/lit/ - Literature

Marcus Aurelius

Alexander. Alexander conquered simply because he could, Caesar conquered for his own/Rome's gain.

>>18139554
no he wasn't

Alexander, more daring, more freedom, had caesar crying at one of his statues. Both great men.

>>18139558
Care to elaborate?

>>18139643
14 year

Caesar was a self-made man. Alexander inherited everything from the real badass of Macedonia.

>>18139539
Obama

>>18139757
contrarian bait

>>18139539
They were both conquerors, neither of them were kings, nor philosophers

>>18139819
>Alexander
>Not a king

>>18139879
A king is a ruler. Alexander may have had countless titles, but he spent his entire life in conquest, not in ruling. Caesar likewise. They laid the groundwork for the actual rulers that followed them.

>>18139554
Based

>>18139539
Hitler

trump

>>18139539
Dionysius I by virtue of being taught by Plato. He is the only one we can even say learned Plato's honest opinions first hand.

>>18139892
He ruled a bit, the macedonian state was more or less his roving army.

>>18139892
Leading through example is a very king-like quality. "Conquerors" as you put it are men of action who inspired men for action, and thus make the best Kings.

Napoleon

>>18139539
mfw Aristotle thought the polis life was the highest good for the virtuous citizen and then tutored the guy who brought an end to it

>>18139892
Caesar never got a chance to rule. He probably would have been a good one too. Caesar did lay the ground work for Augustus though, he made sure not to repeat Caesar's mistake of being forgiving towards his enemies.

>>18139554
Why Marcus over the other Good Emperors?

>>18139539
Uhhh neither of these even somewhat approximate what Plato would have considered a "Philosopher King." Maybe Asoka?

>>18139539
Charlemagne

>>18139539
Not only was he a philosopher king, he was also a /bloatmaxer/.

>>18139554

You really have to push Death of the Author to forgive the fact that this shining beacon of reason, contemplation, and self-denial is also responsible for enthroning Commodus, Commodus of Commodia.

>>18139539
IYKYK

Probably him, desu.

He kept the roman empire intact for decades. It was his successors who couldn't fit on the shoes left for them.

>>18140338
Leading through example is a desired quality in squad leaders and lower ranking officers or officials, not in kings

>the good state isn't that which is good when led by good men, but that which is good irrespective of whether it is led by good or bad men.
- Spinoza
Yet no state ever has lived up to this. Curious.

You have to be very delusional, or just not very knowledgable about Roman history, to see Caesar and think he is any kind of ideal philosopher king. Caesar was a cunning politician, probably one of the most intelligent and observant politicians in history. But not what Plato intended by any means.

>>18142864
This.

How old are you, anon

>>18142871
I'm 27.

>>18142872
Do you personally think the philosopher-king can ever be realized irl? You seem like you know Plato.

>>18142880
I do not know him as well as I probably should, but let me give you my personal take on this topic:
Plato's mistake in coming up with his ideal ruler is the same mistake that seemingly everyone makes who forges a political ideology. They ignore or push aside the necessary humanity of their conceived "ideal ruler". Humanity means on one side that he will always have his own desires, opinions, viewpoints and just straight up errors that will influence him in his ruling; on the other side humanity means that he will always be mortal, and that time will march and events will change the political landscape. Even if the ideal ruler can exist for one moment, that moment must be fleeting.
Take Caesar. His political career is a fascinating tennis match of actions and reactions around political rivals, geopolitical situations, his own pride, public opinion, and the general evolution of the political landscape in Rome. Caesar's political greatness comes from how he deals with these kinds of things, how he deals with political reality and bends it around oppostunistically to favour him in the end. All with a pinch of luck, mind you.
An ideal ruler is conceived in a vacuum, but in reality such a vacuum can never exist. Any ruler spawns from one political environment - a web of interacting political, social, cultural, religious etc. factors - and leaves it another political environment. There has rarely been any real consistency in any political system, it is always a changing thing, and there has never been a man who has not been formed by his circumstances. Plato's ideal ruler would cease to be the moment he would plop into reality.

But I assume Plato was aware of that. Reality, as we would call it, was to him but an imitation of his ideal forms. I am not sure if Plato conceived a plan how an idal ruler would come into existence, but I assume he was not concerned with that. He was content with his ideal forms.

>>18142864
Trump would unironically have been a good philosopher king.

>>18139539
>>18139643
all queers

>>18142933
>Take Caesar. His political career is a fascinating tennis match of actions and reactions

Good way of putting it. I wonder what your source on roman history was and Caesar was.

>An ideal ruler is conceived in a vacuum, but in reality such a vacuum can never exist.
>there has never been a man who has not been formed by his circumstances
>Plato's ideal ruler would cease to be the moment he would plop into reality.

Interesting thoughts.

What other philosophers do you or are you reading?

Ghengis Khan

>>18142959
I don't think I could give you specific history books, I have been basically reading on Caesar my entire life throughout school (Latin and history class) and smaller history books here and there. Recently I've been freshing up my knowledge through the Historia Civilis series on youtube, it's pretty nice to listen to while cooking and eating.

>philosophers
Mostly the classic Greeks and 18th and 19th century Germans. (I am German.) My favourite might be Wittgenstein though.
Currently working my way through Steven French's The Structure of the World for a university class.
My strong points are more in literature, so take what I have written about Caesar and Plato with a grain of salt.

>>18143070
>strong points are more in literature

Favorite novelists?
Dostoevsky? Tolstoy? Kafka? Mann?

>the classic Greeks and 18th and 19th century Germans

Whose your favorite pre-socratic philosopher?

And have you read Schiller's Aesthetic Letters? Currently working through it, and man, I must say, the entire idea of the Play Drive is incredibly fascinating to me. It must be great to be able to read these great, monumental philosophical works in the original German.

Heidegger alone is a trip for me. I get this excitement and enthusiasm reading him because it feels like ultimately, disregarding the minutiae, we HAVE forgotten about or of the essence of being, of what it means to be.

>>18143158
>Kafka?
Yes. His aphorisms are underrated and everyone should read them, brief as they are anyway.
My favourite novel is Moby Dick though.

>Whose your favorite pre-socratic philosopher?
Heraclit, as you may guess from my view on the inner workings of politics.
I have read a bit of Schiller's aesthetics, and tackling it again is somewhat of a project of mine that I will get to once I worked through Lessing's Laokoon. (I haven't started yet, but it's currently on top of my "to read next" stack in my shelf.)
Must admit I haven't read Heidegger, yet.

>>18143190
Also wanted to add: yes, I am greatful to have German as my native tongue because it lends itself quite well to philosophy, and has accumulated a very rich body of works that I am unsure would be the same when read translated.

>>18143190
Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry (Johns Hopkins Paperbacks)

I just bought this on amazon for $27.00 and it will be at my place this week. It looks like it's split up in 29 chapters? Not even 200 pages. Awesome.

I'll be making a thread on this book next week. I expect you to be there, we shall discuss this work.

>My favourite novel is Moby Dick

Noice. And you're German. Interesting. Does this have something to do with the concept of power or willpower? Why this novel?

>>18139892
>Alexander
>lay groundwork
Moron

>>18143468
>It looks like it's split up in 29 chapters? Not even 200 pages.
Yes, that's the one. I'll see if I just ditch my current reading for a bit and muscle through it over the weekend.

>Why this novel?
I don't think it has much to do with me being German. I'm actually rather snobbish when it comes to American literature. But Moby Dick is just too beautiful for it to not be my favourite book. It fulfills my sense of aesthetics to a T - taking a single idea, and exploring it so thoroughly, so manically, that in the end you make the entire world revolve around that idea. Melville manages to explain the history of humankind by interlinking every aspect of it with the seemingly simple act of catching a white whale. I call this "giving it omnirelevance" - to take something simple and making it about something bigger than the thing itself, by finding all kinds connections to a great topic, or layers of multiple greater topics, until the central topic seems to dangle in a web of uncountable strings. Not sure if "omnirelevance" is a good word for it, but it is what Joyce did with a stroll through Dublin, what Goethe did with the Faustian folklore, and it is what Melville did with the whale. And that's what I personally consider beautiful.

>>18143637
>omnirelevance

Ahhh, interesting. I enjoy that description. Have you read Divine Comedy? Would you consider what Dante was doing to be omnirelevant with respect to his kind of cosmology? I finished this work last month, I can see that term being used to characterize Dante.

>My favourite might be Wittgenstein though.

How much am I missing when I read Wittgenstein translated? I have a dual copy translation, so I can read the german, but it's not like I truly understand this more metaphysical language. Are you in university in Germany, brother?

>>18143863
I have not read Divine Comedy, but from what I know about it I think it also fits into that category. I guess the difference is that the Divine Comedy is generally about a wider array of topics, since hell, purgatory and heaven already have a lot of cultural baggage with them. But I don't think my idea of "omnirelevance" is a particularly well defined concept, nor should it be considered an "exclusive club".

If you can read German and always have the original by your side, you should be fine with Wittgenstein.
And yeah, I'm studying literature in Bonn.

>>18139557
Alexander was meant to conquer. His father left an army ready for that.

someone was telling me in class the other day that alexander's father, philip ii, was the guy who invented the sarissa? is that even true

>>18144242
He took the ideas of another general, Iphicrates, and enhanced on them

>>18144253
oh shit, that's awesome
and then this update greatly helped the armies fuck shit up?
where did you learn of this? where can i read what you read?

>>18144272
You can read up on it anywhere ? I dont rememver that well anymore but I think Iphicrates was an athenian mercenary general, and later was Phillips mentor. I think he defeated Epaminondas, one of the best in his time.

>>18144292
what is a good source on this particular topic rather than suggesting i can read it anywhere? any recommendations or none at all for me, bro?

>>18142692

The US managed it from 1865 to 2001.

I was reading 'Great Men and How they are Produced' the other day and apparently Philip had Alexander when he was 63. Never knew that.

>>18144300
Sorry, I am phoneposting and I dont have much on that topic apart from very shallow knowledge, I am more well read on Alexander and the Diadochi. But the Anabasis by Xenophon is around that time, predating it by up to 50 years but still recent enough. And its a great read for understanding the hellenic mentality. Also all other works by Xenophon desu

>>18144334
thank you good sir, appreciate that

you seem like you know your shit

>>18142550
Baza czeski bracie

>>18142864
He was becoming one and was on his way.

>>18139643
????

>>18139683
????

>>18145456
In what way? I am honestly curious to hear your argument here. By what parameters did Caesar head towards becoming an ideal philosopher king, rather than staying the same pragmatic and cunning politician he was throughout his life?