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Know Thyself: The Science of Self-Awareness Hardcover – April 27, 2021

by Stephen M Fleming (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 143 ratings
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Unlock the secrets to understanding yourself and others with the surprising science of the human mind's greatest power: introspection.
 
“Are you sure?”
 
Whether in a court room, a doctor’s office, a gameshow’s hot seat, or a student’s desk, we are always trying to answer that question. Should we accept eyewitness testimony or a physician’s diagnosis? Do we really want to risk it all on a final question? And what should we be studying in order to do as well as possible on a test? In short, how do we know what we and others know—or as importantly, don’t know?
 
As cognitive neuroscientist Stephen Fleming shows in Know Thyself, we do this with metacognition. Metacognition, or thinking about thinking, is the most important tool we have for understanding our own mind. Metacognition is an awesome power: It is what enables self-awareness as well as what lets us think about the minds of others. It is the ultimate human trait, and in its most rarefied forms is a power that neither other animals, nor our current artificial intelligences, have. Metacognition teaches us the limits of our own knowledge. Once we understand what it is and how it works, we can improve our performance and make better decisions. For example, on the SAT, it helps us gauge when we should skip a question rather than lose points getting an answer wrong.
 
Know Thyself, like the metacognition itself, is equal parts scientific, philosophical, and practical. And that means, like Thinking, Fast and Slow and Predictably Irrational, it’s that rarest of books: one that can both expand our minds and change our lives.
 
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  1. Print length
    304 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Basic Books
  4. Publication date
    April 27, 2021
  5. Dimensions
    6.35 x 1.25 x 9.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1541672844
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1541672840
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A very interesting book on perhaps the most interesting topic."
 ―Sam Harris, Making Sense Podcast

"One of the must-reads of 2021.Scientific, philosophical, and practical, it sheds lights on 'metacognition'—our thoughts about thoughts and the importance of self-awareness to almost anything we embark on."―Five Books

One of Behavioral Scientist's 10 Notable Books of 2021―Antonia Violante, Heather Graci and Evan Nesterak, Behavioral Scientist

“A rational person must practice what the neuroscientist Stephen Fleming, in ‘Know Thyself: The Science of Self-Awareness’ (Basic Books), calls ‘metacognition,’ or ‘the ability to think about our own thinking’—'a fragile, beautiful, and frankly bizarre feature of the human mind.’”
 ―Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker

"In Know Thyself, cognitive neuroscientist Stephen  Fleming  synthesizes this multifaceted research into an admirably coherent narrative and outlines how the resulting knowledge may be applied to solve societal problems . . . In the  end, the book makes a convincing case that self-awareness is a key feature of human existence and that our growing knowledge about it will be important for addressing many of our societal problems . . . Fleming’s book finally heaves metacognition into a long-deserved place in the scientific spotlight."―Christian C. Ruff, Science

"Of great interest to the general public, and scientists alike. ... Fleming constructs his arguments fluently and systematically. He builds our understanding of the concepts layer by layer, taking the reader with him at a gentle pace."―Michael David, Cognitive Neuropsychiatry

"What a wonderful book. From self-doubt to self-awareness, and everything in between. Steve Fleming, who has made his career study thoughts about thoughts, or metacognition, takes the reader on a journey into what it means to be a being that knows its self, and, as a consequence, can contemplate the self inside others."
 ―Joseph LeDoux, author of The Deep History of Ourselves

"Know Thyself is an extraordinary book. Written by a leader in the science of self-awareness, it is both accessible and erudite, a self-help manual and a work of scholarship. It will be a rewarding read for anyone who wants to understand how metacognition (and its failures) affect us in personal and public life – in education, sports, law, politics, and in our ever-deepening engagements with AI."―Cecilia Heyes, Professor of Psychology at University of Oxford and author of Cognitive Gadgets

"I used to believe that in psychology 'If it’s interesting, we can’t measure it. And, if we can measure it, it’s not interesting'. After reading this book I realize how wrong I was. Nothing is more interesting than exploring our own minds and now there are rigorous new methods to quantify such explorations. Steve Fleming provides a superb guide to these methods, and furthermore, he demonstrates the crucial importance of developing self-awareness for dealing with society’s most pressing problems."
 ―Christopher Frith, Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at University College London and author of Making up the Mind

About the Author

Stephen M. Fleming is a Sir Henry Dale Wellcome Trust/Royal Society fellow at the department of experimental psychology and principal investigator at the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, where he leads the Metacognition Group. He lives in London.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Basic Books (April 27, 2021)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1541672844
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1541672840
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.35 x 1.25 x 9.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 143 ratings

About the author

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Stephen M Fleming

Stephen M Fleming

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Steve Fleming is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Wellcome/Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellow at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London. He leads research groups at UCL's Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging and Max Planck Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research. He has published over 75 papers in scientific journals, and won multiple awards for his research on metacognition, including the Wiley Prize in Psychology from the British Academy in 2016, the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Psychology from the Leverhulme Trust in 2017 and the Spearman Medal from the British Psychological Society in 2019.

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Top reviews from the United States

  • chris boutte
    5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book on self-awareness
    Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2021
    I was unaware of Stephen Fleming’s work, so I was pleasantly surprised about how awesome this book was. Without a doubt, self-awareness is one of the most important aspects of our lives, but how self-aware are we? Fleming has been studying self-awareness for years and has conducted a ton of really interesting research. Sometimes, I get concerned that books like this will get heavy into neuroscience jargon, but Fleming did a great job writing this with non-academics in mind. He starts the book by sharing a bit about why he became interested in this field at a young age and a bit of his experience. Until this book, I had never heard of metacognitive neuroscience, but now, I just want to learn more about it.

    Starting early with the first chapter, Fleming tackles one of the most important subjects, which is how to be uncertain. Without self-awareness, our confidence and certainty can be a dangerous thing, and in this chapter, Fleming explains some of our cognitive processes and thinking errors that can become obstacles for our self-awareness and decision-making. Then, he goes on to cover what the research tells us about how well we know ourselves, how well we know others, and why our brains are designed for self-deception. With a combination of all of these studies as well as some real-world examples, this book provides a ton of value to the reader. As someone who finds this subject extremely important as well as fascinating, I’m glad this book was provided so much easy-to-grasp information that I haven’t read in other books. I can definitely see myself reading this book again in the future.
    24 people found this helpful
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  • steve brann
    2.0 out of 5 stars Great title, average content
    Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2024
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    The title suggests a deep dive into the self, and what this contains is a deep dive into redundant information. The author lacked the ability to derive meaningful truths from an endless amount of experiments cited in the book that could enable one to improve introspection. This book is a waste of money.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Ruby
    2.0 out of 5 stars A vague cursory glance at metacognition, conflated with consciousness
    Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2022
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    This book is very light on experimental results, and reads more like an essay targeted at elementary school children to encourage an interest in science. Throughout the book, there is conflation of metacognition with consciousness (whether deliberate or simply due to the imprecision of writing). There is a weak-hearted attempt in the last chapter to claim that metacognition is fundamental to consciousness (somehow, in some unexplained fashion). This is self-contradictory, since one of the early claims is that supposedly some species of monkeys demonstrate metacognition but other species lack it (no details of exact experimental procedures are provided, of course); if metacognition is fundamental to consciousness, and these monkeys lack metacognition, then they must lack consciousness i.e. are philosophical zombies!
    12 people found this helpful
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
    Reviewed in Germany on May 10, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Fully engrossing read, learnt a lot about myself!
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  • ヨシノリ
    5.0 out of 5 stars 近年のメタ認知研究についての概観がつかめる。
    Reviewed in Japan on February 7, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    近年、メタ認知(metacognition)は人工知能と人間の違いを考える際に再注目されている。機械はメタ認知を持ちうるか？また、より高次のメタ認知である自己認識(self-awareness)を持ちうるのか？そんなことを考えさせられる。メタ認知の定義自体も学会ではコンセンサスが取れていない。メタ認知の神経学的基盤の解明に向け今も研究が進められている。
    メタ認知と意識(conscious experience)の関係について、両者の間にはどのような関係があるのか？
    チャプター11で言及されており、メタ認知を意識に付随する現象として考えるfirst-orderの立場と内省(self-reflection)やメタ認知を立ち上げることが意識することであると考えるhigher-orderの立場があり、今でもempiricalに決着がついていないとのことだ。higher-orderの立場が正しい場合、意識についてのメタ認知を立ち上げることが難しいと著者は主張している。ここにはある種のパラドックスがあると僕は思う。
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  • Chiraag
    4.0 out of 5 stars A really useful introduction to Self-Awareness (Metacognition) and it's applications
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 9, 2021
    Amazon Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )
    This book does a very good job of explaining concepts of Self- Awareness in an easy to understand way for someone new to this.

    In the first part it explains Metacognition and how we track uncertainty and monitor our actions as part of the mechanisms for a self aware brain.

    It shows how this self awareness can be an autopilot mechanism which is developed in toddlers and those in the animal kingdom. The capacity of self awareness can increase throughout our adult lives and the book then helps us understand different contexts where we can maximise this.

    It shows studies which show there isn't a direct link for IQ and Metacognition, that Metacognition is not fixed and can change and it can be misleading and in many situations it can be absent or offline.

    I work in Education so the chapter on learning to learn was very helpful showing how self-awareness can be used to learn better and how to increase the self-awareness of learners.

    The author also highlights that losing our Metacognition and Self-Awareness can be very detrimental and is a real possibility as we get more and more engrossed with technology and the philosophy of doing more and reflecting less. That is something I have seen more and more for myself and the people I know and I feel the book provides a very useful tool for us to become aware of self-awareness which in turn is the first step towards increasing our self awareness.

    I think the book really works well for those who are new to the subject and it provides easy to understand concepts and studies without overwhelming with deeply complex Neuroscience. I thought there was scope and opportunity to delve more into the application and inspire people in what can be done but It has certainly helped me reflect and think about what I need to do about my own self awareness and building in ways to increase this for the people in my life. It is a book I will be revisiting again.
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  • Andrew
    5.0 out of 5 stars An accessible and compelling read about the why and how of our ability to think about our thinking
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 24, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    Stephen Fleming sets out to explain the current state of scientific understanding of human self-awareness, how we can know ourselves; our abilities, our strengths and our limitations. He has succeeded. His book is both accessible and compelling.
    He goes on to examine how self-awareness is essential for many aspects of our lives; learning, decision-making, acquiring and teaching new skills, through to our sense of autonomy and responsibility for our own actions, Finally he looks at how humans may still be essential in the face of the rising tide of Artificial Intelligence.
    This is popular science at its best: not dumbed down, but pitched so that anyone interested can understand what the science is and what it can be used for. This book is thought-provoking and may just help the reader to increase their own self-awareness.
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Accessible and engaging introduction to how we know what we know
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 15, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    I really enjoyed this book, which brought me up to date on the latest findings in the field of metacognition - or how we know what we know. The book is written in an engaging style - conversational and more than a smattering of funny and 'huh that's cool' moments. I would recommend this if you want to know more about the science of metacognition, but it is probably worth emphasizing that this is not a self-help book. Highly recommended.
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