BBC
A History of Ideas: Know Thyself
Stephen Fry on Know Thyself
Is it possible to know oneself? And what good does it do? The ancient Greeks carved the maxim ‘Know thyself’, or ‘gnothi seauton’ onto the temple of Apollo. Socrates knew that he ‘knew nothing’. Thomas Hobbes felt that by knowing oneself, one could understand others. But as we discover more about psychology, the unconscious and the way the brain works, can we really be sure that the ‘self’ exists at all?
Want to hear more on this topic?
Here’s the whole episode from A History of Ideas – Paul Broks on John Locke and Personal Identity.
Do humans really live in anguish because they’re ‘condemned to be free’? This was a view put forward by the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.
Do we all metaphorically wear a series of different masks to present ourselves to the world in the best light possible? The sociologist Erving Goffman thought so.
What can we know for certain? Can we trust what our senses are telling us? Can we even trust absolute truths, such as those of mathematics? What if our brains are being manipulated to make basic mathematical errors?