He shared his ancient advice to \u201cfind yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Struggling to find a sense of self is part of the human condition. What makes each person unique and \u201cthemself\u201d is a complex topic in psychology and philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), identity is defined by two major aspects. The first: \u201cA set of physical, psychological, and interpersonal characteristics that is not wholly shared with any other person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the second: \u201cA range of affiliations (e.g., ethnicity) and social roles. Identity involves a sense of continuity, or the feeling that one is the same person today that one was yesterday or last year (despite physical or other changes).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The APA adds that it is also \u201cderived from one\u2019s body sensations; one\u2019s body image; and the feeling that one\u2019s memories, goals, values, expectations, and beliefs belong to the self.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Greek philosopher Socrates addressed the human struggle with self-identity and self-knowledge\u2014\u201dto know thyself\u201d\u2014and he offered a simple sentence to help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Socrates, the key to self-knowledge starts in your brain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think. To find yourself, think for yourself.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the book\u00a0Socrates and Self-Knowledge, author and professor of Philosophy and Classics at The Pennsylvania State University specializing in ancient Greek philosophy, Christopher Moore, theorizes that Socrates based \u201cknowing thyself\u201d on questioning one\u2019s self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He writes, \u201ca person can be said to have self-knowledge whenever he knows the truth of a statement in which there is reference to himself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, this does note solely require self introspection. Moore argues self-knowledge is actually best achieved with the help of others. \u201cSocrates, at the end of his long speech in Plato\u2019s Phaedrus<\/em>, urges his friend to dedicate his life single-mindedly to \u2018love accompanied by philosophical talk\u2019,\u201d adding that \u201cself-knowledge comes about through conversation with others, and Moore concludes: \u201cSocratic self-knowledge means working on oneself, with others, to become the sort of person who could know himself, and thus be responsible to the world, to others, and to oneself, intellectually, morally, and practically.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a\u00a0podcast episode\u00a0with Yale psychology professor\u00a0Dr. Laurie Santos, fellow Yale professor and philosopher\u00a0Tamar Gendler\u00a0explained how to apply Socrates\u2019 lessons into your personal life to help better understand your self-knowledge. She explains that, according to Socrates, self-knowledge is a paradox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo know ourselves is to not know ourselves,\u201d says Gendler. \u201cIt is to know that in many ways we do not have direct access to our motivations, that we do not have direct access to what it is that we are actually responding to when we do something. And it\u2019s an endless process of engaging in Socratic self-question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To tap into that inner-Socrates, she says there is an inner dialogue looks something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy do you think that?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIs it possible that you think that for a different reason?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIs it possible that even though you assume you value that, actually that\u2019s just an old habit that you haven\u2019t questioned?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIs it possible that you think you\u2019re responding to a person, and in fact you\u2019re responding to a stereotype about people of that kind?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Santos adds that harnessing your inner-Socrates isn\u2019t always comfortable, and involves \u201cintentionally questioning why you think certain things, and why you take certain actions. It also involves admitting that you probably aren\u2019t as smart as you think you are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" He shared his ancient advice to \u201cfind yourself.\u201d Struggling to find a sense of self is part of the human condition. What makes each person unique and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/754202320_1527221216105531_880281822652450987_n.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10766,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10764\/revisions\/10766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
that self-knowledge is akin to knowledge of others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow to tap into your inner-Socrates<\/h2>\n\n\n\n