The interiority and the pursuit of happiness in Augustine’s Confessions

Abstract

Happiness is an axial theme in the philosophy of Antiquity and Late Antiquity of the Western, and is understood, in very general terms, as the highest good. For Augustine, the highest good is happiness, and happiness consists in resting in the absolute that is God. Then, the pursuit of happiness, for the philosopher, is the pursuit of God. In the Confessions, Augustine relates, among other subjects, the interiority and the happiness. Augustine wants to understand why every human being presents the desire for happiness, which moves him to seek it. As every search requires a knowledge of the object sought, and as all knowledge is kept in memory, the search begins in the memory, the inner dimension of the human being. In this way, we will investigate the role of interiority for the pursuit of happiness, analyzing mainly Book X of Confessions. Since happiness is God, his access will be transcendent and interior. In earthly life, however, it will only be possible to be happy in hope