“Apology”, Plato, Dialogue 4 – D58

At 9:30 a.m. we continued reading The Apology by Plato. It was an interesting dialogue where we discussed the true meaning of humility and whether or not and why was Socrates humble. We also talked about the meaning of death.

Here are my notes of the dialogue and also some intriguing questions:

Dialogue 4 (10/12/12)

• Fear of death
• When we consider death there are a set of assumptions that don’t have justification.
• The only thing we can say is that we don’t know what death is.
• What is death?
• Risk aversion
• Does correlation tell us causality?
• If the future, by definition, is unpredictable, why don’t we live in fear?
• Pablito: We maintain a structure of beliefs, expectations, and imperfect information.
• Your actions are based on faith, well or not well founded.

• Socrates’ claim
• He doesn’t know, but he hasn’t made a claim that we cannot know.
• The notion of the scientific ethic is that of constant doubt, an openness of refutation.
• Religion is the only aspect where there are absolute truths.

• Wilson sees the universe as something of the same matter in which we can study all as the same
• Contrary to human action, anti-Austrian.

• Socrates the gadfly
• His teaching is annoying to the state.
• Jesus is another example.

• What is humility?
• Understanding that you don’t know everything.
• Capacity to recognize our errors and mistakes.
• Openness to learning. It doesn’t mean you don’t have expectations.
• Was Jesus open to learning?
• Teaching by questions and parables.

• Socrates: Do you have the right to judge me before judging yourself?