RE: the injunction to 'know thyself.'
"Knowing thyself does not mean knowing something very private, it means knowing oneself as a member of a community, knowing, that is, the things that obtain for one, which obtain for persons commonly. Heraclitus' fragments and Socrates certainly had such an intention; and they did not involve knowing something about one which was distinctive, or special, or private.
The moral order provides one with the things not only which properly affect, control one's behavior, but with the materials in terms of which one can come to know oneself, and in doing so, know anyone else, and in doing so, be accessible to others. Thence, the hopes that may be attached to the phrase, or the program, 'know thyself.'"
----- (From Harvey Sacks' lectures, 1992:221).
#Sacks
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