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Since it is “understanding” that sets man above all other animals and enables him to use and dominate them, it is certainly worth our while to inquire into it: the meaning in Socrates’ thought. The understanding is like the eye in this respect: it makes us see and perceive all other things but doesn’t look in on itself. To stand back from it and treat it as an object of study requires skill and hard work. Still, whatever difficulties there may be in doing this, whatever it is that keeps us so much in the dark to ourselves, it will be worthwhile to let as much light as possible in upon our minds, and to learn as much as we can about our own personality.
The admonition to know the self is perennial, cutting across eras and cultures. In the history of western philosophy, from its Greek roots, self-knowledge is often considered the panacea for wisdom, the light toward an honest and happy life, and the universal recipe for truth and redemption. Western philosophy evolved around self-preoccupation, around the goal of controlling and knowing the self. Socratic wisdom (know thyself), rests on the awareness of one’s own ignorance, the necessary counterpart of self-knowledge, and probably also the easiest to grasp. However, the promise and power of self-knowledge permeates ancient myths. In literature, classic tragedies enact the power of knowing one’s own identity. In this respect, Oedipus King by Sophocles is emblematic, expressing at its core the horror of a mistaken identity.
The theme of Oedipus resolves around the power of discovering who we are – in relation to others too. As the story goes, Oedipus mistook his parents for lover and rival, sleeping with his mother and killing his father to marry his mother. What makes the story so memorable and compelling to one’s imagination is Oedipus’ gory response to the horror of his discovery. He gouges out his eyes out of pain and despair; he denies himself the nightmare of his errors. It can be said that the theme of Oedipus, in general, emphasizes the imperative necessity of self-knowledge. Assuming that knowing thyself is an imperative necessity, the question remains as to what can be known and need to be known? The admonition to “know thyself” implies that there is something to be known and learned about.
In modern philosophy, the Cogito of Descartes (“I think therefore I am” dictum) shows that there are various axes to look at the concept of self ontologically: the real versus illusory nature of the self and the internalist versus externalist origins of the self.
David Hume, father of the empiricist tradition, in the Philosophy of Mind, proposes that if such a thing as a “self” exists, it exists as an illusion, not as a real entity. He further posited that he finds nothing but fleeting feelings and perceptions, no object per se. That what we tend to consider as self is in fact just sensory and perceptual impressions, and not a real or core thing. It might exist, but if it exists, it is not as real as a rock or a chair that can be thrown or sit upon. It is fleeting and impressionistic, a representational construction of the mind. Opposite are the views held by Descartes, John Locke, and later, Immanuel Kant, all asserting that the self is a tangible and knowable “thing”.
Descartes’ idealism is in exact opposition to Hume’s skeptical view. However, British philosopher, John Locke shared the view that the self is a knowable entity, not an illusion. Below is an excerpt from his opus, Essay Concerning Human Understanding:
“We must consider what person stands for; which, I think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness which is inseparable from thinking, and as it seems to me, essential to it; it being impossible for anyone to perceive without perceiving that he does perceive. When we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, mediate, or will anything, we know that we do so.”
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Thus, it is always as to our present sensations and perception: and by this everyone is to himself that which he calls self; it not being considered, in this case, whether the same self be continued in the same or diverse substances. For, since consciousness always accompanies thinking, and it is that which makes everyone to be that he calls self, and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things; in this alone consists personal identity, i.e., the sameness of a rational being; and as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person; it is the same self now it was then; and it is the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that action was done.
As for Descartes, in Locke’s view, the self is a stable object of thought, hence of consciousness. It is a thing that one can reflect upon and conceive as a nation that exists beyond the here and now of perceptual experience. The self is real as it can be represented as a knowable, invariant entity that we project in thought, backward and forward in time.
As for the second axis in the construal of self-knowledge, it traditionally polarized around the question of whether self-knowledge grows from within the individual or whether it grows from without. Does self-hood (who we are) emerge from an experience that is primarily private or, on the contrary, from an experience that is primarily public? In other words, does it emerge from an inward process of self-reflection by the individual, or from the relation of the individual to others in a process that is in essence social rather than individual?
In these internalist theories, the environment plays a nonspecific role. In Piaget’s theory, for example, it can be said that the environment plays a role of resistance to the structuring actions of an individual, not a source of knowledge.
Opposite to the internalist views on the personality are those emphasizing a more externalist standpoint, not focusing on what changes inside the individual but what changes in the relationship between the individual and the environment, particularly the social environment. From the externalist theoretical view, the origin of self are brought outside of the individual as he or she meets the world with other individuals. Who we are is at the intersection of the individual in relation to others. If there is a self, it is triadic in nature. It is at the intersection of multiple perspectives, not primarily in one or in the other. The triadic theory states that these views are inseparable in relation to self-concept. Without the individual, there would be no self to be conceptualized. However, without others who surround and are external to the individual, there would be no reasons to conceptualize the self. Both mutually define self-hood.
Furthermore, regarding the question of identity or self-hood, it is imperative to consider what might be and eliminate what is not. What we know of ourselves, at least, at a conceptual or explicit as opposed to implicit level, is co-constructed in interaction with others, dropped within the context of community of minds, or cultural values. It cannot be construed merely as an object or thing to be discovered, like we would discover gold or diamond. We do not one day know who we are. Rather, we are constantly adjusting, in interaction with others and with the help of others, what we might be. The self is co-constructed in the sense that self-knowledge, at a conceptual level, is revealed in mutual social exchanges. Self-knowledge, whether personal or collective identity, is not a static, unpredetermined and fixed entity one has to unveil like innate traits or a thing that is contained in an individual.
“The self is a human preoccupation, for better or for worse. Compared to all other animal species, we are unique in dwelling on who we are, relentless in our quest for our own personal identity.” – Philippe Rochat
Conclusively, the ancient admonition to “know thyself” has to be understood within the context of this dynamic: the dynamic of our basic affiliation need. We understand why, 25 centuries later, such dictum continues to have resonance. By knowing thyself, we do understand, first and foremost, our place and situation in relation to others. This is indeed the crucial aspect of our psychological well-being from the outset and all through the lifespan. In these thoughts, is the path to understanding who we are, for a breathing man has sojourned on a timing voyage, only time will define his destination, either for destruction or for peace, until then – know thyself!
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