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Single Idea 20378

[filed under theme 16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 2. Knowing the Self ]

Full Idea

Just as the bones, flesh, intestines, and blood vessels are enclosed with skin, which makes the sight of a man bearable, so the stirrings and passions of the soul are covered up by vanity: it is the skin of the soul.

Gist of Idea

Just as skin hides the horrors of the body, vanity conceals the passions of the soul

Source

Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 082)

Book Ref

Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Human, All Too Human', ed/tr. Faber,Marion [Penguin 1994], p.62

A Reaction

What a glorious analogy! None of us should underestimate our vanity. The least vain people you ever meet can reveal their vanity if you challenge them close to home. Try accusing them of vanity! Attack their essential character! (No, don't do that).

The 29 ideas with the same theme [directly acquiring knowledge of our Selves]:

8147 We have an apparent and a true self; only the second one exists, and we must seek to know it [Anon (Upan)]
18463 Successful introspection reveals the substrate along with the object of thought [Porphyry]
21861 Self-knowledge needs perception of the affections of the body [Spinoza]
19362 We know the 'I' and its contents by abstraction from awareness of necessary truths [Leibniz]
5570 Self-knowledge can only be inner sensation, and thus appearance [Kant]
7543 We gain self-knowledge through action, not thought - especially when doing our duty [Goethe]
4191 What we know in ourselves is not a knower but a will [Schopenhauer]
21367 I know both aspects of my body, as representation, and as will [Schopenhauer]
19249 'Know yourself' is not introspection; it is grasping how others see you [Peirce]
20242 Things are the boundaries of humanity, so all things must be known, for self-knowledge [Nietzsche]
20249 Our knowledge of the many drives that constitute us is hopelessly incomplete [Nietzsche]
20378 Just as skin hides the horrors of the body, vanity conceals the passions of the soul [Nietzsche]
4551 Great self-examination is to become conscious of oneself not as an individual, but as mankind [Nietzsche]
22214 We never meet the Ego, as part of experience, or as left over from experience [Husserl]
22162 There is an everyday self, and an authentic self, when it is grasped in its own way [Heidegger]
7117 How could two I's, the reflective and the reflected, communicate with each other? [Sartre]
7123 Knowing yourself requires an exterior viewpoint, which is necessarily false [Sartre]
22225 My ego is more intimate to me, but not more certain than other egos [Sartre]
5322 Self-consciousness is not basic, because experiences are not instrinsically marked with ownership [Ayer]
3073 We see ourselves in the world as a map [Harman]
8129 Anti-individualism may be incompatible with some sorts of self-knowledge [Burge]
5671 Outer senses are as important as introspection in the acquisition of self-knowledge [Cassam]
5672 Is there a mode of self-awareness that isn't perception, and could it give self-knowledge? [Cassam]
5675 Neither self-consciousness nor self-reference require self-knowledge [Cassam]
20218 The self is known as much by its knowledge as by its action [Zagzebski]
18421 Proprioception is only immune from error if you are certain that it represents the agent [Cappelen/Dever]
18422 Prioprioception focuses on your body parts, not on your self, or indexicality [Cappelen/Dever]
18425 We can acquire self-knowledge with mirrors, not just with proprioception and introspection [Cappelen/Dever]
23519 The self is embodied, perspectival, volitional, narrative and social [Seth, by PG]