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David Winkler

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Apology

by Plato

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read in March 2017

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David Winkler said: " Socrates had two claims against him; corrupting the youth and not believing in a god or gods. However, in this dialogue Socrates disproves the shit out of these claims showing that they were just a cover up for one thing; they wanted him to shut up. Socrates had two claims against him; corrupting the youth and not believing in a god or gods. However, in this dialogue Socrates disproves the shit out of these claims showing that they were just a cover up for one thing; they wanted him to shut up.

Having had my own brush with death due to what I believe was the kykeon, I will use this quote from the book: "For this fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown; since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good." A near death experience such as this only allows one to realize the difference between two dimensional shadow puppets and reality but it does cause them to question reality which is everything in nature.

Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether - as I was saying, I must beg you not to interrupt - he asked the oracle to tell him whether there was anyone wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered that there was no man wiser. - The Pythia was the priestess of the Eleusinian mysteries where they drank the kykeon and then visited Kyamites; the Greek god of Fava beans.

Because they were good workmen they also thought they knew all sorts of matters and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom, therefore, I asked myself on behalf of the Oracle whether I’d like to be as I was neither having their knowledge or their ignorance or like them in both, and I made answer to myself and the oracle that I was better off as I was.

And yet I know that this plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth? - this is the occasion and reason of their slander of me, as you will find out either in this or in any future inquiry.

Are you not ashamed of this? And if the person with whom I am arguing says: Yes, but I do care; I do not depart or let him go at once; I interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue, but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less.

I am serious; and if I say again that the greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living - that you are still less likely to believe.

When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, - then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your hands. ...more "

Sep 17, 2021 05:26PM · see review