the unexamined life is not worth living so know thyself hey welcome to park notes I'm Parker setak case I'm a graduate student in philosophy and this is a channel where I help you study and think more deeply in this video I'm going to introduce you to philosophical soliloquies a tool used by ancient philosophers to get to know themselves better to know what they believe and why they believe it so I'm going to show you how I keep my own book of soliloquies and then I'll give you some ideas for how you can keep your own
book of soliloquies in order to know thyself in order to live an examined life so let's Jump Right In so soliloquies are an amazing way to help you know thyself now know thyself is a very famous philosophical maximum which was inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo in the ancient Greek Precinct of Deli now in the temple of Deli was a high priestess named pythia She's also known as the Oracle of deli and she's the one who told one of socrates's friends that he was the wisest man in all of Athens this friend then went and
told Socrates and he didn't believe it so he went out to inspect all the other wise men in all of Athens and other places in the world to see if this Oracle from the Oracle was true and we have this recounted for us in Plato's dialogues so Socrates set out to test this Oracle by examining himself by examining others and by examining life's deepest questions life's deep philosophical worldview questions like justice and good and Beauty now if you ever read Plato's dialogues Socrates is the main character and he doesn't often come to any conclusion usually
the conclusion is these wise men aren't as wise as they thought and no one really knows anything except Socrates may be the wisest man because at least he knows he doesn't know anything but there is one major conclusion which Socrates came to and that is that the unexamined life is not worth living according to Plato he mentioned this in his apology in his defense before he was forced to drink Hemlock and and died so how do we live a life that's worth living well we get to know ourselves we examine the life that we're living
as we're living it how do we do that well one of the best ways is soliloquies so Socrates drinks the hemlock in 399 BC Plato writes his apology where he recounts The Death of Socrates and then Plato goes on to write many more dialogues where Socrates is his mouthpiece and it's unclear whether or not the philosophy of Socrates is present in the dialogues or whether Plato is doing some constructive work and adding in his own philosophical musings so fast forward a bit to 386 ad when St Augustine becomes a Christian and then goes on to
write his own soliloquies it looks like Soliloquy is a word that Augustine coined himself it comes from two Latin words Solus meaning alone and Loki or loqui meaning speak so speak alone and a soliloquy is just the act of talking to oneself or the act of speaking alone this word is also used in drama to refer to a solo utterance of an actor the most famous being Shakespeare's Hamlet to be or not to be that is the question so that's that's a c as well what I'm talking about in this video in order to know
yourself is a philosophical Soliloquy a philosophical dialogue with yourself a philosophical monologue where you are your own audience so while the priests and priestesses of Apollo including the Oracle of Deli encourag their followers to know thyself St Augustine coined this term Soliloquy to capture his process of knowing god and knowing the soul he's giving a philosophical dialogue between his own thoughts and reason but reason just represents his own reason so it's a dialogue but it's a monologue he's talking with himself this book is actually two books and in the first book he starts out after
his Prayer by saying I want to know God and the soul and then reason asks him nothing more and Augustine says nothing whatsoever so so Augustine takes us a step further know thyself and know God know God know thyself now boethus also does something similar to this in the consolation of philosophy but instead of talking to reason he's talking to lady philosophy but she's functioning in a similar way so if you want to see how these philosophers have used soliloquies to get clear on their own ideas and to gain self- knowledge definitely check out boethus
the consolation of philosophy where he's consoling himself through philosophy while he's in jail as a political prisoner and check out St Augustine's soliloquies which is two books in one where he explores the existence of the soul immateriality of the Soul immortality of the Soul kind of gets into knowledge of God but more from a philosophical perspective cuz he's a young Christian but check these out also check out Plato and his dialogues which are functioning kind of like a soliloquy it's hard to determine how much of this was historically accurate and how much was a construction
by Plato but if you grab this penguin classic edition of the last days of Socrates by Plato then you can grab the apology of Socrates and find that famous quote for yourself the unexamined life is not worth living also check out St Augustine's confessions which also function like a soliloquy but is actually a prayer to God this is you know one of the best books in the western Canon even if you're not religious he comes up with a linear theory of time whereas most ancients thought of time as being cyclical he said no it's linear
and then he says what is time I know what it is until you ask me about it it's amazing chalk full of super good quot and wisdom if you guys want to pick up any of these books then check the links in the description those are my affiliate links so if you buy them through there you will support this channel that would be huge but enough about books Let's get into how you can keep a book of soliloquies in order to know yourself better so this is a myy creative Co leather journal it's a leather
cover on a medium mol skin Journal I love myy Creative these are some of the coolest leather notebooks out there they have these three cool clasps you put them together and and a nice Parker Pen locks all three together I love these so this is my book of soliloquies I also use a metric cut myy creative with a lch term 1917 A5 for another deep thinking philosophy Journal I use the same in a different color this is in Bourbon for my philosophy of AI commonplace book and I have a mydy creative pocket notebook with a
mole skinin pocket inside so right now myy creative and I are teaming up to bring my audience 10% off their entire order I'm really excited about this all you have to do is go to mdyc creative. c/p Parker notes in all caps browse their whole catalog buy a bunch of stuff and then when you're in the checkout use code Parker notes all caps to get 10% off your entire order this is huge I love it make sure to use that link so myy creative knows that I sent you and make sure to use promo code
Parker notes in all caps to get 10% off your entire order that's crazy I'm so excited about this so back to the nitty-gritty of keeping a book of soliloquies super hard to say that word soliloquies I think there are at least two different ways to keep this book one way is to use it as a monologue directed at yourself I do this a lot I'm writing kind of to myself hey why are you like this why do you like this why do you like that why are you like this so a lot of times I
will give it a title I'll box out the title so I know that this entry is all about this topic sometimes it'll be a question some times it's just a title strength and competence curiosity as the lifeblood of the Mind blite techn philosopher recursive thoughts in the image of God artificial intelligence will make us all less intelligent mentorship and fatherhood what's the connection there why do I love villains a 10year reflection that one's pretty small but pride and confidence so this represents the first way to keep a book of soliloquies a monologue addressed to yourself
you think through as you go why am I like this why do I like the things that I like why do I enjoy these kinds of things help yourself figure yourself out most of my books and commonplace books and Diaries and notebooks and pocket notebooks all start you know back in 2013 but this is a newer process for me I started this back in 2021 with the entry why do I love villains and I was thinking through why do I like Anthony Hopkins character in Westworld or Mori arti from The Game of Shadows particularly I
I genuinely wanted to know like why am I is there something wrong with me that I like villains so much more not just raw evil villains but the really crafty ones like Palpatine from Star Wars and so I try to think through what's the deal is it because we are better acquainted with craftiness than with like wholesome goodness does that have to be boring is it just me who feels this or are there other people who also resonate with this so I want to get to know myself so I write these monologues and I address
them to myself I also got really obsessed with Thanos versus dark side like why who cares about that why do I care so much what is it about me that makes this question so compelling also what's the relationship between a philosopher and a theologian how do these two differ are they the same thing probably not I've gotten master's degrees in both so I should be able to figure this stuff out so I'm trying why do I want to pursue these two academic disciplines the philosopher and the sage are those two the same things because modern
philosophers aren't like wisdom lovers in the same way you think of a sage so what's up why do I like a cyber Punk aesthetic and a hittin aesthetic can I fuse those together or not so what's up I want to get to know myself a second way to get to know yourself through soliloquies would be doing what Augustine did doing what boethus did and actually writing up a fake dialogue between you and another character between you and your reason or between you and Lady philosophy or lady wisdom and having them be literally the voice of
reason that you're debating with that you're arguing with that you're dialoguing with now I've done a few of these myself in dialogue format and I published them on my old blog Parker's penes but I couldn't find the physical you know notes for them so if you want to keep a book of soliloquies there's two different ways you can do it and you can alternate them in the same notebook so let's say you go and get a mury creative notebook with the Parker notes discount 10% off let's say you go and do that how would you
go about keeping a book of soliloquies well you can write monologues to yourself or you can write dialogues with yourself they're both soliloquies and they both will Aid you in knowing yourself now you might be asking what kind of questions should I be asking myself well I think there's at least two categories of questions that you can ask yourself one is worldview type questions and the other is subjective personal questions so the worldview questions are going to be like God does God exist if he did exist would that make any difference I exist without my
own consent does God could God snuff himself out what do I think about that what would God be like if he did exist why do I think God doesn't exist why do I think God does exist and reason through these God questions what's the nature of reality why is there something rather than nothing super basic but ultimate and foundational question what's the nature of reality do I have a soul will I survive the death of my body what is knowledge and what kind of things do I know what is truth and goodness and Beauty and
the American way now what what are these things and how do I know what do I think about them and and why so I'm calling these worldview type questions these are questions that all of us ask and we should all have answers to so get to know yourself what do you believe and why do you believe it this will differ from my deep thinking philosophy Journal if you guys want to know about that you can find the link somewhere up here you know or in the description there I'm examining ideas and I'm arguing for and
against and I'm trying to build a case here I'm trying to figure out what do I believe and why do I believe that so I'm going to give some reasons but this is somewhere between a journal and a diary a journal being a collection of thoughts and a diary being a collection of time bound feelings so the first set of questions you can ask are worldview questions the second are subjective personal questions so this would be like my dark side vers Thanos this would be my why do I love villains what kind of man do
I want to be why do I love the philosophy of Technology but I'm not very good at technology myself those kind of questions to get to know yourself so it's important to know what you believe and why you believe it but it's also important to know like the kind of person that you are what are your views on XY or Z so boom I hope that's been helpful and again please go check out mydy creative so that they know a partnership with me is worthwhile this stuff is super duper cool you're going to love it
