Self,intention and confession in "confessions","deliverance from error" and"circumfession"

The central concern of this thesis is to explore the different and similar ways in which three self writers (Augustine, Ghazali and Derrida), who lived in different times in history and belong to different religious traditions tackle the problems of ?self portrayal? and ?truth? in their confessional works: Confessions (397-398), Deliverance from Error (1090-1100) and Circumfession (1989-1990). The life stories seek to display the inner world and the intellectual concerns of their authors. Since the writers construct their stories on or around their respective belief systems and the role their beliefs play in the way they conceive of themselves, Christian, Sufi and Jewish mysticisms are discussed in a separate chapter of the thesis. In the chapters focusing on the texts of the authors, the similarities but mainly the differences in the way each writer approaches ?religion?, ?truth? and ?world? are discussed. The chapter on the Confessions analyzes Augustine?s self portrayal in the context of Augustine?s intentions and his commitment to Christianity. Here, the significance of God?s grace and other Christian dogma for Augustine are studied with references to the text. In the section on Ghazali?s Deliverance from Error discussions concentrate on the performative nature of Ghazali?s writing and the way his intention erases the private self of the writer and gives the readers an account of the struggles of a Sufi believer on the way to Truth. Derrida?s Circumfession is shown to be a multilayer text in which Augustine?s Confessions, Bennington?s Derridabase, Derrida?s own interpretations of these texts and his own life as a text are written and rewritten as supplements of one another.