Best technological-philosophical query heard recently from Wall Street comes from Bernstein Research, whose Jeffrey Lindsay posed the question: “Would Socrates have bought Amazon’s new e-reader product, the Kindle?”     

The answer, according to Lindsay, using the best Socratic analysis, is yes and no.     

While Socrates, originally a stone mason who was unpaid for his philosophical teachings, may have balked at the $400 price, and gone for Sony’s cheaper competing device, given that the great man went about on foot, he may have appreciated the Kindle’s light weight.     

 Furthermore, since Socrates did not write down his teachings for posterity, Lindsay hypothesizes that he would not care about the upload charges to send documents to Amazon to be converted and uploaded to the Kindle. But who knows for sure, seeing as that service is mostly free from Sony already.     

And to the hypothesis whether Amazon has “shot themselves in the metaphorical foot” by making Kindle a closed system, selling it for $399 and charging for newspaper and blogs that are free on the web, Bernstein wrote that Amazon customers have already given the device a modest 2.5 stars, which he said is normally reserved for poorly performing products.     

 On the other hand, “Kindle is an innovative product with game changing potential,” that could be a winner at $200 once refined and improved.

Philosophize on that.   

(Photo from Amazon.com)