Memory, self-examination, and time › Three presents and a recited psalm

In XI.20, Augustine proposes a more careful way to speak: a present of past things, a present of present things, and a present of future things. Memory, present awareness, and expectation give these expressions their content. A memory of yesterday is occurring now even though yesterday's event is not.

The distinction prevents two confusions. A present memory does not make the past event occur again, and an expectation does not guarantee its fulfillment. The mental act and what the act concerns belong to different descriptions. We can attend now to what is absent without thereby making it present in every sense.

The psalm example develops this account (XI.28). Before recitation, Augustine expects the whole familiar psalm. During recitation, the portion already spoken belongs to memory, while the remainder belongs to expectation. Present attention carries the action forward until what was expected has passed into memory.

The example explains how one activity can include an awareness of successive parts without all its sounds occurring simultaneously. Augustine extends the pattern to shorter parts, to the whole action, and to a human life. The extension is a philosophical proposal about the organization of temporal activity. It does not turn every life into a scripted performance with an ending already known by its human agent.

In XI.26, Augustine tentatively connects time with a stretching of the mind: this is a gloss on his Latin distentionem and ipsius animi. In XI.29, his language of distentio also describes a life scattered across time, contrasted with an orientation toward God. The connection gives the discussion a religious significance alongside its inquiry into duration.