Socrates said to me: "Know thyself"

May 10, 2011
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

poetaster

PRONUNCIATION:
(POH-it-as-tuhr)
MEANING:
noun: An inferior poet.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin poetaster, from Latin poeta (poet), from Greek poietes (poet, maker), from poiein (to make) + -aster (pejorative suffix). Earliest documented use: 1601.

NOTES:
What can you do when someone calls you a poetaster? Why, you can call them a criticaster (an inferior critic). Also see mathematicaster, philosophaster, and politicaster.

USAGE:
"In the title story, a poetaster suffering from 'chronic acuteness' is rushed to the hospital before his verse does much harm."
Anthony Bukoski; Average Joes Wind Up in 'Hospital'; Star-Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota); May 3, 2009.

"You have revealed yourself to the world as a conceited little poetaster."
Simon Barnes; Rooney No Longer in Control of Fame Game; The Times (London, UK); Sep 13, 2010.

Ah! A new word for the day!

(I don't agree that it applies to you, jjorge.)

I agree with Eva.

An old wisdom lover in Greece
Was questioned all day without cease.
My advice is top-shelf
He said -- know thyself.
Now beat it and leave me in peace!

Love it, George!

On thyself thou shall know others
Mothers, lovers, sisters, dauthers
Whatever they may be to thee
Through thine own eyes thou must see
So find a lonely, moonlit pond
And with it forge thy strongest bond
Reflected is thy love for thee
And through it also love for me


(You guys are so inspiring:) )

Nice!

BTW, I love this line: '..So find a lonely, moonlit pond..'

Thanks. Nothing as thorough and well made as your clam piece on the other thread though. I really enjoyed that one.

Thanks.
That one was fun. My niece in Maine made a FaceBook post last night simply saying she was "as happy as a clam".
I then said something silly like, "clams are restrained in their expression of feelings, however. They are actually shy and taciturn."

Something about that little dialogue tickled my fancy, however and I couldn't leave it at that. So I sat down and spent two or three hours playing around with the notion of clams' 'emotional life' and the end result was 'The Secret Life of Clams'.
(of course, I was undeterred by my almost total ignorance of clams except for eating them (many times) and digging them a few times. :-)

Socrates actually said "know thy self". Somewhere along the line 'thy' and 'self' were put together to create a thing called 'thyself'. That was the beginning of the distraction 'identity'.

You mean that before Socrates people didn't have identity?

There really isn't any 'before' or 'after', you're attempting to use time as a way of 'punching holes' in his statement by looking at it as a concept to be proven.

No, JP...
Dasein said that the beginning of the distraction "identity" was that the words "thy" and "self" were put together into "thyself". This statement clearly doesn't hold up since a prerequisite for being able to use our languages is a self percieving it's own identity. Even if you don't do it, the very minute you open your mouth you suddenly do. It's the nature of words.

You said:

"This statement clearly doesn't hold up since a prerequisite for being able to use our languages"

The 'doesn't hold up' is where YOU'RE creating the problem here.

How about quoting the whole sentence, so that it actually makes sense?
I don't see the problem. Identity comes before language, and therefore it is unreasonable to say that a semantical twist is the cause of identity.

Who you are comes 'before' 'identity', 'language' or whatever other 'thing' that you are 'branching' off of it.

Don't even try that 'not making sense' bit, if it didn't 'make sense' then you couldn't have even responded to it.

I respond to things that don't make sense all the time, and this is yet another example of it.

What I am saying is that in order to use language you neccesarily need a sense of self. Without it words are meaningless. And sense of self gives identity, not words.

What you're pointing out as 'sense of self' comes from your 'self' showing 'you' who you are.(what shows itself in itself)

Have 'you' not always had a 'sense of self'? Then how would you ever know if 'words' would be 'meaningless' or not?

A 'sense of self' actually gives just that, nothing more or less.

PS - When you respond to 'things' that don't make sense, it's because you're trying to get someone else to 'go along with' your point of view.

You're looking for justification.

Losman, this is not about "self". It's about how language functions. You cannot say so much as "I" without creating a division between what you percieve as you and not you. And in order to create that division by language in the first place you have to have the idea or experience of you and not you.
So, we cannot say that some words caused "identity", because identity is what enables us to use words.