ABSTRACT
Augustine was writing in the second half of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century. In his youth he lived a life of dissipation and had belonged to intellectual movements which he later came to see as heretical. After his conversion in 387 AD he confessed his sins to God and dedicated himself to mending his life and correcting both his spiritual and his intellectual errors. He saw these as closely intertwined. Hence he wrote his Confessions and also critiques of ideas to which he had himself subscribed in his youth. Philosophy thus had a strong personal dimension for him and in his philosophy he saw the will as playing a central role in the errors he wanted to combat. Here his chief inspiration came from Plato through Plotinus.
