That's a cute little BBC animation that I found after that Bret Stephens column — blogged here — made me think about the old aphorism "Know thyself." Stephens was talking about the "self-satisfied elite" who didn't understand the point of view of the non-elite. It made me think: How dare these people regard themselves as elite if they are self-satisfied? They are not educated if they haven't looked into the functioning of their own mind, especially if they satisfy themselves with contempt for others.
Here's Wikipedia on "Know thyself":
The Ancient Greek aphorism "know thyself" (Greek: γνῶθι σεαυτόν, transliterated: gnōthi seauton...) is the first of three Delphic maxims inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.... The two maxims that follow "know thyself" were "nothing to excess" and "certainty brings insanity." In Latin the phrase, "know thyself", is given as nosce te ipsum or temet nosce.
"Certainty brings insanity" is the least well-known of those aphorisms. It explains a lot!
Much more at that Wikipedia link, but — here — I'll just show you this cool painting from the 1600s, inscribed with the Latin phrase:
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21 comments:
Painting looks like Bruegel?
Diversity [dogma] (e.g. classicist) politics.
It's a detail from a painting, but it's not properly identified at the link.
Wonderful to see this post, the BBC video, all of it.
Pedantry: there is no text in which Socrates says he knows nothing. He says as far as he knows, he is unique in that when he does not know something, he knows that he does not know it. Everyone else seems to make the mistake of mistaking mere opinion for knowledge. He always seemed quite confident that his life was best, the unexamined life wasn't worth living, etc. he seemed quite confident that death wasn't frightening, at least for him.
Did wonderful Hobbes achieve some higher degree of introspection compared to Plato or Socrates? He asked us to admit that when we think we are acting based on reason, we are more likely acting on passion, above all hope or fear. And then he advises that fear is a better teacher than hope. This is partly in Thucydides, whose book Hobbes translated, but it is not as dogmatic or claustrophic there.
As for discovering unconscious forces only in the 20th century, that is a bit of a laugh. Plato's Republic is all about directing and suppressing eros, as advocates of justice are always pretty much obliged to do; but the Symposium is in a way a celebration of eros. If Freud and Plato were in the same room, I'm pretty sure Freud would be learning from Plato.
'...but it's not properly identified at the link.'
I noticed that...seems like a big omission...an image search gets me nothing.
I'm increasingly of the opinion that, except perhaps for science, nothing really new has been learned since the ancient Greeks.
There is another Greek maxim. "Foul water and clean water do not come from the same source."
I believe it best applies to our legacy media.
That painting sent me down a digital rabbit hole. The character is known, in German, as "der Vogel Selbsterkenntnis"; the Bird of self-Knowledge. It was a popular presentation during the Renaissance.
Here is a Pinterest page with many variations: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/malcmjones/the-bird-of-self-knowledge-der-vogel-selbsterkennt/
Not a Breughel, for my money.
Updike wrote that doubt may make you wonder about the meat on your plate, but it's certainty that pulls triggers.
The stork painting hangs in Skokloster Castle, Sweden, artist unidentified.
Popeye said it best.
Ἐγγύα πάρα δ' Ἄτα.
Surety brings ruin.
A different interpretation of maxim three, which leaves mental competency out of the issue.
And the painting isn't a Bosch. It isn't crazily symbolic enough.
Goest thou now and knowest thyself.
Snagglepuss sucked when I was seven years old, and he's gotten no better since. Yet he was still light years ahead of Yakky Doodle.
The one Hanna Barbera cartoon that still cracks me up is Huck in his episodes with Powerful Pierre. "Ho ho ho HOOOO, Hucklesberry!"
...and the overexamined life cannot be authentically lived.
And what did Plato have to worry about? those guys hanging around doorways?
Doubt is an essential aspect of Faith says Paul Tillich. Otherwise it's gnosis. Hmmm.
Plato may have been the first Gnostic. But does anyone truly know themselves? Nah no way.
Self-delusion is the real Original Sin.
"There is no self to look at."
This is what you learn from Acid. A true zen saying is, Nothing is what I want. Sergeant Schultz said it best.
"Certainty brings insanity"
So, by the contra positive, sanity brings uncertainty.
I much prefer "certainty brings insanity." It describes the totalitarians perfectly. Woke people too! Although "ruin" is apt as well just too gentle.
As I guessed, it seems this 'bird of self-knowledge' was popularised as the Protestant heresies and then the Enlightenment gained purchase on the minds of the 'educated' in the west European countries, illustrating, among other things, the so-called 'emancipation' of the human mind from the priestcraft of Rome. It's not really the old gnosce teipsum, well, it is, but it is that repurposed and necessarily altered in meaning by its repurposing.
It was just a guess, though, based on the image of the pelican piercing her own breast to feed her young which had belonged to the Christian imagination from the 2nd century onward. You have the old Christian world on the one hand-- Pie Pelicane, Jesu Domine, me immundum munda tuo Sanguine, wrote Saint Thomas Aquinas-- and the new world partly Christian and partly not.
"Certainty brings insanity"
It certainly does.
Those maxims keep a person centered. Nothing to excess keeps all in balance; certainty brings insanity leads one to always question his conclusions; and know yourself is a call to be honest about your motivations.
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