FROM KNOWING THYSELF TO DWELL THYSELF. THE ONTOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ABOUT THE SELF KNOWLEDGE AS BEING TO EXISTENCE. THE SENECA’S TESTIMONY

Abstract

The knowledge of the self must refer necessarily to a self for knowledge, however, in a metaphysical and ontological scope, the self to be known should be the same that would seek to know itself. This means that the being that should be known would be prior to its own being as it is already constituted by this knowledge, or it would be the encounter between the being itself, the one who still is going to be, and about the development of its wisdom, that the essence and existence meet and merge in the soul. We could say that we are here facing the re-elaboration of the Socratic knowing thyself toward the ontology of the human soul, especially if seen from the perspective of the search for self-sufficiency of the spiritual self, so dear to the Hellenistic and Roman period and especially to Seneca.