was captured in those various photos so many years ago? What, if anything, persists from one moment in one’s life to a much later moment in the same life? Is it even the same life? These questions have fascinated me for a long time and are central to a lot of work in philosophy, which is a discipline that is all about self-knowledge. These are some of the BIG questions of all time: What is a self? What is a person? What is self-knowledge and how does it work? Can you know who you really are—your true self? Do you even have a true self? What makes you the same person from one day to the next? What makes you you? While each of us feels intimately familiar with our selves, it’s difficult to explain just what that sense of self is or what makes us the same self from one year to the next or even one day to the next. Are you your body? Are you your memories or your personality? Are you one self or many selves? I imagine that as you embark on your college career, these questions will loom large, especially as your sense of self undergoes some formative experiences and maybe even dramatic changes. With this first-year seminar, I invite you to come along with me as we explore the nature of the self and the challenges of understanding personal identity.