Who Am I?

Self-knowledge. On the entrance of the temple of the Delphian Oracle there was written: "know thy self.” That question of self-cognition was the basic point of Socrates' philosophical dialogues in the Athenian market place. It is a serious philosophical theme. I consider this theme as one of the most labored for philosophical consciousness. Not only because of the difficulty of self-cognition, but because there is not just one way of self-cognition for all people. Everyone should accomplish this knowledge self-sufficiently.

What can we learn from our life experience? What can one know about one's self? Selfhood seems to be the most clear matter. Everyone knows oneself best of all things. Also, only man it seems can know himself. One really knows oneself before all other knowledge. A newborn infant knows nothing, but is first noticed to recognize himself before the age of five. A lot of children prior to that age use time and again the word "I". I am, I can, I want, and I do and so on. Self-consciousness appears at that age and it becomes a man's first and deepest knowledge. Before that age, a child does not separate himself from the world around him. Therefore, we can not affirm the existence of consciousness before self-consciousness. The first manifestation of one's consciousness becomes one's self-consciousness.