Know thyself
Know Thyself
[From Plato: Alcibiades, translation by Benjamin Jowett]
SOCRATES: But how can we have a perfect knowledge of the things of the soul?—For if we know them, then I suppose we shall know ourselves. Can we really be ignorant of the excellent meaning of the Delphian inscription, of which we were just now speaking?
ALCIBIADES: What have you in your thoughts, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I will tell you what I suspect to be the meaning and lesson of that inscription. Let me take an illustration from sight, which I imagine to be the only one suitable to my purpose.
ALCIBIADES: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: Consider; if some one were to say to the eye, 'See thyself,' as you might say to a man, 'Know thyself,' what is the nature and meaning of this precept? Would not his meaning be:—That the eye should look at that in which it would see itself?
ALCIBIADES: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And what are the objects in looking at which we see ourselves?
ALCIBIADES: Clearly, Socrates, in looking at mirrors and the like.
SOCRATES: Very true; and is there not something of the nature of a mirror in our own eyes?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Did you ever observe that the face of the person looking into the eye of another is reflected as in a mirror; and in the visual organ which is over against him, and which is called the pupil, there is a sort of image of the person looking?
ALCIBIADES: That is quite true.
SOCRATES: Then the eye, looking at another eye, and at that in the eye which is most perfect, and which is the instrument of vision, will there see itself?
ALCIBIADES: That is evident.
SOCRATES: But looking at anything else either in man or in the world, and not to what resembles this, it will not see itself?
ALCIBIADES: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then if the eye is to see itself, it must look at the eye, and at that part of the eye where sight which is the virtue of the eye resides?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: And if the soul, my dear Alcibiades, is ever to know herself, must she not look at the soul; and especially at that part of the soul in which her virtue resides, and to any other which is like this?
ALCIBIADES: I agree, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And do we know of any part of our souls more divine than that which has to do with wisdom and knowledge?
ALCIBIADES: There is none.
SOCRATES: Then this is that part of the soul which resembles the divine; and he who looks at this and at the whole class of things divine, will be most likely to know himself?
ALCIBIADES: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And self-knowledge we agree to be wisdom?
ALCIBIADES: True.
