/lit/ - Literature

>tfw Plato is kicking the shit out of me
I made it through first Alcibiades okay but I've tried probably six times to get through Gorgias and it starts out okay but then about 20 pages in I lose track of what's going on and I forgot what the subject matter is, who I am, where the fuck am I, and I get so bewildered I go back to the beginning to get my bearings and I get lost again. Send help

What are the best translations and collections of Plato's works?

Zeno's Paradoxes have caused much debate that barely masks the fact that they are rhe dullest franchises in the history of philosophic questions. Each episode following the pretty boy Greek and his pals from Athens Academy as they argue assorted sophists has been indistinguishable from the others. Aside from the Socrates dicksucking, the series’ only consistency has been its lack of excitement and ineffective use of special pleading, all to make logic unlogical, to make action seem inert (quite literally with Zeno).

Perhaps the die was cast when Parmenides vetoed the idea of Socrates directing the discussion; he made sure the dialogue would never be mistaken for a work of art that meant anything to anybody?just ridiculously verbose cross-promotion for his pupils. Zeno's paradoxes might be anti-Calculus (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-Leibniz series in its refusal of logic, metaphysics and clarity. No one wants to face that fact. Now, thankfully, they no longer have to.

>a-at least the ancients could read it seriously it r-right
"No!"
The writing is dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character agreed with a point, the author wrote instead that "It cannot be any other."

I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Plato's mind is so governed by cliches and dead maieutics that he has no other style of writing. Later I read a lavish, loving review of Parmenides by the same Bertrand Russel. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Parmenides at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Bertrand Russel." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Parmenides" you are, in fact, trained to read Bertrand Russel.