Meaning of Know yourself

What does Know thyself mean:

"Know yourself" is one of the most famous ancient Greek aphorisms of all time. It means that the main need of a person to access philosophical wisdom is self-knowledge.

It was inscribed, according to various testimonies, in the Temple of Apollo, a site in the Greek city of Delphi, a place of enormous value mythological: it was there where Apollo killed the monster Python, where Zeus placed the omphalon, navel of the world, and where the famous oracle is located of Delphi. In Greek, the phrase is originally written γνῶθι σαυτόν (gnóthi sautón), which translates 'know yourself'.

By testimony of a famous Greek traveler Pausanias, we know that the phrase was inscribed in the pronaos of the temple of Apollo.

Plato also refers to it in his dialogues. On Protagoras, for example, explains that the Seven Sages (Cleobulus of Lindos, Solon of Athens, Chilo of Sparta, Bías of Priene, Thales of Miletus, Pítacus of Mytilene, Periander of Corinth), as a show of admiration towards the Lacedaemonian knowledge, offered the god Apollo the first fruits of his wisdom in the phrases "know yourself" and "nothing too much", about the importance of self-knowledge and moderation respectively.

Phrase analysis

"Know yourself" is a phrase that refers to the importance of self-knowledge for the human being.

Because it was inscribed at the entrance to the temple of the god Apollo, in Delphi, it is interpreted as the greeting that the god addressed to the visitors of his temple, wishing them wisdom.

In this sentence some of the oldest questions of philosophical thought are enclosed or suggested: who am I, where do I come from, where am I going, questions through which each person tries to understand and define himself who.

Plato puts this phrase in the mouth of Socrates in his dialogue with Alcibiades, an ignorant young man who aspires to politics. With her, he tries to remind her that, before being a ruler and ruling over the people, his first task as a man is to govern himself, and he will not succeed if he does not know himself first.

Knowing yourself is the path of improvement, of becoming better and acquiring knowledge about our own nature and limitations, because we cannot develop our nature if we do not know which is. In this way, self-knowledge is a preliminary step for the assumption of any important task or work that leads to glory or wisdom.

"Know yourself", then, is the obligation of each individual: understand, accept, study their own soul, which is the true object knowledge of a person, because only in this way can the individual guide his own life and his actions according to his purposes and interests.

Another way to read this sentence is by considering self-knowledge as a fundamental step to access knowledge, to the truth of things, to reach in wisdom the level of the divine, the prophetic and the oracular.

The phrase, then, warns man about the true path of wisdom: you must first get to know yourself, and then access higher, more complex and darker degrees of knowledge.

Another possible interpretation of this phrase is the one made from psychology and self-help literature, which understands that it is essential that, as people, we are able to understand ourselves, to know our feelings and to understand the reasons that move us so as not to let ourselves be carried away by other desires or claims. In this sense, it is a fundamental phrase in emotional intelligence.

Literature professional, graduated from the Universidad de Los Andes. Passionate about literature, history and philosophy. He has worked creating, writing and proofreading in publishing, advertising, journalism and digital content since 2008.