/lit/ - Literature

>>15267503
The Bible

Reading the Republic changed my life in a very profound way.

>>15267503

>>15267503
The World as Will and Representation

King Lear.

Broom of the System

>>15267617
How so

>>15267503
https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita.html

No contest

>>15267617
Do you attempt to guide your life by reason? If anything, it clarified my contention that reason cannot lead, and that it is spirit who should be in charge.

>>15267911
Not him but "Spirit" is just vigor and what you're describing is the passions being in charge. The arguments against this in the republic are elaborate and abundant. The metaphor with the body is one of the most effective in my opinion.
Do you expect better results from eating whatever you want, or eating what you know to be good for you?

Plato's rationality is seeking of harmony, as the basic principle of flourishing. Harmony of body, harmony of soul, it's all the same. Rationality is what coordinates.
Book VIII tells you everything you need to know on that point

>>15267617
I feel that, it's too soon to say whether my life has been changed as I just finished the Republic a week or two ago but I did feel shifted for the better.

>>15268253
Just finished part 1 boys, looking forward to the reckoning.

>>15267503
Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad really changed the course of my life

>>15267903
Yes contest.

https://archive.org/details/brahmasutraofmadhvacharyasubbarows.1904_202003_611_I/page/n5/mode/2up

>>15267617
This, but it's because I now know exactly why totalitarians are evil.

Meditations. Now I live my life like a chad.

>>15268343
Based and virtuouspilled

>>15267895
>>15267911
>>15268241
It was just everything.

I grew up going to American public school my entire life. I attended a lot of AP classes, but even there, my exposure to truly great literature was pretty limited, and there was no real philosophy at all. Maybe if I had taken Theory of Knowledge, or something like that, it would have been different, but I didn't.

So when I was 18 years old and a freshman in college, and I read the Republic for the first time, I was overwhelmed because I just didn't know that books like the Republic even existed. I'd never been exposed to anything like it in twelve years of public schooling. All the metaphysics, the idea of justice, the political theorizing, the exploration of what "The Good" is, all of it was so incredibly new to me and I'd never encountered anything like it in my life before up to that point.

It expanded my mind and my soul to read the Republic for the first time. It literally felt like I was experiencing the Allegory of the Cave firsthand: like I'd spent my entire life underground looking at images and shadows, and now, reading the Republic, I had come above ground, and was standing in the sunlight for the first time.

>>15268376
You're ready for Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and DeRopp

>>15267503
Siddhartha changed my life. At the time I was too lazy to commit to reading long books. Also, it’s a book about acceptance and self-awakening which I sorely needed when I first read it 4 years ago.

The Fountainhead
I am now ambitious, unwavering, and selfish

>>15268376
Ah, the dream of ACTUALLY starting with the Greeks.

Plato was the last class I took as a Phil major. There was a unique effect to that and I think there are some things I got out of it that I wouldn't have gotten out of it had I started with Plato, but for the most part it would have been much better to start with it and most should.

What's the journey since then been like, anon?

>>15268401
I've heard this a lot about that book ("changed my life"). It's cemented into my post-school reading list.

Did you have any interest in eastern philosophy prior?

Machiavelli - The Prince.

While I was reading it, and after I was finished, I was all like "wait a min... I'VE SEEN THESE PATTERNS BEFORE!".

I wish I've discovered Machiavelli much, much sooner during my school year and not in my mid-20s.

If I had read Machiavelli sooner, then I would have figured out how to outwit my classmates in their game of "peer power struggle", I was such a fool.

Any book trying to be more righteous. Realize how far I am from it. The Bible OKJ, Charles Spurgeon writings. Watchman Nee readings. A.W. Towzer

Plant those good seeds.

this so stupid but the way the vain piece of shit character progressively got /fit/ through rigorous training, cut back on his drinking and womanizing, and completely changed his outlook on life and ideas of class/power dynamics was a very important part of me getting sober

>>15267503
Greater Community Spirituality

>>15267503
TBK

I read a book to pick up girls. It was by 60 years of challenge. The only book that got me laid. Tl;Dr if you can hold a girls hand and she doesn't flinch or better yet, squeezes back, she will fuck you. Also shut up. Girls don't care about what you have to say. It's full of typos but the information was excellent.
>>15268376
It's on my to read now.

>>15268654
I'm a lot older, and a lot of time has passed.

I went to a school that has a Great Books/Great Texts BA program, and that's what I wound up getting my Bachelor's degree in. The sheer number of great writers and thinkers and poets I read in the five years it took to get my BA would probably make /lit/ jealous. I'll type out a lot of who I can remember: not just Plato, but Homer, Augustine, Cicero, Seneca, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Basil the Great, a little Hegel, a little Kant, Oscar Wilde, Nietzsche, Dante, Marie de France, Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, Chretien de Troyes, Goethe, Virgil, Milton, Shakespeare, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Joyce, Willa Cather, Pascal, Maximus Confessor, sections from the Bible and the Koran, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, Athanasius, Eusebius, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Rumi, Tolkien, Lewis, Aristotle, Luther, Dorothy L. Sayers, Plutarch, Iris Murdoch, Wolfram von Eschenbach.

I could probably keep going. Obviously they're all listed out of order.

I had to leave school briefly, but I went back, and I got my Bachelor's. Since then I have bounced around, trying to work a few jobs here and there. I moved to a big city for a bit, and then I moved to another one, and I'm currently going to graduate school getting an MA in English Literature at a small liberal arts college. My plan is to get my Masters and try to get an editorial position, like at a magazine or a website.

But what I really enjoy is writing and telling stories. I was already experimenting as a writer when I was in middle school and high school, but reading all that great literature showed me the full extent of what poetry and prose can do, and so I've committed myself to writing great works of literature in my own right. I developed so much love for the great works of the Western Canon that my dream is some day to make a work of my own that winds up in the Canon. I've already gotten several short stories and several poems published here and there, so I think I can pull it off.

>>15268376
>Maybe if I had taken Theory of Knowledge, or something like that, it would have been different
Hell no. I signed up for Theory of Knowledge at the start of senior year and dropped it after a week because it was midwit bumper cars. Just sour-faced aspies trying to one-up each other. You made the right choice.
>>15267503
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. It shows the invention of the current American psyche, and exposes the bullying nature of all subcultures -- especially those based around peace & love. It's impossible to care about being cool once you've read it.

>>15267503
Literally got me my life back. Would still be crippled and poor without it.

easy

>>15267603

Cuck.

this

Zarathustra

>>15267857

Ditto

>>15268241
> better

That's my point, reason trades in arbitrary concepts like "better" and then pretends like this gets it closer to truth. Whereas in reality, the spirit or vigor already knows how to take care of itself and the body, with cognition/reason being just a post-hoc event.

The tripartite model of the soul/city only arises from deviation of the simple life, from being out of alignment with the Dao. The first perfect city Socrates proposed was simple, bucolic, and had no such separation of powers, for it was dominated by vigor. Vigor does not give laws and does not command, it beckons, entices.

The strongest refutation of the notion reason can rule comes from history, where the project of ruling the world with reason that began with the enlightenment collapsed into post-modernism and GDP-worship (or hedonic utilitarianism, same thing). That is, reason abdicated, bent the knee to desire.

>>15267857
Do you recc any reading before this? I eagerly want to start reading Schoppy but do not have a good enough ground in philosophy.

>>15269868
Kant!!!!
Rather - Hume, then Kant
Rather - Descartes, Hume, then Kant

That's if you're going to skip the Greeks like a coward

>>15269868
He outlines what you need to do in the preface of the book. To paraphrase, be familiar with Kant, Plato and Schoppie's PhD thesis (On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason). What will work is the following:
>Kant
Understand the Transcendental Aesthetic especially. The Transcendental Logic is also important but a lesser familiarity will let you pass. If reading the First Critique is too much, read Kant's Prolegomena.
>Plato
The Republic. Also, dialogues: Phaedo, Critus, Phaedrus, Euthyphro. If that's too much, you ultimately want understand his theory of Forms because of its influence in Idealist thinking.
>The Fourfold Root
Just read it. It's essential for understanding Schopenhauer when he speaks of Representation. He refers to it constantly in the first book of WWR.

This very in-depth admittedly but this will position you the best for fully appreciating the great man that Schopenhauer is. If this is too much, which it might be, at least understand the broad strokes of Kant's thinking and Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Don't be too scared anon. Schop is such a brilliant writer that he explains Kant better than Kant could explain himself.

>>15269912
I'd say that Descartes is only relevant for the first four chapters in his Meditations on First Philosophy. It goes to shit after he starts appealing to God to solve his problems. Though, reading those latter parts can help you appreciate the scholastic and rationalist traditions that Kant BTFO.

>>15269780
The analogy with bodily health and inclusion of the word "harmony" was meant to insulate this from the issue of value judgments. Indeed, it's hard to make a sound basis or a rigorous system to justify anything having an objective value. But appealing to this issue to dismiss the notion that it's not just an arbitrary claim to say that a body with cancer is less healthy or less harmonic than a body without cancer is to rely once more on the games of reason. Within reason it is hard to make the justification, that doesn't mean it is not justified to say that some things exist in a greater and/or objectively preferable state of harmony than others.

>Whereas in reality, the spirit or vigor already knows how to take care of itself and the body, with cognition/reason being just a post-hoc event.
The body is also a post-hoc event to cognition, they can be freely interchanged in virtue of being simultaneous, and if we're entertaining an Eastern perspective you should say that the body and mind shouldn't be made into a dualism in the first place as they partake in the same essence and share a singular flow.

Now, spirit doesn't "know" anything, it isn't a faculty that knows, it's just the capacity to answer to a motivation in a vigorous manner, and to feel such things deeply and whatnot. In a spirited state, the question of direction remains open. You seem to be implying an appeal to intuition, which could be a respectable stance, but there are assumptions nested within that which need to be drawn out if it's to be discussed seriously.

>The tripartite model of the soul/city only arises from deviation of the simple life, from being out of alignment with the Dao.
In what way, may I ask? The city is harmonic, interests are shared, there's no need of force. It seems Dao-compatible at least at a glance, especially with the Daodejing/Tao Te Ching being accepting of such hierarchical systems, dispensing advice for lords and for the interaction of large governments with small states.

>where the project of ruling the world with reason that began with the enlightenment collapsed into post-modernism and GDP-worship (or hedonic utilitarianism, same thing). That is, reason abdicated, bent the knee to desire.
Reason enjoys the escape of saying that whatever fails to function wasn't really rational after all - after all, it's an application of reason we'd be using to "refute" these things.
I don't think the consequences you describe can follow from Plato's philosophy - they are rejections of Plato's philosophy, and in the Republic he directly diagnoses the very issues you describe as natural consequences of democracies and oligarchies.

Not that there isn't a case to be made against the supremacy of reason, and it depends much on how generously we define "reason", but as yet I think my boy Plato remains on his feet.

>>15269934
I'd agree, I just didn't bother to specify. Similarly with Hume, the essence in this context is the first five chapters of the Enquiry, although there's plenty of valuable and relevant things elsewhere.

>>15269755
Based anon. What moved you specifically?

>>15267503
Lenin’s “The State and Revolution” changed my life.

>>15267503
The Zhuangzi

>>15267503
Maybe Robinson Crusoe for dat opening.

12 rules for life. It's a really great book that helps you get the right mindset for self-improvement and responsibility, but expect the faggots on this site to deride it, because they don't like that he is now part of normie culture due to his popularity

>>15267503
My father told me self-improvement is a meme when I was 14.

>>15269147
Which one was it? I found a bunch of books by 60 Years of Challenge.

Nigella Lawson

Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes.

>>15270275
>>15270276
What about Job?

>>15270087
DANG SON

>>15270250
Patrician choice anon

The Gospel According to Saint John.

>>15270282
Job good; Ecclessiastes better; Gospel of John best.

>>15270310
Based.

>>15269989
> Within reason it is hard to make the justification, that doesn't mean it is not justified to say that some things exist in a greater and/or objectively preferable state of harmony than others.

Yes, but it is not reason that judges whether a "harmony" is better or worse. Harmonious living is not arrived at via reason. See: communism, fascism and capitalism.

> Now, spirit doesn't "know" anything

Spirit is the source of all religions, which have been called the truths of the heart. Reason does not have a monopoly on knowing, for example, failing utterly to produce ethical statements that are as indisputable as 2 + 2 = 4, and therefore at its promise of providing access to the absolute truth.

> In what way, may I ask? The city is harmonic, interests are shared, there's no need of force.

The platonic city does use force, the reasonable ones using the spirited to enforce their rules. The joke being the philosopher-kings are just as muddle headed as anyone else. You will note the Tao Te Ching does not hand down laws, but vaguely gestures at a general mode of being, which is all that can be done, since said mode of being is beyond the reach of reason.

> Reason enjoys the escape of saying that whatever fails to function wasn't really rational after all

Everyone can partake of a no-true-scotsman. But more generally, reason is a tool, a hammer, a sword: it can build and destroy, but it cannot be self-guided, in practice always deferring to the appetites (capitalism, utilitarianism) or to the spirit (fascism, monarchism). And yes, the spirit is not meant to hold worldly power, or rather, the world already belongs to Spirit: attempts to found a government on spirit are invariably rebellions against the great will. An individual can be ruled by spirit though.

Reason these days seems to be putting all its bets in the creation of a superintelligence to overwhelm and rule mankind, a non-human philosopher-king. Nobody seems to believe there will be a purely philosophical panacea to the problems of humanity. When it is suggested reason can be the savior, all I can think of is the Grand Inquisitor:

> Do You know that ages will pass and mankind will proclaim with its voice of wisdom and science that there is no crime and consequently no sin, but only starving people. ‘Feed them, and then ask for virtue!’ That’s what they’ll write on their banner which they will raise against You and with which they will destroy Your temple. A new edifice will arise in place of Your temple, the terrible Tower of Babel will arise anew, and although this, like the other one, will remain uncompleted, nevertheless You could have avoided the erection of that new tower and cut short men’s suffering by a thousand years, for it is to us that they will turn after they have suffered with their tower for a thousand years!

>Meditations by Aurelius
>Anna Karenina by Tolstoy
>Absalom Absalom by Faulkner

But most especially,
>Confession by Tolstoy

The last one struck me. I read it when I couldn't find work other than a commission only sales job door-to-door and I ran out of money because I was not very good at that job. It was a very stressful time in my life and reading how Tolstoy struggled spiritually despite his high status was somehow very comforting. I followed this up with Tolstoy's religious works and now regard him as my favorite author.

>>15267603
The Bible (KJV)

The imitation of Christ

>>15267503
The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts

In chronological order

The stinky cheese man
that one book about the bear going to the moon and it being made of cheese
where the sidewalk ends
xmen comics
calvin amd hobbes
goosebumps
farside
david lettermans book of top ten lists
beavis and butthead this book sucks
electronic gaming monthly/game pro/nintendo power
warhammer 40k wargear and codex imperialis suppliments
pc gamer
dune
tao teh ching
tao of pooh
dungeons and dragons 3rd edition players guide
liberal al
introduction to philosophy by richard double
theory of knowledge text editied by poijman
sandman series
gita
myth of sysiphus
ishmael
a breif history of the paradox
4chan shitposts

On bullshit
the essay on truth by montaigne
allegory of the cave
dantes inferno

Anything by Aleister Crowley.

>>15269482
Holy shit, who knew Reddit spacing was that obvious that even a single word could give it away

>>15267503
Les Chants de Maldoror

>>15267503

I've never read a book that enhanced my life
In fact nothing at all has enhanced my life since I was a young child

>>15272087
This was a good book. The Dhammapada, Tao Te Ching, Complete Works of Plato, or Upanishads had the most impact on me.

>>15267503

>>15267503
as OP's image subtly suggests, The true wojak-eyes-closed-deep-breath moment is taking the Green Pill.

>>15268664
I had very little interest in eastern philosophies prior. The most exposure I had to that world was in the westernized Yoga culture in wealthy areas of suburban America. The book tells a story that I think most young men can relate to.

>>15270127
It's 4 articles basically in 4 pdfs called books. You can finish it all in 2 hrs, very leisurely read. One is simply start sex.

>>15272905
>C f
>C x C c
>M v
peak autism

>>15272952
Check out Han feizi. Machiavelli of China. I love the 2 handles and the 5 vermin. If it catches your interest it's why Chinese are so law abiding.

>>15271797
>Yes, but it is not reason that judges whether a "harmony" is better or worse.

>Harmonious living is not arrived at via reason. See: communism, fascism and capitalism.
That's a claim! I don't agree, and there's a sense of "reason" I'm trying to convey in which it doesn't matter where it is you're coming from. Say it's a sensation of resonance or bliss or something that judges a state of harmony, it's rational to recognize that and then do whatever you need to in order to conduce harmony in the future. It doesn't have to be a matter of the continuous application of the reasoning intellect, although there remains questions there of course.
In any case, I don't at all see communism, fascism, and capitalism as the consequences of rationality. This is an extreme claim that isn't justified. The problems with these situations is easily traced to irrational factors. I still think Plato's account of fascist and capitalist/democratic states is appropriate.

>Spirit is the source of all religions, which have been called the truths of the heart. Reason does not have a monopoly on knowing, for example, failing utterly to produce ethical statements that are as indisputable as 2 + 2 = 4, and therefore at its promise of providing access to the absolute truth.
I see we're working with a loose concept of spirit here. Plato's "spirit" isn't a word for the essence of conscious life, again, it's just vigor. It's separate from "soul".
In any case, the problems of ethics and epistemology don't need to be introduced to this discussion. I don't think reason fails utterly to address these problems, I mean what the fuck do you think western philosophy has been doing this whole time lol? It's just a difficult and complex discussion whichever way we take it, and at the end of the day the most significant problem behind producing satisfying statements is language, not rationality.

>The platonic city does use force, the reasonable ones using the spirited to enforce their rules
You'd have to provide evidence of this. As I recall, there's almost nothing to enforce, people act well on their own accord to mutual interests, as afforded by the "cycle of growth"
(good nurture -> good natures)

>Everyone can partake of a no-true-scotsman
I don't think that applies at all. There's a sound basis for claiming that what isn't advantageous isn't rational.
[cont]

>>15270250
i like her recipes but i think that sometimes she rambles too much

>>15268329
Is there such a thing as a worthwhile English translation of the vedas?

>>15271797
>>15274010
[cont]
>The joke being the philosopher-kings are just as muddle headed as anyone else.
I think that's a little out of line

> You will note the Tao Te Ching does not hand down laws,
Neither does the Republic, for the most part. What's more is the Tao isn't about states, of course it wouldn't hand down laws, but it doesn't speak against laws either. It leaves the matter of laws as particular to the states.

>but vaguely gestures at a general mode of being, which is all that can be done
What do you mean "all that can be done"?

> But more generally, reason is a tool, a hammer, a sword: it can build and destroy, but it cannot be self-guided, in practice always deferring to the appetites (capitalism, utilitarianism) or to the spirit (fascism, monarchism)
This is a subtler issue, the question of what reason is in itself. I don't think you and I are standing on a clear, shared concept of that, and we're not in a position to say much in the way of specific things about what reason does or doesn't do.
There's a sense in which motive is prior to reason, and reason is just a service to irrational motives, and philosophies just ad-hoc justifications of temperament or psychological confessions. I'm guessing this is where you're coming from. Understand that there's a heavy distinction to be made between this and Plato's reason which is the name of the principle behind all order and harmony, flowing out of nature and through our minds. There's a metaphysical supposition there about the kinship between our rational consciousness and the form of nature. Such a thing is difficult to either justify or refute, I think it's a matter of choosing a position. I see that you choose the position against this. However, you can recognize how Plato's case is self-consistent in light of this premise.

>An individual can be ruled by spirit though.
Explain, starting with what "spirit" means.

>Reason these days seems to be putting all its bets in the creation of a superintelligence to overwhelm and rule mankind, a non-human philosopher-king.
I don't really understand what you mean with this passage

>Nobody seems to believe there will be a purely philosophical panacea to the problems of humanity.
Who are you referring to? Surely it doesn't take much of a philosopher to say that any one thing is unlikely to answer a variety of problems. Each problem asks for a different kind of knowledge and intelligence. Ironically, this is one of the most common arguments in Plato.

And I don't really get the star wars quote

>>15272666
>The Dhammapada
Dearest Satan, could you please elaborate on this one?
And do you have a recommended translation of the Upanishads?

>>15273015
>Han feizi
Do you have a suggested translation?

>>15273015
Thanks for the suggestion, anon. I will. Amazon has Han Feizi: Basic Writings with translations by Burton Watson. You think this will be a good representation of Han's works?

>>15268376
Had pretty much exactly the same experience. I’m a philosophy major and the first thing I got to read in PHIL100 was the Republic. We spent the whole semester on it and I had the privilige of having a great professor there to explain it to me in a way that was easy to understand. It was my first experience of actual philosophy and there were so many moments of wild realization. Since then I have read Apology, Symposium and Protagoras.

>>15274225
I enjoyed the Dhamapada because I read it as if it was a cohesive line of thought. It strikes me as pure and inherently positive when I interpret it to be “off the cuff.” Hopefully that makes sense. I just woke up from a nap.
> And do you have a recommended translation of the Upanishads?
The Upanishads by Eknath Easwaren.

>>15272541
says the election migrant LARPer, ironic

>>15274157
read the Katha (page 91) in this text for a worthwhile read

https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-Vol-1.pdf

>>15274010
> Say it's a sensation of resonance or bliss or something that judges a state of harmony, it's rational to recognize that and then do whatever you need to in order to conduce harmony in the future

I guess we don't disagree if your definition of reason encompasses even the ineffable, but I mean, I don't think anyone defined reason like that, there wouldn't have been so many words spilled over the centuries if everyone thought like Wittgenstein.

> what isn't advantageous isn't rational
You could say that, but "advantage" does not have a rational, objective definition.

> mean what the fuck do you think western philosophy has been doing this whole time lol?

Oh, it definitely has made a valiant effort, it's just that it has come to naught.

>>15274171
The Tao criticizes the notion of defining virtue, e.g. the Dao cannot be spoken and:

Those with great Virtue are not bound by virtues,
Thus can be with Virtue;
Those without Virtue fail to liberate themselves of virtues,
Thus remain without Virtue.

> Plato's reason which is the name of the principle behind all order and harmony, flowing out of nature and through our minds.

I get the impression Plato thought philosophy would eventually be able to describe this force, he wouldn't have settled for "the Dao that can be spoken is not the true Dao". Which is the core of the disagreement for me: you cannot talk or cogitate your way to the Absolute, and from all the Platonic dialogues I have read, I think Plato thought that doing that was difficult, but not impossible.

> artificial philosopher king
Look up Nick Bostrom.

> meaning of spirit
Undefinable, but most know it when they see it.

> different knowledge and intelligence for different problems
Yes, but Plato argues all these different knowledges ought to be subordinate to philosophy, because philosophy gets closest to truth. But close isn't good enough, man demands the absolute, not approximations.

> Star Wars
Guess the Grand Inquisitor is a great way to filter out those without spirit.

Might be cringe, but this book helped me escape materialism and nihilism.

>>15275214
>might
>evola

>>15267503
can't imagine m life without this

>>15275214ased
BasedBa

>>15268376
unironically based, I felt the same way. I read Siddhartha in college and smoked my weed, thought the whole meme-y "Woah", and then took as many philosophy courses as I could. Ancient Philosophy was my favorite, Metaphysics (i.e. analytic post 1960s or w/e metaphysics) was my least favorite. David Lewis does write like a bro, though.

>>15270108
Your daddy
IS A FUCKING FAG

>>15269150
You truly love literature, Anon.

>>15267503
Camus, Leopardi, Nietzche and Dazai unironically made me become a bloomer

>>15274806
What election? As if everyone here is American? Begone middle class suburban white redditor!

>>15268376
Hmm, it was The Summa and Aquinas that led me to that same understanding

>>15267503
The Iliad Fitzgerald trans.
&
The Odyssey Emily Wilson trans

>>15275571
kek'd

>>15275203
>I guess we don't disagree if your definition of reason encompasses even the ineffable
Encompass is a tricky word here, I'm making a rather tame point. Granted the existence of the ineffable, what could being rational mean except to acknowledge and account for it as needed? See what I'm getting at here? Being rational is being reasonable, being reasonable is being rational. To argue that the rational is irrational strikes me as a plain contradiction, one spoken from the authority of rationality no less.

>You could say that, but "advantage" does not have a rational, objective definition.
Nothing does! It's not my problem.

>Oh, it definitely has made a valiant effort, it's just that it has come to naught.
With all due respect, I don't think you have the authority to make such a judgment. The biggest problem with philosophy is that there's a lot of it and it's hard. I think one of the first steps of philosophical advancement is recognizing the unlikelihood of you having the capacity to make sweeping judgments about it. I've read a lot at this point, I currently consider it a mystery as to what the nature of philosophy's progress is if anything. I've certainly come to understand why people would think it has "come to naught", and I used to think that as well. Then I learned more.

>The Tao criticizes the notion of defining virtue, e.g. the Dao cannot be spoken and:
I don't know what you're saying this in reference to.

>I get the impression Plato thought philosophy would eventually be able to describe this force, he wouldn't have settled for "the Dao that can be spoken is not the true Dao".
Yes he would. Plato literally does that for his fundamental force - the Good. It is unnameable and undefinable. Ironically, this system reminded me of Taoism in ways.

>Which is the core of the disagreement for me: you cannot talk or cogitate your way to the Absolute, and from all the Platonic dialogues I have read, I think Plato thought that doing that was difficult, but not impossible.
No, Plato made clear that you can't bend the absolute to reason. The practice of reason is assuming a mode of being in which you are congruent with the fundamental way of things, and in the Meno he even frames it as something over which you have NO autonomy, it's a matter of "divine dispensation" - the force of wisdom does not originate in you, it originates in the absolute and flows through those who have the form for it.

>I get the impression Plato thought philosophy would eventually be able to describe this force, he wouldn't have settled for "the Dao that can be spoken is not the true Dao". Which is the core of the disagreement for me: you cannot talk or cogitate your way to the Absolute, and from all the Platonic dialogues I have read, I think Plato thought that doing that was difficult, but not impossible.

>Look up Nick Bostrom
>Undefinable, but most know it when they see it.
You need to take more responsibility for your arguments

>>15275203
>>15275807
>Yes, but Plato argues all these different knowledges ought to be subordinate to philosophy, because philosophy gets closest to truth. But close isn't good enough, man demands the absolute, not approximations.
Sure, I guess, but that's kind of an ambiguous framing. It's not that philosophy is a substitute for particular problems, like fixing a car, but that philosopher is concerned with better problems, and that a life of philosophical excellence is better than other forms of excellence. Not sure what you're getting at with the remark about the absolute

>Guess the Grand Inquisitor is a great way to filter out those without spirit.
lol ok I'm trying really hard not to make fun of this star wars thing help me out please

Any books that help you unchain yourself from lust and ignore women?

Gulag Archipelago & Culture of Critique pretty much inform all my decision making.
Basically, Jews are parasites upon humanity and must be removed from power at all costs or we will unironically be genocided like dogs if they were to destroy the 2nd amendment.

>>15276163
Dhammapada.

>>15269934
>It goes to shit after he starts appealing to God to solve his problems.
Is that what happened?

>>15267503
>Which book enhanced your life the most?
The Seven Mysteries of Life by Guy Murchie

>>15272935
I alternate between thinking that this man synthesized all knowledge into a format that anybody can understand and practically apply, ..... then i start to think he's a quack with zero insight or usefulness.

I go back and forth, there really isn't any inbetween

Siddartha and The Prince, coequally.

So I don't know anything about the Hindu stuff but it's been brought ITT alot here. So from understanding there is the

Gita
Upanishads
Vedas

Is this correct? Are they all essential reading and what order should I read them in?

>>15270127
>>15272998
Where do I find these pdfs?

he have a lot, but this one was specially change my way to see the life

>>15267503
Das Kapital

>>15277341
I would really like to get information about decent translations of the Vedas in whole, but the internet doesn't seem to have any good information on this.

The Bible. After that, Sit, Walk, Stand by Watchman Nee and Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake.

>>15267603
FPBP

>>15277686
Geeta is the summary of all the wisdom in Veda, Purana etc. But you should read the four Veda first, then Purana, and upnishad, if you are so inclined. Then/or Bhagvad Gita. There are many other Gita as well. Such as Ashtavakra Gita and so on.

>>15272541

Plebbitors are the ones that do not use the spacing. I've been here since the beginning. Cuck.

>>15269868

I was a bioengineering major. No philosophy background. I wanted to know the truth about reality more than anything so I started my own search and I was led straight into Schopenhauer.

Just read Schopenhauer. You have to start with his Fourfold Root though. He tells you everything in his books. It will all make sense if you give it enough attention. He is the most amazing mind.

>>15267603
Like clockwork. Here's your (you)

>>15270029

First, brief background:

I am 32 years old. I have a very good character and also very intelligent. I could not make sense of why I had so much goodness in my heart but everyone around me made me so miserable. I tended to isolate more over time. But also I see synchronicities occur often as almost this guiding thread for what I should do.

In addition, I did a bunch of mushrooms one summer in high school. I had the most incredible experience feeling like I was connected to everything, not just people, but I remember going out into my backyard and the grass, the trees, the street, the light post, everything felt like it was breathing. Everything felt like it was the same as what I was.

So I discover Schopenhauer a couple years ago.
What changed my life was:

- The new view of our nonstop mental image as actually being our cognition displaying the cause of the effect of our senses being triggered.
- The explanation of thing in itself as will that underlies everything that appears in experience, providing the metaphysical unity that I experienced on mushrooms.
-His explanation of music in terms of the varying degrees of objectivity of the will was so profound and beautiful.
-His explanation of art and the relationship between artist and nature. The idea of entering a state of pure cognition to silence the will and observing the levels of perfection of varying Platonic Ideas in either nature or as it is reflected in art, and how it relates to the idea of what is beautiful.
-And finally the way he describes good and evil as basically the affirmation or negation of other peoples' wills, and then finding out that his philosophy explains the main ethics found in major religions, ie Christianity, Buddhism, and finding comfort in the suffering I have undergone personally, finding peace in not returning evil to those around me because we are all one.

>>15269917
>Schop is such a brilliant writer that he explains Kant better than Kant could explain himself.

Couldn't have said it better.

>>15278133

To add one more thing that actually changed my life the most, in the sense that I practically apply this new skill every day:

Learning that everyone has an intelligible character that does not change. So now being able to analyze motives that each person's character acts upon, in order to decipher their character, is something I do daily, mentally, inside my head, like a game.

You can begin to predict people easily.
You also see how many people disappoint you often.
You can play games with evil people who lie themselves into a circle.
You cherish the rare good people you find.
You see if some people are worth saving, because sometimes a correction of cognition is required for one's full character to come out.
You start to see people betray their own character, and this manifests itself as anxiety, disease, etc.

>>15267503
financial independence enhanced my life a great deal

>>15277855
I am interested in learning and reading but I cannot start if I cannot get an English translation of the Vedas. Do you have a recommended translation?

>>15278232
>Learning that everyone has an intelligible character that does not change
I haven't read Schopenhauer yet, this is an interesting thing to hear. May I ask what this arose from? Did Schopenhauer write personality theory, or was that more of an inference?

>>15278428

This arose from the application of the principal of sufficient reason to everything that appears in experience (ie the world as representation). In other words, necessity dictates that every effect must have a cause. The thing in itself outside our world (ie the metaphysical world of the will) is not bound to this principal. Only as the will appears in our representation in its various forms (forces of nature, rocks, plants, animals, people) is it now bound to this principal. Every state of matter, when presented with a mechanical cause, stimuli, or motive, will react necessarily to produce the effect--mechanical motion changes, a chemical reaction, or movement of the body responding to a motive.

So the appearance of humans in experience is an example of this scenario. We are stamped with our immutable character upon entering the world and necessarily respond to motives according to which ones exert more strength on our will in a given situation. Given a same exact situation with the same exact motives, we will make the same choice every time. The unfolding of our will over time as it acts on the multitude of motives throughout each day is now our empirical character.

The general truth to this can be simply seen in movies, TV shows, books, etc, where actors are given a role to play (characters) and you see how these characters respond to all types of scenarios according to their precise characters. You don't see the great movies or books with characters that change constantly, that is unrealistic and the movie or book no longer becomes an accurate reflection of how people are in reality.

>>15268437
Then you misread the fountainhead

I'm ashamed to admit it was some PUA book I won't name. It pushed me to be social, make friends, lift weights, get into hobbies, get into literature even. It undid a ton of misconceptions I had about people, and myself, and explained lots of things I barely comprehended. A couple months after I read this book I was having sex for the first time (I was over 20 yo), dating with girls who I would've never thought would give me the time of the day. Even grew up the courage to ask out the girl I had liked the most in my life, and making her my gf, and being the first person she had sex with.

I don't think my confidence is high, but this thing not only gave me the push to achieve much more than I thought I could, but also to believe that I can achieve even bigger things. I managed to crack that lame 'underachiever but with potential' persona I had going on me.

>>15278616
why not name it anon?

The Eddas

>>15269150
Wow. This is great to hear. Good luck to you and with your writing, anon!

>>15269150

Make sure you are living life on the side so you always have quality content to draw from.

>>15278616
You're anonymous here, might as well name it

>>15268437
Roark was not ambitious, he was ambivalent to the traditional paths of success.

He was kicked out of his school before graduating, content to catch bolts in a bucket at job sites instead of engaging in what he saw as a transaction which degraded his artistic standard.

He destroyed his own crowning achievement, because it was bastardized by profit-seeking developers.

He fucked Dominique before he was "anyone" at all.

Hardly ambition. Unwavering, certainly in the sense that he refused to be moved along a track which caused others to stay apart from their integrity.

>>15276276
sad

>>15267603
Based

The Freud Reader, unironically.

>>15267503
THA MEDITINIATETIONS OF MARKOS ARALIOS

>>15270289
It's generally good advice that has somehow held up over like what is it 300, 400 years? And you can also feel okay about ignoring it because so did Robinson.

>>15267503
Nietzsche, Stirner and Marx liberated me from the oppression of conventional morality

>>15279118
>>15278574
I just started Atlas Shrugged so maybe I tossed that in there without thinking
Admittedly I've only read these books recently (and only started reading regularly recently) but Dagny (so far) and Roark have left such an impression on me. I'd like to as driven, unwavering, and hard working towards my goals and visions as they are.

>>15276276
based and truthpilled

>>15278616
Jesus Christ, just name the fucking book. Withholding something that might help a fellow anon in the same position is lame.

>>15278232
This

the power of now. i'm an anxious neurotic mess and need to be reminded constantly to think and act NOW

>>15267503
Noting, everythings just made me more neurotic

>still no decent translations of the Vedas

>>15278658
>>15278849
>>15280493
I don't remember which one it was. I had read a couple PUA books that were ass and this one clicked with me.

It wasn't Magic Bullets or the Neil Strauss/Tyler Durden one, neither were their lectures. I think it was Models but I could be wrong. Didn't intend to gatekeep.

>>15268376
So /lit/ was ACTUALLY right about starting with the Greeks. Who would have thunk it?

>>15268376
>loook guise me so kewl i read dusty bewks
And everyone continues to jerk him off kek

>>15278254
Are financial self help books just a meme? I ordered some that Shkreli recommended recently.

>>15283317
what were they?

>>15283201
yea it was probably models. it was an actual good book, changed my life

>>15283415
These are the books he recommends. I ordered some other basic ones like “The Intelligent Investor” and some of Peter Lynch’s books.

>>15283503
Forgot to attach pic>>15283415

>>15283606
Can anyone who has read both Conspiracy of Fools and The Smartest Guys in the Room comment on which one is more informative, truthful, and enjoyable?

You should read Rich Dad, Poor Dad if you haven't already, as it is far more basic and applicable to your life as it stand today.

>>15269081
post body

>>15269102
redpill me on this

>>15283916
To put it simply, TBK softened my contempt for christianity. Dostoevsky lead me to Tolstoy and a reignited love for reading. Some combination of literature, loneliness, and personal revolution lead to church and much needed community.

>>15278616
I'm interested just to know which book was it and what were it's key concepts

>>15267503
Emil Cioran- The Trouble With Being Born

>>15284341
Mark Manson's Models

>>15274237
>>15273015
Yes it's the one I read. I doubt there is another one. Check out some of his ideas here. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/ps/cup/hanfei_five_vermin.pdf
There is talk in this thread about philosophy Kings. He disagrees and says that some rulers are just and succeed. Others are just as just and fail because they tried to emulate the wise ones at the wrong times they failed. The only way to rule he says is through laws that people respect. Even though Confucius was wise and just he did not get more than a few followers. Even though there was a mediocre ruler, Confucius bowed to his authority.
I got the idea that you must follow your own form, laws for yourself basically and rituals mean nothing. The past is the past and you just be wise in your own time.
>>15277443
I can upload later but I think they're on libgen. Han feizi is also on there. I will come back and post them both if later need be. Probably same zip because I'm lazy. What site is good? SS?

>>15267503
Ethica

>>15267617
You must be a very boring person

>>15270275
>>15270276
>>15270282
>>15270310
>>15270301

Revelation

>>15269780
very good, always makes me smile to see a wise 4channer

>>15269489
obligatory based

>>15267503
American Pastoral - Philip Roth

Don't take the world so seriously cuz there's nothing you can do about it

>>15278616
Why do you brag about being the first person she had sex with. That’s pretty disrespectful even if we don’t know who she is. She wouldn’t want you to say that, it’s weak.

>>15285212
what the fuck is this post lol

>>15284551
https://www.sendspace.com/file/3vku7u
>>15283201
Can you describe it? I am almost certain that its not the same one I described. The one I posted does not at all describe working on yourself, it just tells you what physical routes to take (says shit like how many times do you need to be told men club women and rape them). Yours sounds more like soul searching. Way of the superior man?
>>15284361
Was it? I found it was just regurgitating a lot of other PUA books.

>>15283880
Fuck you retard, that was written by a fraud. Next thing you know you will recommend think and grow rich.
>>15285212
Fuck you nigger, I fucked a negress. Doesn't make it a brag, its a fact like how I fucked your mom and you're butthurt.

>>15285212
Lmao cope bitch, you gave away your virginity to a 4chinz lad

>>15285212
I didn't reveal who she was or say anything disrespectful about her.

It's just something I thought was worth mentioning, as it was very important to the both of us: I made a genuine connection with someone, just months apart from feeling completely unable to.

>>15285438
I didn't read way of the superior man. I won't re-read Models but you may be right. I mostly remember books that were bad, not the exact one that clicked with me.

>>15285438
Thank anon

Can't single out a specific one but Ward Farnsworth's books have all contributed significantly to my life.
His chess books probably added 10 points to my IQ, his rhetoric's made me a better speaker and thus more confident, and his Stoic Reader made me content with my lot in this world.

>>15285470
>>15285570
dunning-kruger at its finest

Benjamin's Illuminations

>>15284551
You say the one you read is your suggested translation but did not say which one you read. You stated it's on libgen. Libgen only has the one from this post: >>15274381
Is this the one you're referring to?

>>15287057
Suggested translation as in the one you said was suggested. I also uploaded the same one. I think he's a great translator. Says some things like straight as a plumb line and others I didn't hear before but maybe it's the actual book. I talked to Chinese about it and didn't have any difficulty with the concepts aside from Chinese names they used.

>>15272935
Ahem

>>15272935
*Cough*

>>15287149
Thanks!

>>15286578
Nigger nigger at is niggerest

Crime and Punishment. It helped me to rid myself of the sense of entitlement I had carried into my early 20's. Reading Christopher Lasch's Culture of Narcissism now and having a similar response to it

>>15285212
>being angry (aka jealous) over someone else’s fucking a virgin
I’ve taken 2 myself and am eyeing a 3rd and in 2/3 cases, the girls virginity was attributable to her undesirability, not to her “purity” or some other bullshit. Low v-body-count just means you didnt peak in high school or scrape the bottom of the barrel in early college, both of which are good to have not done

>>15285212
Cunt

>>15267503
Recollections - Anonymous

The Mind Illuminated

>>15288032
I'm the guy that recommended 60 years of challenge. I fucked 2 18 year old virgins that were cute. One told me be gentle, I met her that day on tinder. The other on tantan, again that day, she told me later and shyly said that I didn't ask. I didn't know she was in high school either I just thought because she was 18 in college, she actually was really slow and failed a grade or something. They were both months after turning 18. There's no value added, purity had very little value today. They felt tight and great, plus there's something much prettier about teens.
Seriously guys all you need to do is try and hold her hand. She grabs it's good, and she's enthusiastic about it. You don't have to read a book. STFU, let her make a fantasy about you and just play your role, you aren't yourself, she doesn't know you stutter or live with your parents and Corona hasn't affected you. Just shut up and hold her hand, gaze and let your instincts take over.
BTW why are you fucking gross girls man? I've rolled in the pigsty myself but you will never respect yourself if you never act like you deserve respect.

>>15267603
most people that say that usually never care to read more than a few words, and wont care to research how it was made, its historic background and more sources to understand it better.

the few who do that, and would say that honestly, are usually academics that wont waste time here reading bs for fun.

>>15288910

>>15267603
fpbp

>>15267503
Bible (NRSV), Trial and Death of Socrates, Epictetus' Enchiridion

>>15289146
this is also correct. this place is a pit of retards who don't read. go read books anons. actually study the bible.

>>15267617
This and the Statesman made me hate democracy.

>>15289185
>he didn't hate democracy because of Assemblywomen
ngmi

>>15267503
I don't like to admit it but 'Sociologie du dragueur', a French book on PUA and feminism written by nazbol cult leader Alain Soral changed the way I see the world in my mid twenties. I read better books on a regular basis, but I managed to break a 4 year long dry spell and come in some random thot's mouth on the day that I finished reading that one.

>>15268376
fellow American here, my experience is the exact same with Republic

>>15289226
Hi Alain

>>15289043
You sound young a very inexperienced. You got lucky and fucked a new tinder slut. PUA is trash.
>Just hold their hand bro

My god mate.

Also PUA is trash especially the older stuff like you are shilling.

>>15278616
You're a virgin aren't you?

>>15278799
have a lol and a (you)

>>15267503
Foucault's Pendulum. I was an atheist in my first year at college and the book basically took a sledgehammer, smashed every aspect of that part of my self down to a fine powder, then made me look at the remains while lecturing me about how shameful and closed-minded I was. It was a surreal experience. I finished it and had this weird feeling of dread for months.

>>15267503
My diary desu

The Fall by Camus. Made me more empathetic and a bit less autistic. Also redpilled me about oude jenever when I visited the Netherlands.

>>15278036
>bioengineer
My nigga. Where’d you go to school

>>15272905
based

>>15276276
>read book on labour camps for political enemies created by a Georgian man in a Russian state which instilled within his consciousness a lifelong schizo paranoia of "le jew"

Big win, enjoy your mad ramblings

>>15291706
Not him but I'm also a bioengineer. How tf are there three of us in this thread? I went to UMO, you?

>>15278036
I wanted to know the truth about reality more than anything so I started my own search and I was led straight into Schopenhauer.
lmao you didn't need to say you have no phil background with that sort of statement

I don't think any book has improved my life.
Being a passive receptacle for information never compares to actually having something on your own and doing it through your own will. Writing on my own and working out has enhanced my life more than anything.

If anything, most books just fill your mind with romantic ideals, reinforce delusions, or break your mind with obscurantism.

Anna Karenina, it made me happier

>>15292390
lol sound like your omom!!! retard dilaat tranoids!!! faggots and kieks needs to hang!!!!! hate faggots

The ABCs of Communism. I hadn't read a book in about 5 years when I first read it, I just wanted to get better acquainted with communism for debating commies online. Since then I've ceased to be a retarded NEET thanks to reading

>>15267603
Based

Romans 7:15

>>15270250
Nig

>>15292610
Luke 6:27-30, Leviticus 19:34, and Galatians 3:28
Yes very based, I also like Jewish books.

>>15291433
No

>>15267503
Maldoror
"the expression of a revelation so complete it seems to exceed human potential"

>>15267503
Les Fleurs Du Mal

>>15275674
Leopardi?
Did you miss all he said? How he hated nature? How he hated life, all the pain he felt? He lived a life of misery and suffering and wrote all of that there.