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Description of  Once Out of Nature: Augustine on Time and the Body

Once Out of Nature offers an original interpretation of Augustines theory of time and embodiment. Andrea Nightingale draws on philosophy, sociology, literary theory, and social history to analyze Augustines conception of temporality, eternity, and the human and transhuman condition. In Nightingales view, the notion of embodiment illuminates a set of problems much larger than the body itself: it captures the human experience of being an embodied soul dwelling on earth. In Augustines writings, humans live both in and out of natureexiled from Eden and punished by mortality, they are resident aliens on earth. While the human body is subject to earthly time, the human mind is governed by what Nightingale calls psychic time. For the human psyche always stretches away from the present momentwhere the physical body persistsinto memories and expectations. As Nightingale explains, while the body is present in the here and now, the psyche cannot experience self-presence. Thus, for Augustine, the human being dwells in two distinct time zones, in earthly time and in psychic time. The human self, then, is a moving target. Adam, Eve, and the resurrected saints, by contrast, live outside of time and nature: these transhumans dwell in an everlasting present. Nightingale connects Augustines views to contemporary debates about transhumans and suggests that Augustines thought reflects our own ambivalent relationship with our bodies and the earth. Read more