Self-knowledge and life practice

In her study Bettina Fröhlich examines the problem of self-knowledge in early Greek ethics and in Plato. Using selected texts from archaic poetry, gnomic wisdom literature, historiography, and classical philosophy, she shows that self-knowledge was introduced as an ethical principle in Greek thought. Plato grounds the gnothi sauton philosophically by providing a clarification of the concept of self and by linking self-exploration to an examination of the values that underpin identity. The analysis of these aspects opens new perspectives on Platonic ethics, anthropology as well as psychology and furthermore provides an interesting approach to the problem of God in Plato.