Perhaps the only thing more difficult than knowing who actually created the famous axiom “Know Thyself,” is the issue of knowing what it really means. The only way I can even begin to figure this one out is to turn “me” into both subject (I) and object (me). “I” have to try to know “me.” This presses second order thinking (i.e. thinking about thinking) to the limit. It is one thing for my mind to know something or someone external to me. In that situation you have a subject and an object. But knowing myself requires a much more complex state of “thinking,” where the object of inquiry also is also the subject initiating the inquiry.
In Pursuit of Me
Maybe a good place to start would be with C.S. Lewis:
“You don’t have a soul; you are a soul. You have a body.”
I am not sure certain that it is possible to prove empirically that there is a difference between the “soul” and the “self.” For the purposes of this essay, I will count them the same. Whether one overlaps the other, I do not know. I only know that confined within my body is a “being” which is not physical. I do know that when I stand to the pulpit every Sunday morning and speak to those I love, I am not speaking to their bodies. I am addressing their Being…their souls.
Pierre de Chardin would have it this way: “You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience.” The study of Being is called Ontology. The question of what does it mean to have Being, is what Heidegger calls the “seinsflage.”
But is this even a worthwhile question to ask? Maybe this can be answered by asking another question: what does it mean if we don’t ask this question? Surely the most fundamental issue involved here is whether or not meaning in life has anything to do with Being. That is, if we do not have Being (i.e. a soul, a self, a spirit), does this in some way affect our meaning in life? If all we are is “matter” then how much do we matter? Are Being and Meaning somehow related?
To assume Being is to assume something much more than a physical evolutionary process. While biologist and physicists continually grow in their understanding of the physical world, we still have very little understanding of this thing called the soul. Somehow we know it is there. The Chinese Chi, the Egyptian Ka, the French Elan Vital, all postulate Being. The epistemological dilemma here is also a metaphysical conundrum. Can we really KNOW if BEING is real?
© [Terry A Bell] and [The Love Ethic], [2009]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Terry Bell and [The Love Ethic] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. “The Love Ethic: Rediscovering Our Moral Compass” may be purchased at many book stores and most internet book sites.
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