Well earlier than his access into the non secular lifestyles within the spring of 386 C.E., Augustine had launched into a long comparability among teachings at the self within the philosophical traditions of Platonism and Neoplatonism and the remedy of the subject within the Psalms, the letters of St. Paul, and different books of the Bible. Brian inventory argues that Augustine, over the process those reflections, progressively deserted a dualistic view of the self, during which the brain and the physique play varied roles, and built the concept of an built-in self, within which the brain and physique functionality interdependently.

Stock identifies highbrow thoughts during which Augustine effected this variation in his proposal. One, lectio divina, was once an early Christian method of examining that engaged either brain and physique. the opposite used to be a style of self-examination that consisted of framing an inside Socratic discussion among cause and the person self. inventory investigates practices of writing, studying, and pondering throughout a variety of premodern texts to illustrate how Augustine builds upon the rhetorical traditions of Cicero and the internal discussion of Plutarch to create an introspective and autobiographical model of self-study that had little to no precedent.

The built-in Self situates those texts in a large ancient framework whereas being conscientiously attuned to what they could let us know in regards to the intersections of brain, physique, and medication in modern proposal and perform. it's a booklet within which inventory maintains his undertaking of examining Augustine, and one during which he strikes ahead in new and maybe unforeseen directions.