What has caused my reputation is none other than a certain kind of wisdom. What kind of wisdom? Human wisdom, perhaps.
If there is one mantra I firmly believe in, it is this: knowledge is power. Yet the belief that education empowers us does not come from the modern image of philosophy where wisdom means knowing everything or possessing some elite intellectual ability to understand complex theories and difficult language. Instead, the kind of empowerment I am referring to comes from a powerful Ancient Greek maxim that was once said to be inscribed on the famous Temple of Apollo at Delphi:
Although this phrase is one of the 147 Delphic Maxims, it is also one of the three sayings believed to have been inscribed on the Temple itself. The maxim plays an important role in many of Plato’s dialogues and reflects an idea that was central to Ancient Greek philosophy.
While historians still debate who originally authored the Delphic Maxims, some traditions attribute them to the Oracle of Delphi — the priestess known as Pythia — while others suggest they were dedicated to Apollo by the Seven Sages of Ancient Greece. Regardless of their precise origin, the maxims were widely understood to provide practical guidance for living well — a kind of philosophical framework for living your best life.
Before we explore the power that comes from knowing ourselves, it is helpful to distinguish this idea from the kind of intelligence that philosophy is sometimes associated with. Anyone who has spent an entire weekend trying to understand a single philosopher’s idea — often because the philosopher chose to write in the most obscure way imaginable, occasionally inventing their own words in the process (for anyone who has tried reading Hegel, you will know what I mean!) — can understand why philosophy sometimes feels intimidating.
It can easily give the impression that philosophy requires a level of intellectual ability far beyond the average person. But the truth is that the most practical and transformative parts of philosophy have very little to do with intelligence in the conventional sense.
The ancient philosopher Socrates famously claimed that his wisdom consisted in recognising his own ignorance. This might sound strange at first, but it reveals something important: philosophy begins with curiosity, humility and a desire to understand. It begins with wonder. When we become curious about ourselves and the world around us, we start asking questions. And it is through questioning that genuine understanding begins to grow.
This sense of wonder — this willingness to question what we think we know — is what makes someone philosophical. Wisdom in the Ancient Greek sense is not primarily about collecting information or memorising facts. Instead, it is about questioning the things we assume to be true. It means examining beliefs we may have accepted without reflection — ideas passed down through culture, reinforced by social conventions, influenced by friends, or even shaped by our own thoughts on a particularly bad day. In many cases, the things we believe we “know” about ourselves and the world are ideas we have never fully examined for ourselves. The philosophical task is to pause and ask: Where did this belief come from? Is it genuinely true — or does it simply appear to be true?
This is why Socrates could be described as the wisest man in Athens while still claiming to know nothing. His wisdom did not lie in possessing final answers, but in recognising the importance of questioning what others accepted without reflection.
This is an experience which is characteristic of a philosopher, this wondering: this is where philosophy begins and nowhere else.
This is where the Delphic maxim “Know thyself” becomes so important. If knowledge begins with recognising our own ignorance and examining our assumptions, then understanding ourselves becomes the natural starting point for philosophical inquiry. To know yourself is not simply to list your personality traits or describe your interests. It means examining the beliefs, influences and experiences that shape how you see yourself and the world around you. In other words, self-knowledge involves recognising the many forces that influence our thinking — cultural norms, social expectations, media exposure, personal experiences and even the opinions of those around us.
Consider how this works when it comes to self-image. Perhaps you think your legs are too wide, your hips are too small, or your muscles are not big enough. But what does “too wide”, “too small” or “big enough” actually mean? These ideas rarely exist independently of culture. What counts as attractive or desirable changes dramatically across different societies and historical periods.
And that culture constantly surrounds us. Social media, television, advertising campaigns and celebrity culture all influence the standards we use when evaluating ourselves. The images we repeatedly see shape our expectations about how bodies should look and how people should present themselves.
Once we recognise these influences, we gain the ability to step back and question them. Instead of accepting cultural standards as objective truths, we can begin asking whether they genuinely reflect reality — or whether they are simply appearances created by the environment we live in.
It is perhaps on this point and in this respect, gentlemen, that I differ from the majority of men, and if I were to claim that I am wiser than anyone in anything, it would be this, that, as I have no adequate knowledge of things in the underworld, so I do not think I have.
This is why self-knowledge is so empowering. Understanding ourselves helps us recognise the difference between who we actually are and the expectations that culture places upon us. It allows us to step back from the surface level of appearances — how we look, how others perceive us, how social norms suggest we should behave — and examine the deeper question of who we are without those influences. For most of us, that question is not easy to answer. After all, we all live within the same social environment. We absorb the values, habits and expectations that surround us. We follow unwritten rules about behaviour, appearance and success, often without realising we are doing so.
It gives us the opportunity to redefine our understanding of ourselves on our own terms. Of course, this process is not always comfortable. In fact, the philosopher Plato illustrates this difficulty through his famous Allegory of the Cave, where individuals initially react with fear and resistance when they begin questioning the beliefs they once accepted as truth. Realising that many of our opinions may simply reflect the culture we live in — rather than deeper truths about reality — can feel unsettling. It can challenge long-held assumptions about ourselves, our beliefs and the world around us.
For the unexamined life is not worth living for men
But this discomfort is often the first step toward genuine understanding. Education is difficult — but not for the reasons people often think. It is not difficult because of complicated language or abstract philosophical theories.
And in doing so, it opens the possibility that some of those beliefs may not be as certain as we once thought. That uncertainty can feel unsettling. But it is also where the power of knowledge begins. The moment we choose to question what we once accepted without reflection is the moment we begin discovering the true power of knowing ourselves.
