Are We Strangers to Ourselves? Self-Knowledge and Its Limits

“Know thyself” is one of the oldest pieces of philosophical advice and still one of the most repeated. But the more seriously we take introspection, the less obvious it becomes what self-knowledge is supposed to reveal.

We often confabulate reasons for our choices, misread the sources of our preferences, predict our future feelings badly, and sincerely deny attitudes that still seem to shape our behavior. Sometimes strangers predict what we’ll do better than we can. Sometimes asking ourselves why we feel a certain way makes our judgment worse rather than better.

Whatever we mean by “the self,” the evidence does not always speak with one voice. The conscious narrator gives one account, the gut gives another, implicit attitudes a third, and behavior over time a fourth. When they conflict, which one gets priority?

Is self-knowledge a matter of telling the right story about yourself, predicting your own behavior, uncovering your hidden motives, or integrating these sources into something coherent? And if changing your behavior often changes your self-conception more reliably than introspection does, is the path to knowing yourself actually outward rather than inward?

Optional reading (~6 min):
"'Know thyself' is not just silly advice: it's actively dangerous" — a provocative version of the case, by a philosopher. We'll also have 10 minutes at the start to read it on-site for anyone who hasn't.

Discussion questions:

1. Has there ever been a time when you surprised yourself? I.E. You acted in a way that you didn't predict.
2. Is there anything to self-knowledge beyond accurately predicting how you’ll behave? Does it also require knowing why you behave the way you do - and if so, why does the why matter?
3. When outside observers predict someone’s behavior better than the person does themselves, what’s the best explanation?
4. If introspection is more like writing a biography from limited evidence than reading off pre-existing facts, is there still a meaningful sense in which a self-narrative can be “true” or “false”?
5. What makes a self-narrative “good”? Accuracy, peace-of-mind, believability, or something else?
6. Is changing your behavior first, and letting your self-conception catch up later, a path to authenticity or a form of self-deception? In other words, is “fake it till you make it” sometimes how we become who we really are, or does it mean acting against who we really are?

** Group guidelines**

• All perspectives are welcome
• Everyone has an opportunity to speak and listen
• Dialogue is respectful and open
• No prior philosophical knowledge required!