/lit/ - Literature

>>16680736
He went black

>>16680740
He didn't relax

>>16680736
He was too based for the world.

>>16680756

Pay for the cock

>>16680736
He was just asking some questions bro
Some people are incapable of questioning their own cemented beliefs nah mean?

>>16680736
An ignorant populace

>>16680736
*oink oink*

>>16680763
This. The last hope of the Greeks.

>>16680736
He’s Gr**k

>>16680736
Why was Socrates so ugly? People wouldn’t take him serious these days just based on his looks. Kinda like that nasty weirdo Zizek.

>>16680763
>>16680847
he didnt die
he was just divided in two successors, plato and aristotle

>>16680856
i domt find him ugly

>>16680863
Aristotle never met Socrates, he was born some 15 years after Socrates died. He's more of Plato's successor.

>>16680736
he's a fictional character made up by plato kinda like nietzsche's zarathustra

>>16680856
>>16680914
Nah he existed, presumably with down syndrome going off his statues, and the gag was that Plato used the village idiot as the mouthpiece for unshakeable reason. Every Athenian would have been in on it.

>>16680856
We share a literature board with these “people”

>>16680736
He's very persistent. Kind of, ...
Kind of like
like, say, a gadfly, or something?

>>16680736
bad pussy

>>16681202
>bad bussy
ftfy

>>16680898
>Aristotle never met Socrates
you don't know that

>>16681011
That's a hilarious theory

he had to much free time.

>>1668073
What is your problem that you struggle to understand THE most fundamental and influential thinker in arguably all human history?

>>16681542
It’s more than likely.

>>16680736
>socratic method over trying to score crowd points
Hail

>>16680736
>What the fuck is this guys problem?
He alone was aware that the thinker is an existing subject, and cannot be abstracted from their subjectivity through objective recollection and speculation. Though he was aware that there was some great paradox between knowledge and human existence (cf. Diotima's speech), he unfortunately lacked the absolute paradox that Christianity offered and thus lacked the absurd.

>>16681542
We know Socrates died in 399 BC. Aristotle was born in 384 BC.

>>16680736
The killed fren, this make very sad

>>16681777
>tfw you couldn’t handle being there to see your mentor and one of the bravest, most daring human souls ever forged from the deepest fires within the chaotic cosmos being killed by the cold, damp ignorance of herd mentality

>>16681768
>We know Socrates died in 399 BC
how would you know that? were you there?

>>16681011
I want this to be true.

>>16681011
Socrates fought at the battle of Potidea and saved lives. He was not down syndrome.

>>16681045
t. Ugly incel

>>16683813
nigger retard

>>16681011
Yes Aristophanes wrote his "head in the clouds" because they used a direct translation for down syndrome and everyone got the joke.

>>16681761
based kierkegaardposter

As to not make a new thread for it, I'll ask it here, what of Plato's dialogues are the most important? I have no issue reading all of them and have just been reading them as they appear in Plato: Complete Works.
So far I've read: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophist and Statesman. Of course I'm also reading Illiad too.

>>16684167
>Ctrl+f The Republic
0 results.

M'kay.
Missing about the most influential and relevant one.

>Illiad
>Fucking Homer
>In a Plato thread.

Fuck it. This is now an Ancient Greek thread.

>>16684217
Well in reading through them as the book has ordered them as I was intending I would eventually reach The Republic, and I mention Illiad as it's a prerequisite no?

>>16684167
This is great and Georgia's is great too

>>16684273
Gorgias*

>>16680736
>and am starting off with plato
Why start where Greek philosophy ends?

>>16682073
Yes

>>16684299
>>16682073
Yes me too can confirm

>>16684237
Is it the one edited by john m. cooper? I just started that and reading as is. In the introduction he explains about the order of books etc.

>>16684167
The most important works, which you have yet to read, are:
>the Symposium and Phaedrus (Platonic eros, divine madness and the role of a philosopher)
>Meno (very quick and punchy compared to the Theaetetus; the last few paragraphs still dominate contemporary epistemology's df. of knowledge)
>Protagoras (on whether virtue can be taught; plus, the myth of Protagoras is classic)
>Gorgias (on techne and the object of rhetoric)
>Timaeus (for a while, this was the only Platonic dialogue known to most of medieval Europe; also, the myth of Atlantis and the demiurge)
>the first half of Parmenides (in which you see Plato's self-critique, the kind that would later be adopted by Aristotle)
>Hippias Major (brief investigation of 'kalos')
>Philebus (very funky and one of my favorite dialogues, though not widely discussed; heavy ontological weightlifting and a really interesting stance on comedy)

And, of course, the Republic and the Laws. The Laws is really quite astounding when you read it, since its fingerprints are all over our modern conceptions of the state and its functions. Also, the first anon who replied to you is a smooth-brain: familiarity with Homer (especially the Iliad and his hymns) is assumed in the Republic and elsewhere. You should also read Aristophanes' "Clouds" (at least): Aristophanes was a major character in the Symposium and Old Comedy in general was a major influence on the elenctic form, as was the Silician mimes of e.g. Sophron. [Don't worry about the mimes, though.] Herodotus can be helpful in orienting yourself within Greek history and myth, but is not required. Some familiarity with the Eleatics and Heraclitus would also be fruitful, but is not required.

Start with Hegel

>>16686194
Hegel is a joke that I no longer find funny, much like your comment.

SOCRATES: We have recently been informed that Clitophon the son of
Aristonymos, in discussion with Lysias, has been criticizing the conversations
and speeches of Socrates, while greatly praising the instruction of Thrasymachus.

CLITOPHON: Whoever told you that, Socrates, misrepresented what I said
to Lysias about you. Though it’s true that I didn’t praise you for some
things, I did praise you for others. Since you’re obviously scolding me
right now, though you’re pretending you don’t care, I’d be very glad to
tell you myself what I said—especially since we happen to find ourselves
alone—so you won’t so readily suppose that I have anything against you.
In fact, you probably didn’t hear the truth, which is why I think you’re
being needlessly hard on me. So if you’d let me speak freely, I’d gladly
do so—I want to tell you what I said.

SOCRATES: By all means; it would be shameful for me not to submit to
you when your intention is to help me; for clearly, once I know my good
and bad points, I will make it my practice to pursue and develop the
former while ridding myself of the latter to the extent that I am able.

CLITOPHON: Listen, then. Socrates, when I was associating with you I
was often struck with amazement by what you said. You appeared to me
to rise above all other men with your magnificent speeches when you
reproached mankind and, like a god suspended above the tragic stage,
chanted the following refrain:

O mortals, whither are you borne? Do you not realize that you
are doing none of the things you should?! You men spare no
pains in procuring wealth for yourselves, but you neither see to it
that your sons, to whom you are leaving this wealth, should know
how to use it justly, nor do you find them teachers of justice (if
justice can be taught), nor anybody to exercise and train them adequately
(if it is acquired by exercise and training)—nor indeed
have you started by undergoing such treatment yourselves!

>>16686318
But when you see that you and your children have had a thorough
education in grammar, gymnastics and the arts—which you
consider to be a complete education in virtue—and that you still
have turned out to be no good at using wealth, how can you fail
to despise our present education, and seek those who will rescue
you from this lack of culture?! Yet it is this dissonance, this
carelessness, not dancing the wrong measures to the lyre, that makes
measure and harmony disappear between brother and brother,
city and city, as they oppose each other, clash and fight, inflicting
and suffering the utmost horrors of war.
You say that men are unjust because they want to be, not because
they are ignorant or uneducated. But then you have the effrontery
to say, on the other hand, that injustice is shameful and
hateful to the gods. Well, then, how could anyone willingly
choose such an evil?! “Perhaps he is defeated by pleasure,” you
say. But isn’t this defeat involuntary if conquering is voluntary?
Thus every way you look at it, the argument shows that injustice
is involuntary, and that every man privately and every city publicly
must devote to this matter greater care than is presently the
norm.

>>16686324
When, Socrates, I hear you say such things time and time again, I’m
very impressed and I praise you to the skies; and also when you go on
to the next point, that those who discipline the body while neglecting the
soul are doing something else of the same sort, neglecting that which
should rule while busying themselves with that which should be ruled;
and also when you say that it’s better to leave unused what you don’t
know how to use: if someone doesn’t know how to use his eyes or his
ears or his whole body, it would be better for him not to use it all, whether
for seeing or hearing or anything else, rather than use it in some haphazard
way. In fact, the same applies to skills; for someone who doesn’t know
how to use his own lyre will hardly be able to use his neighbor’s lyre, nor
will someone who doesn’t know how to use the lyre of others be capable
of using his own lyre, nor any other instrument or possession whatsoever.
Your speech delivers a wonderful coup de grace when it concludes that
someone who doesn’t know how to use his soul is better off putting his
soul to rest and not living at all rather than leading a life in which his
actions are based on nothing but personal whim. If for some reason he
must live, it would be better for such a man to live as a slave than to be b
free, handing over the rudder of his mind, like that of a ship, to somebody
else who knows that skill of steering men which you, Socrates, often call
politics, the very same skill, you say, as the judicial skill and justice.
I dare say I never objected nor, I believe, ever will object to these argu- c
ments, nor to many other eloquent ones like them, to the effect that virtue
is teachable and that more care should be devoted to one’s self than to
anything else. I consider them to be extremely beneficial and extremely
effective in turning us in the right direction; they can really rouse us as if
we’d been sleeping. I was therefore very interested in what would come
next after such arguments; at first I asked not you, Socrates, but your
companions and fellow enthusiasts, or friends, or whatever we should call
their relationship to you. And I first questioned those who are thought by
d you to be really something; I asked them what argument would come next
and put my case to them in a style somewhat like your own:

>>16680763
this. Kindly fuck off, OP

>>16686335
O you most distinguished gentlemen, what are we actually6 to
make of Socrates’ exhorting of us to pursue virtue? Are we to
believe that this is all there is, and that it is impossible to pursue the
matter7 further and grasp it fully? Will this be our life-long work,
e simply to convert to the pursuit of virtue those who have not yet
been converted so that they in turn may convert others? Even if
we agree that this is what a man should do, should we not also
ask Socrates, and each other, what the next step is? How should
we begin to learn what justice is? What do we say?
It’s as if we were children with no awareness of the existence of
such things as gymnastics and medicine, and somebody saw this
and exhorted us to take care of our bodies and reproached us,
saying that it’s shameful that we devote such care to cultivating
wheat, barley, vines and all the other things which we work hard
to acquire for the sake of the body, while we fail to discover any
409 skill or other means of making the body itself as good as possible,
even though such skills exist. Now, if we were to ask the man
who gave us this exhortation, “Which skills are you talking
about?,” he would presumably reply, “Gymnastics and medicine.”
Now what about us? What do we say is the skill which concerns
the virtue of the soul? Let’s have an answer.

>>16686342
The man who appeared the most formidable among your companions
answered these questions by telling me that this skill is “the very skill
b which you hear Socrates talking about, namely, justice itself.” Then I said,
“Don’t just give me the name; try it this way. Medicine is surely a kind
of skill. It has two results: it produces other doctors in addition to those
who are already doctors, and it produces health. Of these, the second result
is not itself a skill, but rather the product of a skill, the product we call
‘health’; the skill itself is what teaches and what’s taught. Likewise, carpentry
has as its results a house and carpentry itself; the first is the product
while the second is what’s taught. Let’s assume that one result of justice
c is also to produce just men, just as in the case of each of the skills a goal
is to produce men with that skill—but what, then, are we to call the other
thing, the product which the just man produces for us? Tell me.”
He, I think, replied, “the beneficial,” somebody else said, “the appropriate,”
someone else, “the useful” and someone else, “the advantageous.”
But8 I returned to the point and said, “All those words, such as ‘acting
correctly’, ‘advantageously’, ‘usefully’ and the like, are to be found in each
of the skills as well. When asked, however, what these all aim at, each
skill will mention some product peculiar to itself. So, for example, when d
carpentry uses the words ‘well’, ‘properly’ and ‘appropriately’, it is speaking
of the production of wooden artifacts, which are products distinct from
the skill itself. What, then, is the peculiar product of justice? Give me that
sort of answer.”
Finally, Socrates, one of your friends answered—and he really seemed
quite clever in saying this—that the product peculiar to justice and not
shared by any of the other skills is to produce friendship within cities.
When questioned, he said that friendship is always good and never bad.
When questioned further, he wouldn’t allow that what we call the “friend- e
ships” of children and animals are really friendships, since he was led to
the conclusion that such relationships are more often harmful than good.
So in order to avoid saying that this is true of friendship, he claimed that
these relationships are not friendships at all and that those who call them
that are wrong; instead, real and true friendship is most precisely agreement.
When asked whether he considered this agreement to be shared belief or
knowledge, he rejected the former suggestion since he was forced to admit
that many men’s shared beliefs are harmful, whereas he had agreed that
friendship is entirely good and is the product of justice; so he said that
agreement is the same, being knowledge, not belief.

>>16686358
Now by the time we reached this point in the argument, having really
made no progress, the bystanders were able to take him to task and say
that the argument had gone around in a circle back to where it began.
“Medicine too,” they said, “is a sort of agreement, as is every skill,
and they all can say what they’re about. But what you call ‘justice’ and
‘agreement’ has no idea what it’s aiming at, and so it’s not clear what its
product could be.”
So, Socrates, finally I asked you yourself these questions and you told
me that the aim of justice is to hurt one’s enemies and help one’s friends. But
later it turned out that the just man never harms anyone, since everything he
does is for the benefit of all.
When I had endured this disappointment, not once or twice but a long
time, I finally got tired of begging for an answer. I came to the conclusion
that while you’re better than anyone at turning a man towards the pursuit
of virtue, one of two things must be the case: either this is all you can do,
nothing more—as might happen with any other skill, for example, when
someone who’s not a pilot rehearses a speech in praise of the pilot’s skill
as being something of great worth to men; the same could also be done
for any other skill. And someone might accuse you of being in the same
position with justice, that your ability to praise it so well does not make
you any more knowledgeable about it. Now that’s not my own view, but
there are only two possibilities: either you don’t know it, or you don’t
wish to share it with me.
And this is why, I suppose, I go to Thrasymachus and to anyone else
I can: I’m at a loss. But if you’re finally ready to stop exhorting me with
speeches—I mean, if it had been about gymnastics that you were exhorting
me, saying that I must not neglect my body, you would have proceeded
to give me what comes next after such an exhortation, namely, an explanation
of the nature of my body and of the particular kind of treatment this
nature requires—that’s the kind of thing you should do now.
Assume that Clitophon agrees with you that it’s ridiculous to neglect
the soul itself while concerning ourselves solely with what we work hard
to acquire for its sake. Suppose now that I have also said all the other
things which come next and which I just went through. Then, please, do
as I ask and I won’t praise you before Lysias and others for some things
while criticizing you for others, as I do now. For I will say this, Socrates, that
while you’re worth the world to someone who hasn’t yet been converted to
the pursuit of virtue, to someone who’s already been converted you rather
get in the way of his attaining happiness by reaching the goal of virtue.

>>16680856
I think some people take Zizek seriously.

I just read Apology, Euthyphro and Crito.
Should i read the rest of the early dialogues or can i just read Republic?

>>16687519
Why do you ask such obvious questions?

>>16687519
Read Euthydemus, Protagoras, and Gorgias, before Republic.

>>16683813
Kill yourself tranny

>>16685282
Thank you for this anon, I'll note it down.

>>16681761
Christianity wasn't even around in Socrates time. Kierkegaard was such a faggot

>>16683813
>Truly, Socrates, it is well worth while for me to talk and for you to hear about a splendid young fellow, one of your fellow-citizens, whom I have met. Now if he were handsome, I should be very much afraid to speak, lest someone should think I was in love with him. But the fact is—now don't be angry with me—he is not handsome, but is like you in his snub nose and protruding eyes, only those features are less marked in him than in you.

Plat. Theaet. 143e

>>16689944
Because of Athens low iq, Down syndrome people were actually average and sometimes above average compared to normal, that doesn’t change anything