The Virtue of Self-Examination

The Virtue of Self-Examination: A Contribution to the 2002/2 Seminar

        J. Thadphoothon

“ One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.”  ----- Socrates.

Why do we need to look into ourselves? One obvious response might be the merit of such endeavor. It is a means to enable us to  to   It is not an easy task to understand our own constitution, for we are trapped in our history.

From the Eastern perspective, Lao Tzu used

When Confucius was about thirty-three or thirty-four years old, he went to Chou, the Emperor’s capital, to study the ancient rites and ceremonies and visit Lao Tzu who was famous in Taoism. When Confucius was going back to Lu, Lao Tzu gave him some advice as a goodbye gift: "I have heard that rich people give people money and kind people give people advice, and so I am going to give you some advice: A man who is intelligent and thoughtful is often in danger because he likes to criticize people. A man who is well-learned and good at arguments often endangers himself because he likes to reveal people’s flaws. Don’t do that even if you are a son or a minister at court."

From the Western perspective, Socrates, an ancient Greek philosopher, put it that “ The unexamined life is not worth living.”

While questioning others may help us to better understand their context, in some sense, questioning oneself is a way of accessing more information. There are relationships