Self-Consciousness and Self-Knowledge in Plato's Charmides and Contemporary Philosophy of Mind

Abstract

The thesis advanced here is that the argument of Plato’s Charmides in its search for the adequate understanding of the nature of ‘self-knowledge’ (which is left unsolved in the dialogue itself), can be construed as a search for the proper understanding of what contemporary philosophy discusses under the name of ‘self-consciousness’ and that therefore the dialogue welcomes a solution which construes ‘self-knowledge’ as a special sort of knowledge directed at the formal principles that make ordinary ‘objective’ knowledge possible - a solution which invites a comparison with certain Kantian strands in modern philosophy of min