult of your thoughts. Put aside now
your weighty cares and leave your wearisome toils. Abandon yourself for a little
to God and rest for a little in Him. Enter into the inner chamber of your soul,
shut out everything save God and what can be of help in your quest for Him and
having locked the door, seek Him out.  (Anselm 1979: 111)14

At the end of this first chapter, he prays to God:

I acknowledge, Lord, and I give thanks that you have created your image in me,
so that I may remember you, think of you, love you.  (Ibid.: 115)

That already looks like a response to Augustine’s Targeting Problem.

Anselm suggests that he can remember God, think of God, and love God
by directing his memory, his thought, and his love to God through the
image of God he has within him. But Anselm moves quickly to erase any
suggestion of reassurance:
But this image [of you in me] is so effaced and worn away by vice, so darkened
by the smoke of sin, that it cannot do what it was made to do unless you renew
it and reform it.  (Ibid.)

Thus Anselm seems to have the same Targeting Problem that Augustine
had.

13.  For a discussion of Anselm’s debt to Augustine, and indeed to Plato as well, see Mat-
thews 2004.
14.  I have made small changes in the Charlesworth translation.
 Matthews • Inner Dialogue in Augustine and Anselm 297

Having made the Targeting Problem central to the opening chapter,

Anselm begins the next chapter, chapter 2, this way:
Therefore, Lord, you who gives understanding to faith, give me to understand,
as much as you know to be profitable, that you exist just as we believe [you do]
and you are that which we believe [you to be].  (Ibid.: 117)

On its face, Anselm’s request is doubly paradoxical. After all, Anselm is

directing his request to a being, or a putative being, from whom he wants
help in proving both the existence of that very being and the nature of
that being. Among other things, he wants help in proving that the being
he is addressing has the right attributes, including, for example, the power
needed for helping him to prove its existence and nature. The reasoning
that follows is one of the most audacious a priori arguments ever conceived
by a philosopher.
A philosopher who, like St. Thomas Aquinas, offers a cosmological
argument for the existence of God can target his or her prayers through the
existence and nature of the world to its cause, God. But Anselm’s argument
includes no causal reasoning. Being purely a priori, it does not require
Anselm to make any appeal to the way the world is to satisfy himself that
the being he is addressing exists and that this being has the chief attributes
that have been traditionally assigned to God.
Anselm makes use of an additional figure in his inner dialogue, namely,
the Fool. In fact, the Fool plays an essential role in Anselm’s argument. Just
after Anselm has offered his defining description of God (“we believe you
are something than which nothing greater can be conceived”), he considers
the possibility that there is no such being: “Or is there no such nature?” he
asks. And here the Fool speaks up to say in his heart: “There is no God.”
The Fool’s speech, as Anselm, no doubt, expected his readers would
recognize, is taken from two Psalms, 14:1 and 53:1. But the implicit quo-
tation from the Psalms is no mere ornament attached to Anselm’s reason-
ing. It establishes the ontological argument as having the logical form of a
reductio ad absurdum or indirect proof. For this kind of proof to work, one
must assume the contradictory of what is to be proved and then show that
that contradictory, no doubt in conjunction with one or more assumptions,
leads to a self-contradiction.
In a somewhat paradoxical way, Reason in Augustine’s Soliloquies plays a
role parallel to the Fool in Anselm’s Proslogion. Thus Reason leads Augus-
tine to see that the true cannot be conceived, without accepting absurd
implications, as that which actually is what it appears to be. The Fool in
Anselm’s Proslogion helps Anselm show that God cannot be conceived,
298 Poetics Today 28:2

without absurdity, as nonexistent. The next chapter of the Proslogion will

make explicit this implication that atheism is absurd (ibid.: 119).
From this self-contradiction, one may then deduce the proposition that
was to be proved in the first place. Thus Anselm’s argument in Proslogion 2
proceeds as follows (I quote at length):
And so, O Lord, you who give understanding to faith, give me to understand
as much as you know to be useful. For you exist, just as we believe you do, and
you are what we believe [you to be].
And indeed we believe that you are something than which nothing greater
can be conceived. [Or] is there then nothing of the kind? For “the fool hath said
in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” [Psalm 14:1, 52:1]
But certainly even this fool, when he hears what I say (“Something than which
nothing greater can be conceived”) understands what he hears. And that which
he understands is in his understanding, even if he should not understand it to
exist. For it is one thing for a thing to exist in the understanding and another to
understand a thing to exist.
So when a painter conceives in advance what he is about to make, he has
something in the understanding, but he does not yet understand to exist that
which he has not yet made. However, when he has finished the painting, he both
has in the understanding and understands to exist that which he has already
made.
Therefore, even the fool is convinced that something than which nothing
greater can be conceived exists in the understanding at least, because when he
hears this he understands, and whatever is understood is in the understanding.
And certainly that than which a greater could not be conceived cannot exist in
the understanding alone. For if it is in the understanding alone, it can be con-
ceived to exist in reality, which is greater.
If therefore that than which nothing greater can be conceived is in the
understanding alone, this same thing—than which a greater cannot be con-
ceived—is something than which a greater can be conceived. But certainly that
is impossible.
Therefore, without doubt, there exists both in the understanding and in
reality something than which nothing greater can be conceived.15

This reductio argument may be analyzed as follows:

Anselm begins with a prayer: Lord, grant me to understand that you exist.
To prove:
1. God exists.
We believe that you, O God, are something than which nothing greater can
be conceived.
2. God is something than which nothing greater can be conceived.

15.  Translation mine.

 Matthews • Inner Dialogue in Augustine and Anselm 299

Fool (speaking in his heart): There is no God.

Assume, for purposes of reduction to absurdity:
3. God does not exist.
Anselm: But Fool, when you hear me say “something than which nothing
greater can be conceived,” you understand what you hear, and what you under-
stand is in your understanding. So you have God in your understanding. You
must be taken to be denying that God exists in reality. So let’s begin again.
To prove:
1. God exists both in the understanding and in reality.
2. God is something than which nothing greater can be conceived.
3. God exists in the understanding.
Assume, for purposes of reduction to absurdity:
4. God exists only in the understanding and not in reality.
Since, Fool, you have accepted (2), I can only understand your (4) to mean
this:
5. There is in the understanding something, x, such that
(a) x is something than which nothing greater can be conceived, and
(b) x fails to exist in reality.
But, Fool, if what you have in mind fails to exist in reality, a greater than it can
be conceived. So what your atheistic claim comes to is this:
6. There is in the understanding something, x, such that
(a) x is something than which nothing greater can be conceived, and
(b) x is something than which a greater can be conceived.
Since (6) is self-contradictory and we deduced it from your (4), we may now
conclude:
7. God exists both in the understanding and in reality.

The conclusion of Proslogion 2 is, in fact, (7). (More precisely and liter-
ally, the conclusion is “Something than which nothing greater can be con-
ceived exists both in the understanding and in reality.”) But Anselm moves
on in the next chapter to prove that God cannot even be conceived not to
exist. In chapter 5 he suggests a proof that God is just, truthful, blessed,
and good (ibid.: 121). Already at this point we can see that Anselm has a
way of showing for any property, p, whether God has p or not. If a being
would be greater for having that property than lacking it, God has it. Thus
his formula, “something than which nothing greater can be conceived,”
can be used as an “attribute tester” to determine which attributes God has
and which God lacks. Using this attribute tester, we may determine the
nature of God.
We might pause here to note an intriguing parallel between the role of
Reason in Augustine’s Soliloquies and that of the Fool in Anselm’s Proslogion.
Thus Reason leads Augustine to see that the true cannot be conceived,
without accepting absurd implications, as that which actually is what it
300 Poetics Today 28:2

appears to be. The Fool in Proslogion 2 helps Anselm show that God can-
not be conceived, without absurdity, as nonexistent. Chapter 3 makes this
implication of atheism explicit. It ends this way:
Why then did “the Fool say in his heart, there is no God” [Pss. 14:1, 52:1] when
it is so evident to any rational mind that You of all things exist to the highest
degree? Why indeed, unless because he was stupid and a fool?  (Ibid.: 119)

Without going into a more detailed discussion of Anselm’s Proslogion,16 we

can say that Anselm’s inner dialogue between himself and the Fool has set
up a way for him to direct his prayer to God, thought of as something than
which nothing greater can be conceived, and to show just what attributes
God has. Thus, when in chapter 14 Anslem asks, “Have you found, O my
soul, what you were seeking?” he first offers a positive response:
You were seeking God, and you found Him to be something which is the high-
est of all, than which a better cannot be conceived, and to be life itself, light,
wisdom, goodness, eternal blessedness and blessed eternity, and to exist every-
where and always.  (Ibid.: 135)

Anselm seems to be claiming that he has found the being whose exis-
tence and nature he was seeking to establish—indeed, the being whose
help he was seeking in establishing his existence and nature. Implicitly,
then, Anselm claims to have resolved the Paradox of Inquiry for this par-
ticular inquiry and even resolved it in a way that justifies his request for
help from the very being whose existence and nature he was inquiring
into. Thus the formula “something than which nothing greater can be con-
ceived” is plausible enough as a preliminary characterization of God that
the Targeting Requirement for Inquiry seems to be satisfied. Moreover,
Anselm can reasonably expect his readers to understand his reductio proof
of the existence of something than which nothing greater can be conceived
and perhaps even to have his understanding of which attributes are genu-
inely great-making attributes. That being so, Anselm may be reasonably
confident that he has satisfied the Recognition Requirement as well.
Still, despite Anselm’s evident satisfaction in what he thinks his inner
dialogue has established, he also expresses a note of uncertainty:
If you have not found your God, how is He this [being] which you have found,
and which you have understood with such certain truth and true certitude?
But if you have found Him, why is it that you do not experience what you have

16.  For a much more thorough discussion of Anselm’s Ontological Argument, see Matthews
2005b.
 Matthews • Inner Dialogue in Augustine and Anselm 301

found? Why, O Lord God, does my soul not experience You if it has found
You?  (Ibid.)

These last words are revealingly candid. Readers of Anselm’s Proslogion,

even if they admire the brilliance of its reasoning, may find the argument
too abstract to kindle their religious affections. Anselm, who was surely
one of the most rationalistic philosophers in all of Western philosophy,
reveals in these last words that even he (or his soul!) may have had a similar
reaction to the austerity of its reasoning.
In any case, Anselm seems to have thought he was able, within his three-
way inner dialogue, to prove the existence and nature of the very being he
was seeking to know and from whom he was seeking help in proving that
very being’s existence and nature. One can hardly imagine a more ambi-
tious inner dialogue.
Although Anselm was a philosopher of striking originality, he was, and
thought of himself as being, an Augustinian thinker. It may, therefore, be
of some interest to note that Augustine might well have helped Anselm
come up with the formula he uses to identify God in his Proslogion. In fact,
several passages in Augustine come close to giving Anselm his formula.
This is one, from book 7 of the Confessions (7.4.6):
I had already established that the incorruptible is better than the corruptible,
and so I confessed that whatever you are, [O God], you are incorruptible. Nor
could there have been or be any soul capable of conceiving that which is better
than you, who are the supreme and highest good.

Yet even more significant than the Augustinian precedents to Anselm’s

formula, “something than which nothing greater can be conceived,” is
Anselm’s use of inner dialogue as a form for doing philosophy. This form,
which Augustine first tried out in his Soliloquies as a sort of experiment,
became, in Anselm’s Proslogion, the form of a philosophical masterpiece.

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302 Poetics Today 28:2

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