Philosophical Self-Knowledge

✍ Scribed by Donald Phillip Verene;

• Publisher: ibidem-Verlag Jessica Haunschild / Christian Schon GbR
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 121
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The inscription on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Gnothi seauton (Know thyself), is taken up by Socrates and pursued as the center of philosophy. Self-knowledge is the theme that endures throughout the history of philosophy. It is a theme that philosophy shares with literature. We know ourselves to be human, but the question remains as to what it means to be human. What we are is a metaphysical and ethical problem. Satire shows us how others see us. Memory, the mother of the Muses, gives us access to see ourselves as we have been, are now, and may be in the future.
This work considers the idea of satire through the writings of Aristophanes, Lucian, Erasmus, Rabelais, Swift, Voltaire, and Joyce. It examines the nature of memory in terms of the views of Hesiod, Plato, Aristotle, Camillo, Vico, Hegel, and Joyce. Attention to Joyce in both instances is to Finnegans Wake. The author invites readers to take up the question of self-knowledge, to pursue it further in their own terms and sources.

✦ Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: The Idea of Satire and the Rhetoric of Topics
Part I. Satire and Self-Knowledge: A Philosophical
Consideration
1. Aristophanes, “The Thinkery”
2. Lucian, “Philosophies for Sale”
3. Desiderius Erasmus, “True Prudence”
4. François Rabelais, “How Panurge Put to a Non-Plus
the Englishman Who Argued by Signs”
5. Jonathan Swift, “The Grand Academy of Lagado”
6. Voltaire, “The Best of All Possible Worlds”
7. James Joyce, “by the light of philophosy, (and may
she never folsage us!)”
Part II. Memory, Topics, and Self-Knowledge: A Philosophical
Retrospect
8. Hesiod, Mnemosyne
9. Plato, The Block of Wax
10. Aristotle, Anamnēsis
11. Giulio Camillo, The Theater
12. Giambattista Vico, Fantasia
13. G. W. F. Hegel, Er-Innerung
14. James Joyce, “mememormee!”
Epilogue
Notes
Index