Abstract
Lyotard’s essay on Augustine crystallizes his earlier meditations on ethics. Primarily it is a study of time. Firstly Lyotard returns to Augustine’s consideration of the present as an unpresentable now. Secondly, he challenges the desire of the confessant to complete himself and overcome ‘the delay’ set in place by his constitution through the Other. However, to guard against the solipsism threatened by Lyotard’s interpretation the article complements it with a Bakhtinian analysis of confession. In this sense a dialogic moment is introduced and worked through in relation to the principle of charity as it relates to the time of confession.
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