Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Renz, Ursula

Titel

XIII—Self-Knowledge as a Personal Achievement

Ist Teil von

• Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 2017-10, Vol.117 (3), p.253-272

Ort / Verlag

Oxford: Oxford University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Quelle

Oxford Journals 2020 Humanities

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Recent discussions in analytic philosophy about the conception of self-knowledge have been concerned mainly with the distinctive way in which we know certain of our own properties. The flip side of this focus is that a sort of self-knowledge that requires effort in order to be achieved is rarely examined, and as a consequence it has rarely been discussed what reasons there are for individuals to strive to improve their self-assessment. It is against this background that I propose in this paper a working definition of the kind of self-knowledge that is also considered a personal achievement. Drawing some lessons from a few historical examples, I discuss what conditions have to be met for a subject to qualify as having this sort of self-knowledge. I will close with a few considerations concerning the value this sort of self-knowledge has for the individual acquiring it.