Saturday, March 11, 2006
Saturday Mar. 11, 2006 - Year 3, Day 355 – an examined life
-11C/12F, overcast & a cold north wind chills the cheeks, Gusta loves it; walking remains treacherous, less limping, more slipping
home to scrambled eggs, coffee & morning papers . . . hmmm; a full day’s work to do [I think I’m working on Wednesday’s to-do pile], a couple speeches [opportunity & preparedness coming together I hope] to write, errands & a trip to the gym on my agenda
where did THIS come from: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ – Socrates
I wonder if Socrates said that after much profound thought, or did he just toss it out in conversation in a sales meeting one day after a morning tummy rub at the spa ? . . or, on a hill classroom outside Athens one Saturday morning, was he talking to a class of impressionable minds – painting on blank canvas, making up paint as he went along ?
what of the life ‘unexamined’ ? what happens to those folks ? happiness v. despair, failure v. success . . . ?
I think the unexamined life gets people down the path allright, just without a very broad grin on their faces
a note to explain why I wrote about Socrates today:
I don’t know a lot Socrates other than ‘teaching in a toga on a hillside’, but came across a description recently about teaching using the Socratic Method; much of it rang very true for what musings/musers do/function & how I function in writing them
Wikipedia defines the Socratic Method as:
a dialectic method of inquiry, largely applied to the examination of key moral concepts and first described by Plato in the Socratic Dialogues. For this, Socrates is customarily regarded as the father and fountainhead for ethics or moral philosophy. It is a form of philosophical enquiry. It involves two or more speakers, usually with one as the master (or wise one) and the others as students or fools. The method is credited to Socrates, who began to engage in such discussion with his fellow Athenians after a visit to the Oracle of Delphi. The practice involves asking a series of questions surrounding a central issue, and answering questions of the others involved. Generally this involves the defense of one point of view against another and is oppositional. The best way to 'win' is to make the opponent contradict themselves in some way that proves the inquirer's own point. Plato famously formalised the Socratic debate in prose - positing Socrates as one of the principal interlocutors - in some of his early dialogues, such as Euthyphro or Theaetetus, and the method is most commonly found within the Socratic dialogues, which generally portray Socrates engaging in the method and questioning his fellow citizens about moral and epistemological issues.
or . . what was Socrates really like if he was hiding/masking his own feelings by asking questions all the time ? . . whoever he really was, if it was a Saturday morning, I bet he’d be wanting a tummy rub
fellow musers, maybe I am a Socrates-wannbe; though I’ve not thought of that before, I think that would be a worthy ambition
someone commented recently that my writing style/questioning was a clever way to disguise my own feelings, my own story, my own ‘stuff’. I responded: ‘You’ve not been reading them very long, have you ?’
Mark
342,272
home to scrambled eggs, coffee & morning papers . . . hmmm; a full day’s work to do [I think I’m working on Wednesday’s to-do pile], a couple speeches [opportunity & preparedness coming together I hope] to write, errands & a trip to the gym on my agenda
where did THIS come from: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ – Socrates
I wonder if Socrates said that after much profound thought, or did he just toss it out in conversation in a sales meeting one day after a morning tummy rub at the spa ? . . or, on a hill classroom outside Athens one Saturday morning, was he talking to a class of impressionable minds – painting on blank canvas, making up paint as he went along ?
what of the life ‘unexamined’ ? what happens to those folks ? happiness v. despair, failure v. success . . . ?
I think the unexamined life gets people down the path allright, just without a very broad grin on their faces
a note to explain why I wrote about Socrates today:
I don’t know a lot Socrates other than ‘teaching in a toga on a hillside’, but came across a description recently about teaching using the Socratic Method; much of it rang very true for what musings/musers do/function & how I function in writing them
Wikipedia defines the Socratic Method as:
a dialectic method of inquiry, largely applied to the examination of key moral concepts and first described by Plato in the Socratic Dialogues. For this, Socrates is customarily regarded as the father and fountainhead for ethics or moral philosophy. It is a form of philosophical enquiry. It involves two or more speakers, usually with one as the master (or wise one) and the others as students or fools. The method is credited to Socrates, who began to engage in such discussion with his fellow Athenians after a visit to the Oracle of Delphi. The practice involves asking a series of questions surrounding a central issue, and answering questions of the others involved. Generally this involves the defense of one point of view against another and is oppositional. The best way to 'win' is to make the opponent contradict themselves in some way that proves the inquirer's own point. Plato famously formalised the Socratic debate in prose - positing Socrates as one of the principal interlocutors - in some of his early dialogues, such as Euthyphro or Theaetetus, and the method is most commonly found within the Socratic dialogues, which generally portray Socrates engaging in the method and questioning his fellow citizens about moral and epistemological issues.
or . . what was Socrates really like if he was hiding/masking his own feelings by asking questions all the time ? . . whoever he really was, if it was a Saturday morning, I bet he’d be wanting a tummy rub
fellow musers, maybe I am a Socrates-wannbe; though I’ve not thought of that before, I think that would be a worthy ambition
someone commented recently that my writing style/questioning was a clever way to disguise my own feelings, my own story, my own ‘stuff’. I responded: ‘You’ve not been reading them very long, have you ?’
Mark
342,272
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