At Rockford College this semester, my two colleagues in Philosophy, Shawn Klein and Matt Flamm, will be leading a discussion group on Plato’s four dialogues about the trial and execution of Socrates. I will be participating in the reading group just for fun, though coincidentally my students and I will be covering Apology and Crito in my Introduction to Philosophy course.
From the flyer for the reading group:
In 399 BCE, Athens executed Socrates for impiety and corrupting the youth. Plato immortalized the trial and death of Socrates in his dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. These are not merely historical dialogues, but philosophical treatises that examine the nature of piety, philosophy, justice, and death. The Reading Group will discuss each of these dialogues and the philosophical issues they raise.
Each meeting will take place at the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship office on the second floor of Burpee, from 1-2 pm. There will be light refreshments. A free copy of the book will be provided to participants.
Dates:
September 10: Overview and Introduction
September 17: Euthyphro
October 1: Apology
November 5: Crito
November 19: Phaedo
Related: Two posts of mine about Socrates are here:
Socrates’ two bad arguments for not escaping
Quotations from Apology and Crito on reason and character
Posted 7 hours, 38 minutes ago at 6:35 am. Add a comment
FedEx is a pioneer in speedy and reliable delivery. For many years, its slogan was: When it absolutely, positively, has to get there overnight.
I’ve been reading David Freedman’s Corps Business: The 30 Management Principles of the U.S. Marines, and I learned that FedEx founder and CEO Fred Smith is a former Marine.
Amusingly, Freedman reports a tribute to Smith and FedEx seen on a t-shirt at a Marine base: The U.S. Marines: When it absolutely, positively has to be destroyed overnight.
Posted 23 hours, 53 minutes ago at 2:20 pm. Add a comment
The latest issue of Kaizen [pdf] features my interview with Robert L. Bradley, founder of the Institute for Energy Research. Dr. Bradley was a speechwriter and researcher for Ken Lay, the late CEO of the late Enron. The theme of the interview is Enron and Political Entrepreneurship: we explore Dr. Bradley’s insider perspective on the distinction between market and political entrepreneurship, Enron’s political business strategy, and the key decisions and events that led to Enron’s downfall.
Also featured in Kaizen are the spring semester’s student essay contest winners — Brandon McNames and Matthew Weber — a report on guest speaker Jeffrey Orduno, and other news from the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship.
My full interview with Dr. Bradley will be posted at the CEE site next month.
If you would like to receive a complimentary issue of the print version of Kaizen, please email your name and postal address to CEE [at] Rockford [dot] edu.
More Kaizen interviews with leading entrepreneurs are at my site here or CEE’s site here.
Posted 5 days, 18 hours ago at 8:05 pm. Add a comment
A lull before the new semester begins tomorrow. To mark the transition, a tranquil photograph from my summer vacation.
Posted 1 week, 2 days ago at 11:14 am. Add a comment
Wisdom about the challenge of learning from a great genius and then finding one’s own path. Here is Zarathustra:
“Now I go alone, my disciples, You too, go now, alone. Thus I want it. Go away from me and resist Zarathustra! And even better: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you. The man of knowledge must not only love his enemies, he must be able to hate his friends. One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a student. And why do you not want to pluck at my wreath? You revere me; but what if your reverence tumbles one day? Beware lest a statue slay you. You say that you believe in Zarathustra? But what matters Zarathustra? You are my believers—but what matter all believers? You have not yet sought yourselves; and you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to so little. Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.”
(Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The image is Caspar David Friedrich’s “The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” [circa 1818].)
Posted 1 week, 6 days ago at 8:42 am. Add a comment
Check out FindTheBest.com, which allows you to compare all sorts of things. The Internet gives you access to indefinite amounts of information, but how does one sort the relevant from the irrelevant?
The site is co-founded by Internet entrepreneur Kevin O’Connor, who was co-founder of the very successful DoubleClick.com. O’Connor describes the thinking that led to the development of FindTheBest.com:
“I could find endless amounts of information on any subject but when I had a complicated decision to make, I found myself wasting hours, or even days, compiling information I could compare. Or, I found sites offering their ‘top 10′ recommendations, only to discover they were secretly getting ‘kickbacks’ from the sites they were recommending.”
Last year I interviewed O’Connor for Kaizen on the theme of Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital. Well worth reading.
Update: A short interview here with O’Connor about his new comparison engine (not search engine).
Posted 2 weeks ago at 5:52 pm. Add a comment
In 399 BCE, Athens executed Socrates for impiety and corrupting the youth. Plato immortalized the trial and death of Socrates in his dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. These are not merely historical dialogues, but philosophical treatises that examine the nature of piety, philosophy, justice, and death. The Reading Group will discuss each of these dialogues and the philosophical issues they raise.
Here is the 
