Tag: self-knowledge

Socrates in the Agora. (Image source: kriserdmann at Freepik.)

2,354 words

Part 2 of 14 (Part 1 here, Part 3 here)

The first word of the Gorgias is “polemos,” war, and it is spoken by Callicles: “War and battle, this, they say, is how you should do your part in them, Socrates.” (more…)

Kristian Zahrtmann, Socrates and Alcibiades, 1911 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

2,907 words

Part 7 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here)

Wisdom vs. Tyranny

Having established that the true self is the soul and defended philosophical dialogue as the best path to self-knowledge, Socrates wraps up his argument. (more…)

John William Waterhouse, Psyche Opening The Golden Box, 1903

5,755 words

Part 6 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 7 here)

The final part of the Alcibiades I deals with the self and self-knowledge. Most ancient commentators held that this discussion is the core of the dialogue.

From Self-Cultivation to Self-Knowledge

Socrates has finally gotten Alcibiades to admit that he needs to pursue self-cultivation. But what is self-cultivation? We must answer that question lest we mistakenly cultivate something other than ourselves. (more…)

Condordia on the Jubilee Column in Stuttgart (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

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Part 5 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 6 here)

In our previous installment, we examined the speech Socrates made to break Alcibiades out of his complacency and spur him to educate and cultivate himself if he wishes to attain world renown.

Back to Dialogue

To borrow a term from classical music, the Alcibiades I has a “sonata” form: ABA. The first part (A¹) consists of Socrates’ initial dialogue with Alcibiades. Part B is the speech about the Persian and Spartan queens. The third part (A²) is a return to the dialogue form. Socrates and Alcibiades first return to the idea of justice. Then they discuss self-knowledge. (more…)

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Part 2 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 3 here)

In the first part of this series, Socrates accuses Alcibiades of wanting to be a tyrant and argues that if he wishes to fulfill this ambition, he must study philosophy. Alcibiades won’t admit that he aspires to be a tyrant, but “if” he did, he wants to know what Socrates would teach him.

The Question of Justice

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Jean-Baptiste Regnault, Socrates Tears Alcibiades from the Embrace of Sensual Pleasure, 1791.

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Part 1 of 7 (Part 2 here)

Author’s Note: I am typing up and editing my lecture notes on Plato’s Alcibiades I and Gorgias to incorporate them into a new book tentatively entitled Tyranny and Wisdom: An Introduction to Platonic Philosophy. The Phoenician neoplatonist philosopher Iamblichus (c. 245–c. 325) placed the Alcibiades I first and the Gorgias second in his curriculum of Plato’s dialogues, and with good reason, for together they constitute an excellent introduction to Socratic moral and political philosophy.

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J. G. Fichte meets Immanuel Kant, 1791

6,194 words

1. “The circumference of my world is equivalent to the limits of my will.”

In my last essay, we established that for Fichte self-consciousness is an ultimate fact. We saw via our own experiments in introspection that the “I” — this “presence” that says, in effect “I am” — is not simply a feature of the self, it is the self. (more…)

“Know thyself”

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Psychoanalysis is learned, first of all, from a study of one’s self, through the study of one’s own personality. — Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (more…)

Puritan-descended poet Robert Frost in the 1910s, about 40 years old. Even his physiognomy was Yankee.

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Discussing Robert Frost’s collection Steeple Bush in the New York Times upon its release in 1947, poet Randall Jarrell devoted the bulk of his review to quoting and summarizing just one poem, “Directive,” saying,

Reading through Frost’s new book one stops for a long time at “Directive. . . .” There are weak places in the poem, but these are nothing . . . (more…)

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Lost Highway is probably not a lot of people’s favorite David Lynch film. I would rank it in the lower rungs of his canon. But it is still a masterful film that draws me back again and again.

The big question about Lost Highway is what actually happens. This movie has a plot that you can fully summarize without really spoiling it, because the meaning is never really given away. (more…)