/lit/ - Literature

"On his sickbed he confided to Emil Boesen, his friend from boyhood, indeed by that time his only friend.. that his life had been a 'great and to others unknown and incomprehensible suffering', which looked like 'pride and vanity' but 'wasn't'. Kierkegaard regretted he hadn't married and taken on an official position."

Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the
self. But what is the self? The self is a relation
which relates itself to its own self, or it is that
in the relation [which accounts for it] that the
relation relates itself to its own self; the self is
not the relation but [consists in the fact] that
the relation relates itself to its own self. Man is
a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the
temporal and the eternal, of freedom and ne-
cessity, in short it is a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two factors. So regarded, man is not yet a self^

In the relation between two, the relation is
the third term as a negative unity, and the two
relate themselves to the relation, and in the re-
lation to the relation; such a relation is that be-
tween soul and body, when man is regarded as
soul. If on the contrary the relation relates itself to its own self, the relation is then the positive third term, and this is the self.

What the fuck is he talking about? Is this just making fun of Hegel's Logic?

>>12466541
“Read him, and you will regret it; don’t read him, you will also regret it; read or don’t read, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the OP's foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the OP's foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe /lit/, you will regret it; believe him not, you will also regret it… Ban yourself, you will regret it; do not ban yourself, and you will regret that too; ban yourself or don’t ban yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you ban yourself or do not ban yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of /lit/"

Pssst, take the leap of faith, kiddos.

He was huge into neoliberal globalism, as basically everyone who has ever read a book knows. Didn’t know that? Learn your politics and ideology you absolute brainlet. Seriously, you’re embarassing yourself here.

I'm facing the crisis. I haven't been outside for a month, I've got nothing to do since I can't apply for a job. Rotten inside.
Basically drifting mindlessly in life. Should I get into Kierkegaard to seek answers? Is it ever possible to get out of the vicious cycle of porn, instant gratification, games, media?

Where is the best place to start with Kierkegaard?

Kierkegaard is the OG in my opinion, also does anybody else have a strong emotional connection to these men? When I read Plato or any of the Greeks, I just nod my head in agreement but when I read Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, I feel an empathy and strong emotional connection with them and how they feel.

This is the faggiest thing ever, but I know at least one of you feel the same.

>>9447668
It depends on if you want to read essays or books. Existentialism is one of the few areas of philosophy where a lot of the advocates were arguably better writers, and would use novels and prose to encapsulate existential ideals like Kierkegaard's Seducer's Diary.

I would say - and this by no means definitive - start with Sartre but understand that inter-subjectivity is bullshit. If you want, read a few of his plays after, No Exit and Dirty Hands and The Flies are my favorites. Then you really should go into Kierkegaard. Sartre and Camus really reject his ideas of fideism (Camus calls it "philosophical suicide") but encorprate his ideas of psychology and angst heavily - "The Sickness Unto Death" would be the best introduction to those ideas, it's a beautiful book.

After Sartre and Kierkegaard, you should ask yourself what areas of their work you really enjoyed. If you like Kierkegaard's ideas of psychology then "Being and Nothingness" and Heidegger 's "Being and Time" would be the next area to focus on, with some Husserl too.

If you enjoyed Kierkegaard's ideas of the absurd and his concepts of despair and angst, and our own epistemological limitations in dealing with them as finite beings, then Camus (who is not really an existentialist) would be best - go for The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger. Camus and Sartre's realtionship is really well recorded in the very readable "The Boxer and The Goalkeeper" and in fact, I'd recommend looking at this before choosing between Sartre or Camus respectively.

If you found the more religious - and in my eyes quite poetic - segments of Kierkgaard moving, especially his ideas of self-created meanign being effectively "building castle's on nothing" read Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Fear and Trembling, Either/Or and get into Dosto. There's a lot of interesting Buddhist and Hindu literature (of which a lot of these writers were scholars in) like the Upanishads and Nagarjuna.

I don't mean to present these areas as in much particular disagreement (the only real different areas of existentialism are religious and then Camus's ideas of absurdist) but just as a guide to what might strike your interests best. And, by no means am I particuarly well qualified to posture as if I'm giving you some exhaustive list. All I can say is that reading a lot of these books genuinely improved my life and I hope it does the same for you.

Is chastity necessary to live a virtuous life? I have a long term GF but we've yet to have sex, just because both of us are a little nervous about pre-marital sex and I'm interested in Lit's take...

Obviously for many of you there isn't a choice, but I'm sure some of you can imagine a scenario where it would be...

>>9226746
Yes, yes, well done Nietzsche, well done Nietzsche

HOWEVER

>>9214755
God is our final and necessary absurd.

>>9110364
Give him the Special K. And some Suffi literature. But give him the K first.

Seriously, start with Fear And Trembling, it's shared culture.

You guys don't really know how to tie abstract concepts together, you rely on concepts that seemed good before (and why not now). There's no real sauce in here nor any kind of provocation. It saddens me that I can only talk to myself and to my projections about the actual metaphysical system or the condition of man in the view of materialism.
Prove this wrong though.

>>9044718
>get slaughterhouse 5 for christmas
>vegan

What are the best translations of Kierkegaard?

Specifically for Either/Or.

A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation’s relating itself to itself in the relation; the self is not the relation but is the relation’s relating itself to itself. A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two. Considered in this way, a human being is still not a self
In the relation between two, the relation is the third as a negative unity, and the two relate to the relation and in the relation to the relation; thus under the qualification of the psychical the relation between the psychical and the physical is a relation. If, however, the relation relates itself to itself, this relation is the positive third, and this is the self.
Such a relation that relates itself to itself, a self, must either have established itself or have been established by another. If the relation that relates itself to itself has been established by another, then the relation is indeed the third, but this relation, the third, is yet again a relation and relates itself to that which established the entire relation.
The human self is such a derived, established relation, a relation that relates itself to itself and in relating itself to itself relates itself to another.

I want to get into Kierkegaard'sn work. Can someone give me a recommendation of where I should start, or a guideline chart? Cheers.

>muh faith

>>8850091
>he's never had a girl tenderly whisper to him about his monstorous flesh lobster while he pummels pussmeat harder than a howitzer in Stalingrad

>>8841552
So, would you say that the inner (the subjective) is less important the the outer (the objective)?

Are there authors/great thinkers that actually make you hopeful, /lit/?

pic related, Walker Percy and Viktor Frankl all stick with me pretty strongly, I'm not sure why.

Was he the first hipster?