In contemporary discussions of self-knowledge the primary way in which the other enters the scene is this: Our knowledge of the other figures as the contrast case that can help us get at the specificity and peculiarity of self-knowledge. As we are told, we know ourselves – our mental attitudes and states – in a way we cannot know someone else. Whereas our knowledge of others requires observation and inference, we know ourselves immediately and, thus, with distinctive authority. Entering the discussion from this side, self-knowledge and knowledge of others seem fundamentally opposed.

This conference is based on the idea that there is another way in which self-knowledge and knowledge of others are to be related: They are not simply opposed, but fundamentally intertwined – so much so that it is doubtful whether I can actually know myself without knowing others and being known to them. Knowing oneself would thus be internally linked to knowing one another, an idea highlighted by the ambiguous German term “sich kennen”, which can be used to refer to my knowing myself as well as our knowing each other. On the most fundamental level, self-knowledge and knowledge of others would thus not be two contrary types of knowledge. Rather, they would co-constitute the shared space in which we can at all know ourselves – know our own self as well as other selves.

Our aim at this conference is to explore the variety of ways in which this internal nexus between self-knowledge and knowledge of others can be brought to the fore and can be conceptualized. This may involve looking at the way in which what in which self-consciousness requires recognition. It can involve developing the way in which what is known in self-knowledge constitutively requires objectivity and communicability. It may include exploring “self-conscious emotions” (as e.g. shame, embarrassment, and pride), which show how others make us aware of ourselves, suggesting that our self-knowledge is directly affected by the view of others. And it may finally involve investigating the various social processes and conditions enabling, shaping and potentially transforming self-knowledge (as e.g. trust, love, epistemic justice, conversation, formation, education, talking cure).

In addition to exploring the various ways in which this connection is revealed, we shall further pursue what consequences this internal nexus has for our understanding of self-knowledge, of our knowledge of others and the pathologies of knowing ourselves. Regarding self-knowledge, the nexus does not only suggest the mere fact that our capacity to know ourselves is somewhat dependent on our ability to relate to others, to see them and let ourselves be seen by them. It also suggests a modified view of what is known in self-knowledge. Regarding the knowledge of others, it suggests that our primary knowledge of others is not the kind of third-personal, observational knowledge that is typically opposed to self-knowledge, but rather a second-personal kind of knowledge that connects us to others in a different way. Finally, regarding the failures of self-knowledge, this internal nexus may suggest that at least some core phenomena – like self-reification, alienation, self-deception – are internally connected to social pathologies. If we fail to properly know ourselves this might be due to the kind of social relations that determine our life. The ancient task to know thyself may thus require that we transform the social relations we stand in.