Socrates' motorbike

"Zen and the Art of Motorbike Maintenance" is an influential cult book with some philosophical elements. It was published in 1974. People in the 20's (I was when I read it) may find it interesting, but "Godel, Escher, Bach" by D. Hofstadter may give them more ideas.

Anyway, "Zen" cannot be bad since I still remember a fair deal about it. The narrator was quite disappointed with classical philosophy and wanted to introduce a new one, focused on the idea of "quality".

However, does this sound familiar: "the life according to knowledge is not that which makes men act rightly and be happy, not even if knowledge include all the sciences, but one science only, that of good and evil. For, let me ask you, Critias, whether, if you take away this, medicine will not equally give health, and shoemaking equally produce shoes, and the art of the weaver clothes?-whether the art of the pilot will not equally save our lives at sea, and the art of the general in war?" (Plato: Charmides)

So, for Plato "quality" that allows one to create good things is the "knowledge of good and evil" or "wisdom" (as said later in the dialogue).

Charmides is actually a "messy" discussion where many ideas are introduced and then renounced. It has quite explicit references to homosexuality, too.