Socrates, the good life and technology
22
Nov
Before ending the liberal education chapter, Socrates recalls his famous frase:
“knowing oneself” and takes up the idea that “an unexamined life is not worth living”, as his interlocutor Peter Pragma leaves for Grab a coffee and brainstorm. In topic 3 of chapter I: Of the technology and the larvae, the friend who had gone to have a coffee came across the broken machine and said that he would become a technician.
Socrates recalls the short-lived and simplistic character of choosing a profession, and Peter claims that he can not stand any more interrogations, so Socrates thinks of a way to change the very methodology that is the question, “maybe there is a way” and Peter is encouraged.
But it would be illogical for Socrates to abandon his method, which he does is call a young girl named Marigold Measurer (something like measuring the Daisies, explains the footnote on page 42), the girl agrees but is intrigued by Socrates, psychologist.
But Socrates says, quite to the liking of a more contemporary philosophy, that he is a “sort of conscientiologist … I am a philosopher,” Marigold asks if it is his department, which he readily refutes, it would be contradictory to have a philosophy department, already That philosophy is not a department..
The conversation unfolds with Marigold maintaining a certain secret of his work, but reaffirming that the works today have a certain “hierarchy” and questions the place of the philosophy, and finally Marigold says that works with genetic engineering.
Socrates then questions the role of technology in subordinating nature and suggests that we are only “friends” of it, asks “why would you like to conquer your mother? We only conquer our enemies, “is on page 45.
Asked if he would not be afraid to “lose control” of his work, Marigold claims that his work is serious, to which Socrates asks if a wine producer is sober, “would it be right for him to give his product to an alcoholic?” Page 46.
The dialogue on technology is still going on, but we can keep Socrates’ question.
KREEFT, Peter. The best things in life. Illionois; IVPBooks, 1984, (edition Portuguese: Campinas: Ecclesiae, 2016).
