The self-knowledge is the To know that a person acquires on itself during her life at the time of her Expérience S.

The self-knowledge is a particular order of knowledge insofar as, with its hearth even, the knowing subject and the object to be known are confused, it is “judge and part”. This central difficulty makes imperative a demanding research of the Objectivité if this knowledge must be of some consequence.

The self-knowledge requests the straightness of the Pensée, the Critical spirit and a certain consideration for the “glance” external of the others. By its subjective nature, she solicits to consolidate the métacognitives requirements and in return, the profit of clearness on the personal characteristics makes possible a To know more consistent.

A variable utility

To believe great authors of them, the self-knowledge has variable advantages and can even be pushed back as harmful with that who engages there.

Pascal makes a priority of it: Oneself should be known; when that would not be used to find truth, that is at least used to regulate its life: there is nothing more just.

Marguerite Yourcenar speaks about it like essential Expérience: The true birthplace is that where one carried for the first time an intelligent glance on oneself: my first fatherlands were the books.

One can however think the opposite, such trustful Anatole France: I hold the self-knowledge like a source of concern, concerns and torments. I was attended the least possible.

Various requirements

In relation to the relative diversity of the people and their philosophy , the self-knowledge can answer various requirements, mobilizing an individual rather than another, at such moment of the life or such other:

* " intérieure" need; ; taste of the Introspection; curiosity for the " mystery personnel" : Instead of going outside, returns in yourself: it is in the middle of the man whom the truth lives. Holy Augustin

* requirement of Clearness; return of the Critical spirit on itself: Know yourself! Socrate (inscription on the pediment of the Temple of Delphes in Greece)

* culture of the free-referee: We believe ourselves free that because we are unaware of cause who make us act . Spinoza.

* " to act as agreement with soi" ; effort of Congruence or real Motivation; reinforcement of the Regard of oneself

* the Individuation; discovered its vocation, its potential, its " horizon of the possibles" : Become what you are! . Pindare

* control of oneself; to improve; to improve its relations: The worst state of the man, it is when it loses the knowledge and government of oneself. Montaigne

* of the relevant choices; to control its destiny; to anticipate: What one does not want to know of oneself ends up arriving of outside like a destiny. Carl Gustav Jung

* the direction of its life: What is truest of an individual and more itself, it is its possible that its history releases only imperfectly. Paul Valéry or The chance, it is yourself which arrives to you at yourself.

Which is it oneself to know?

The question of the self-knowledge returns above all to the interrogation on what it is necessary to regard as the " soi".

This knowledge can thus have whole or part of the following formulations:

* That am I as a human? … in the cosmos or the Biosphere?

* That I as an human being registered in a Histoire am? … as a man or a woman…: as a member of such Culture at such time? … as a child of such couple? etc

* That is of my character? my Personality?

* That am I as to be singular (which is my Ipséité?) ?

* That am I moreover than the resultant of my determinations and my conditionings? Am I a free being ?

* am I conscious or can I become conscious of all that determines me?

Most of the difficulty of this search comes from intrication from these questions: how to be located personally without a beginning of cosmological answer of order? How to determine the place of the man without to have surveyed his own interior universe?

Then, the question returns to that of the Connaissance itself: " I see that I am refreshed because a feeling called thirst pushed me there… or that I am violent because the maternal love missed… ". Is this all that there is to know on this subject? When thus the investigations should be stopped? How to integrate the abundant data by others? Which degree uncertainty to accept? Which effective place holds this knowledge: anonymous information or true a Comprehension.

History of the concept

" Gnoti seauton " in Greek or " gnosco you ipse " in Latin Connais yourself , formula registered on the pediment of the temple of Delphes, that Socrate, consequently initiating a thousand-year-old tradition which will be disputed seriously only 2500 years later by Nietzsche, which will transform the formula: " Each one is with oneself even more proche" in " each one is with oneself more lointain". Almost all the Western philosophers came to a conclusion about the interpretation right of these words. Descartes will make the base of its metaphysics of it, the cogito : I think, I know that I think, it is a certainty.

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