| Explore ancient, modern and contemporary authors that help us reflect on the problem of self knowledge. Socrates once said “The unexamined life is not worth living.” If self- knowledge is a necessary part of that examination, should we expect it to be the most straightforward part? Is knowledge of ourself easier to achieve than knowledge in the scientific, ethical or policy domains, just because we are more familiar with ourself? In this introductory course, we examine self-knowledge as a problem that is bound up in larger philosophical questions of human nature, freedom, the good, the role of society in our self understanding, and the grounds for knowledge itself. We explore both historical and contemporary sources (philosophical, literary, and film) ranging from Plato and Sophocles to Descartes,Dostoevsky, Woody Allen and Asghar Farhadi. |
