
Interestingly enough, as Wilson shows, this is not something uncovered by Freud philosophers and thinkers such as Leibnitz and Pascal, Shelling and William Hamilton had devised theories of the unconscious long before the Austrian. Plato and Descartes were severely wrong: not only is not all thinking conscious thinking, but most of it eludes us. Two thousand years ago, in the pronaos of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi – at least according to ancient writers – still stood inscribed one of the most famous maxims in the history of philosophy: “Know thyself!”Īnd up until the end of the 19 th century, many people believed that, buried beneath those two words, there lay an eternal truth, an almost divine imperative: not knowing yourself was a sin knowing yourself was the only right way to go about in life.Īnd then came Sigmund Freud and uncovered a frightening secret, one which nobody was prepared to hear out loud: it is difficult to know yourself, and that’s because most of your mind operates unconsciously.
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In addition, Wilson is the winner of several awards, such as the All-University Outstanding Teaching Award (2001) and the University of Virginia Distinguished Scientist Award (2010) since 2009, he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.įind out more at “Strangers to Ourselves PDF Summary” Chapter 1: Freud’s Genius, Freud’s Myopia In fact, his 1977 article “Telling more than we can know – verbal reports on mental processes” (co-authored with Richard Nisbett) is one of the most cited psychology articles in history, and his introductory primer Social Psychology (co-authored with Elliot Aronson and Robin Akert) is used as a textbook at many universities around the world. Wilson is widely considered one of the leading social psychologists of today. Known for his research in areas such as the limits of introspection and unconscious processing, together with his long-time collaborator Daniel Gilbert, Timothy D. Aston Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, and the author of two very popular books on psychology, Strangers to Ourselves and Redirect.


Wilson is an American social psychologist, the Sherrell J.
