Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Self-knowledge \Self`-knowl"edge\, n. Knowledge of one's self, or of one's own character, powers, limitations, etc.
Wiktionary
n. Knowledge or insight into one's own nature and ability.
WordNet
n. an understanding of yourself and your goals and abilities
Wikipedia
Self-knowledge is a major topic in the ancient wisdom tradition Vedanta, and is acquired after the student makes certain preparations, such as the practice of austerities, cultivating calm, freeing oneself from cravings and aversion, and then performs the ātma-vicāra, or self-enquiry. This knowledge is that all things are one. The consciousness of the individual soul and the soul of God are the same.
This knowledge, while normally acquired under the direction of a guru or teacher, is not taught in the traditional sense, but is experienced directly by the prepared student, by the process of insight alone, who performs the vicāra.
Self-knowledge is a term used in psychology to describe the information that an individual draws upon when finding an answer to the question "What am I like?".
While seeking to develop the answer to this question, self-knowledge requires ongoing self-awareness and self-consciousness (which is not to be confused with consciousness). Young infants and chimpanzees display some of the traits of self-awareness and agency/contingency, yet they are not considered as also having self-consciousness. At some greater level of cognition, however, a self-conscious component emerges in addition to an increased self-awareness component, and then it becomes possible to ask "What am I like?", and to answer with self-knowledge.
Self-knowledge is a component of the self, or more accurately, the self-concept. It is the knowledge of one's self and one's properties and the desire to seek such knowledge that guide the development of the self-concept. Self-knowledge informs us of our mental representations of ourselves, which contain attributes that we uniquely pair with ourselves, and theories on whether these attributes are stable, or dynamic.
The self-concept is thought to have three primary aspects:
- The cognitive self
- The affective self
- The executive self
The affective and executive selves are also known as the felt and active selves respectively, as they refer to the emotional and behavioral components of the self-concept. Self-knowledge is linked to the cognitive self in that its motives guide our search to gain greater clarity and assurance that our own self-concept is an accurate representation of our true self; for this reason the cognitive self is also referred to as the known self. The cognitive self is made up of everything we know (or think we know about ourselves). This implies physiological properties such as hair color, race, and height etc.; and psychological properties like beliefs, values, and dislikes to name but a few.
Usage examples of "self-knowledge".
He has no difficulty presuming that Islam is a unitary phenomenon, unlike any other religion or civilization, and thereafter he shows it to be antihuman, incapable of development, self-knowledge, or objectivity, as well as uncreative, unscientific, and authoritarian.
Are we to think that a being knowing itself must contain diversity, that self-knowledge can be affirmed only when some one phase of the self perceives other phases, and that therefore an absolutely simplex entity would be equally incapable of introversion and of self-awareness?
And a man becomes Intellectual-Principle when, ignoring all other phases of his being, he sees through that only and sees only that and so knows himself by means of the self--in other words attains the self-knowledge which the Intellectual-Principle possesses.
Though on the level of sheer drama Shadow of Ashland may not be as compelling a book as Time and Again, its treatment of the past as the fount of the present, and as a source of illumination and self-knowledge, makes it far weightier in the end.
He impressed me as a control freak with a dark self-knowledge learned the hard way.
It is, at the same time, a powerful appeal to reason to undertake anew the most difficult of its duties, namely, self-knowledge, and to institute a court of appeal which should protect the just rights of reason, but dismiss all groundless claims, and should do this not by means of irresponsible decrees, but according to the eternal and unalterable laws of reason.
If we humans bear, say, hereditary propensities toward the hatred of strangers, isn't self-knowledge the only antidote?