ENGL 103W Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Know Thyself, Tyrant, Hubris
18 Oct 2018
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What if a good life is predicated on ignorance: delphic oracle, one injunction. Know thyself: know what lies behind you, what shaped you, freud says you must know your past and you must know your subconscious, oedipus gets to know himself, did 2 of the worst things you can ever do. Why is it we have the motives we have: why does someone get satisfaction from winning a race, where does that come from, freud thinks that oedipus wanted to fail , freud says children have their own motives. Is knowledge enough to escape a destiny: you can"t avoid destiny if you"re ignorant, might lead to happiness. If you want to avoid destiny, knowledge can help. Oedipus becomes a monster through no choice of his own: there was also an element of hubris, through your own arrogance you could mess things up. Original title of the book was oedipus tyrannous: he was a tyrant.
