University of Chicago First Friday Lecture Series

Hosted by the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults. Lectures are offered at 12:15pm on the first Friday of every month except July, in the Claudia Cassidy Theater of the Chicago Cultural Center.

Know Thyself: The Delphic Oracle on Oedipus, Croesus, and Socrates

An inscription at the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi famously enjoined pilgrims seeking prophetic advice, “Know thyself.” In Autumn Quarter of the Basic Program’s Core Curriculum courses, three authors combine the idea with features of the god’s portrayal in Homer’s Iliad to formulate a robustly Delphic concept of self-knowledge. In Plato’s Apology of Socrates, in Herodotus’s story of Croesus, and in Oedipus the King by Sophocles, the focal character acquires transformational wisdom about himself from the oracle. In each case, the new knowledge comes from outside, rather than by introspection, and involves perceiving the self as part of a novel context or story for the first time and from a new, external viewpoint. This mode and origin well suit the god who, in Homer, effects his purposes with lethal accuracy, but from a remote standpoint.

Presented by:

Kendall Sharp received his PhD from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago in 2006. He also taught in the University’s College. Sharp was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Western Ontario from 2007 to 2015. He joined the Basic Program in 2019.

Free, registration required. Click here for complete details.