/lit/ - Literature

Many of his dialogs aren't actually worth reading or are just rehashes of previous dialogs. Stick to the handful that always gets recommended at first and if you find yourself enjoying it after putting in that baseline, go into the more obscure dialogs.

>>13976535
This. The opposite of Aristotle, almost all of whose dialogues should be read. :3

Approach it by stopping masturbation, porn and recreational sex. Cultivate a clean mind. Take low dose amphetamine and read the entire thing over the course of a week. You're probably a brainlet cumbrain which is why you struggle so badly.

>>13976531
write an essay (just an informal one, for your own benefit although you can post it here if you want) after each dialogue so you have to examine what you've gained and also can return to it to jog your memory in future

>>13976537
Or, rather, works. My b

>>13976539

Honestly this, either you have no free time in your entire life, or you are a retard. You should realistically be reading 20 pages per hour, and even then that is an extremely slow pace. But essentially if you are a worthless NEET or unemployed aim for at least 100 pages a day.

>>13976539
>low dose amphetamine
if you think you need this to read, then you shouldn’t be reading Plato. don’t treat it as a marathon. it’s like finding your balance on the crest of a giant wave

>>13976542
Aristotle actually did write dialogues but they were lost.

>>13976531
haha imagine reading 2000 pages worth of translations, couldn't be me

>>13976537
Not true unless you want to be an Aristotle scholar.

>>13976539
It's been over a month now since I've jacked off and im an incel. When is it safe to say I've stopped masturbating?
Im OP btw

>>13976549
I usualy do 20 pages every night before i go bed. That's the easy part.

>>13976604
Rather learn french thqhwyd

>>13976711
Wait until marriage. Sex is for reproduction.

>>13976608
I mean, everyone interested in logic or philosophy should really read the Organon and Metaphysics.

>>13976711
You should be good to go provided you keep your mind clear and free. Don't lapse. Otherwise, you turn into the coomer meme, OOOH AHHH BOOOBIES!!!!!!!!!, and your prefrontal neurotransmission gets shut off with every random instance of arousal. Also, it's like a virus. It grows. Affects the memory. The intellect. Not least, the will. As the memory banks fill with sexual garbage, you soon are plagued by sexual dreams and in proportion to the memory growing by them, grey matter in other areas that otherwise would interrupt decreases. Then you're completely and totally screwed for life and you're just a worthless average person consumed and condemned by his own senses.

>>13976537
>Aristotle
>dialogues

>>13976531
Hmm like the other anon said you should just start with his most famous dialogues (republic, symposium, meno, phaedo, euthyphro, apology, crito, and a few more I’m forgetting)

>>13976531
Read one or two dialogues a day, in the order they are presented in the book. You can skip Alcibiadies II if you want, but other than that you should read them all. When you get to the lengthier ones like Republic, take a few days.

You need no special skills to read Plato, it's written in a remarkably approachable manner. Take your time, and engage in the dialgoues with him.

If you want to get the most out of it, read Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides, in advance. Have a copy of Edith Hamilton's Mythology on hand to look up any mythological figure you're not familiar with.

>>13976531
The one thing I can absolutely ASSURE you about the dialogues is you will not come away with nothing. Read them carefully and think more than you read and you will find they are probably the greatest thing ever written in the west after the Bible.

>>13977202
The bible wasn't that great anon

>>13977813
You need to go back to ((reddit)). King James Bible and Shakespeare are foundational works for English literature in the same way that Plato is foundational for Western philosophy.

>>13977813
Not liking the Old Testament is like a litmus test for pseudery

>>13977864
What about the New Testament?

>>13976756
is that book actually legit worth reading or is it a meme?

>>13977202
what i dont understand is why people shill the bible but not this more often.

however, unironically i wish that it made more of an impact on me spiritually, i think i need to open myself up to it more.

>>13976756
>C. J. Van Vliet

Is this guy by any chance related to Captain Beefheart?

>>13977079
>Not knowing about the lost dialogues

>>13976539
>>13976804
And this is firsthand evidence of what obsessing about not masturbating does to someone
Get a life and a brain

>>13976531
Read How to Read a Book and learn how to put what you read into perspective. Starting at page 1 and reading everything just to have read it is pointless, instead sum up each dialogue after reading it, what are the main things you notice, and see how it relates to the ones you have read previously, etc.
The essay suggestion is also good, or simply practice mentally explaining what you just read to someone

>>13976539
>you're probably a brainlet cumbrain which is why you struggle
delet this

>>13976804
is cooming in braphogs from spin classes gonna fry my frontal lobes?

I've read the basic beginning dialogues, deciding what middle ones I should read before getting into republic/timaeus etc.
Tell me which one you like the most, or consider most important.

>>13976711
When you become and volcel.

>>13976549
I actually read 1k pages a day

>>13976535
Where to start with plato?

>>13977864
>>13977837
The qu'ran is written better

>>13977936
>whose dialogues should be read
can't read them if they're lost can you my dear retard?

>>13978607
Yeah, right.

Read these, OP.

>>13976604
Plato is about ideas, not prose. Retard.

I'm currently reading/rereading all of Plato myself and it's hard to say. This is a reasonably good chronological listing:
http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/INTRO_TEXT/Chapter%202%20GREEKS/Plato_Dialogues.htm
and generally speaking you should read chronologically.

But I have to admit, I am incredibly relieved to be done with the early dialogues and onto the middle ones. As long as you understand that the early dialogues are mostly focused on rebuking sophistic argumentation and making the subtle Socratic/Platonic point that there ARE real essences (whether logical or metaphysical) underlying speech, you can understand why everything pre-phase II (on this page) gets a bit repetitive.

But you should definitely read Euthyphro, Crito, and Apology, and at least one or two of the early anti-sophist dialogues, so it's not that much extra work to just read them all honestly. Charmides is charming, Laches Lysis and Hippias Minor & Major can be read really quickly (some might be apocryphal but they're still worth reading). Ion is the only one I would say "just skim it, at most."

Whatever you choose to do with these early dialogues, from there onward, you should read everything: Gorgias, Cratylus, Meno, Protagoras, Euthydemus, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Symposium are each very important and "major," Republic is obviously major, and everything post-Republic is as major as Republic, including the Seventh Letter. By major I mean, you will see it referred to a lot by subsequent philosophers.

So, tldr: The early dialogues have maybe a handful you could skip if you find them boring (Hippias, Laches, Lysis) but honestly they're so short you might as well just spend an extra hour or two reading them, just so you can say you've read all of Plato.

If you are interested in reading Plato very deeply, remember to look up extremely important words and phrases in the original Greek. Perseus has section-by-section and side-by-side views of the dialogues, so if you know the bare minimum Greek vocab to at least figure out what sentence you're reading and which nouns the articles are governing, you can usually figure out where your target word is. I don't like when translations play it fast and easy with translating key concepts like "abstraction." Did the Greeks have a tidy word for "abstraction," or did they have to use circumlocutions? What about "universal," or "definition?" I don't know, which is part of why I'm reading Plato, so I don't like when they freely assume the subsequent 2500 years of philosophy.

>>13978621
That wasn't me, you fucking moron :3

Will reading this before diving into Plato enhance my enjoyment and understanding of Plato?
I kind of want to make a hobby of studying philosophy in chronological order over the next few years but I want to do it the right way

>>13977881
why don't you just fucking read it and find out, it's not like you have any thing better to do with the time you fucking nigger

>>13978609
http://www.universaltheosophy.com/dialogues-of-plato/

Read these dialogues, in this order:

Alcibiades 1, Gorgias, Phaedo, Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, Phaedrus, Symposium, Philebus, Timaeus, Parmenides

Read the first 10 as a group, and then the last 2 as another group. The first ten gradually unfold the doctrines of memory, soul, reincarnation, ascent, etc, as well as proper virtue. Timaeus is about everything generated, from the demiurge and the pantheon of gods down to the physical kosmos. The Parmenides is about the higher Reality and Eternal things.

>>13977920
because the bible is the truth. the new testament is revealed wisdom, and in some parts its like an ultra concentrated version of the dialogues. Jesus is the word made flesh, who was there at the beginning as unmoved mover and also the ultimate purpose of creation: in other words, that thing that Socrates was looking for. an absolute morality that confirms in itself "yes, this is what is right." And the comparison between Socrates and Jesus hardly needs to be made.

>i think i need to open myself up to it more.
Understand the analogy of the divided line, the categories of sensory and intelligible. Now go and read John 1, about Jesus being present at creation and a light in the darkness. Then read Plotinus' On Beauty, where he talks about the One being like a fire that illuminates and makes creation intelligible.

>>13977813
try it again.

>>13980368
Bible is a ripoff of Platonism. Plato is superior to the Bible. Gnostics should not have been persecuted except immoralist free spirit movements. Hermeticism is the only true faith.

>>13979477
Doesn't really change anything. You're both brainlets.

>>13980418
stale bait and

>Bible is a ripoff of Platonism
jej. actually it's founded in the Old Testament but okay keep telling people that.

>>13980606
Bible is hellenic jew glownigger psyops -- your precious logos comes from philo

>>13980418
This but unironically

>>13980368
>because the bible is the truth
This is simply false.

>>13980424
Actually you really are. You didn't read the correction I posted shortly after that post.

You didn't read. Which is the problem of most on /lit/.

people who try to read plato (or any philosophy) as quickly as possible are retards and aren't to be trusted. you're supposed to read, contemplate, and reread. OP your pace is fine

>>13979418
But his ideas are products of dialogs he had in GREEK. The meaning of each word swims in the noetics that only the masters of the GREEK tongue can catch!

>>13980723
this

>>13976539
>Cultivate a clean mind
>Take AMPHETAMINA

>>13979418
obviously you haven't read plato, he was quite poetic at times, phaedrus is incredibly beautiful