/lit/ - Literature

Start with Nietzsche work backwards

I'm never reading Aristotle. Don't care what he thought about plants and animals. Plato, Plotinus, and Proclus were enough platonism for me

I don't know but don't read something you have absolutely no interest in. It will serve you, to have started with the Greeks, but after this and having read some Aristotle you might just be able to zoom all the way to the renaissance, but you will definitely miss out on knowledge by doing so

>>19787889
Stick to the 6 P's: Pythagoras, Plato, Plutarch, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Proclus.

>>19787899
I’m probably going to read Sextus and some of the scholastics (maybe the Neoplatonists). Then I’ll zoom my way to whatever I want.

>>19787870
Buying the complete works does not mean you have to read the complete works

>>19787881
t. unironically
one of my college teachers (easily the smartest and the most educated person I ever met) told us the same thing
>start with the modernists and work you way back to the greeks
he later explained that it's hard to find a text easy to read when you have no connections with the writer and also no context
by starting with more recent authors you're basically building a pyramid of knowledge that will allow you to understand and appreciate the greeks
also, after you got to the end you can start again to see the golden nuggets left being because of your lack of culture
>hurr durr shut up stupid college goy
I dropped out after I realized he was the only one in the entire college who was still thinking

>>19787945
My autism makes me have to read the complete works

>>19787946
The best response here.

>>19787881
>>19787946
>>19787975
most retarded posts in this godforsaken website
start with the greeks

>>19787926
Dangerously based

>>19787946
>>19787975
>noo start with the moderns so you can pollute your mind!
Theres a reason people are told to start with the Greeks and its not for a 'comprehensive understanding of philosophical history'.

>>19787870
Just read whatever the fuck you want. Most philosophers have their own unique flavor of mental illness. You are not going to upset some sacred unspoken order of law or permanently loose your right to access some sort of divine knowledge if you read Neech before Kant. And you don't even need to read anything before Neech.

>>19787870
>I’ve been reading this stupid shit for about six months now
brainlet stick to YA

>>19787870
Look up Strauss, Melzer, and the Tubingen school and prepare to have your mind blown. If it doesn't change your life, then you're just an NPC and you should stop reading philosophy. It's just not for you.

>>19787926
insanely based

but Aristotle is worth it as a bridge between Plato and the Neoplatonists

>>19787870
After Aristotle, read Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche (if you really insist), then back to Aristotle through Brentano then Husserl.
Then you study Husserl for the rest of your life.

>>19787870
>six months
I read it in two

>>19788247
What is so impressive about rationalistic crypto-theology?

>>19788247

>>19788247
Do you play Pharaoh (1999)?

>>19788595
That's the life.
>>19788596
I've been asked that question so many times I've had to go and dl it.

>>19788550
A *true* rationalistic crypto-1theology would be impressive as fuck, I don't know what's your issue.

>>19787881
Based.

>>19787870
why even bother reading it when I'm willing to bet you've managed to grasp 1/10th of what you've read so far. stick to wikipedia. or stanford if you can handle it.

>>19787870
I would suggest jumping around and reading whatever you want. Sure, certain things won’t be read in proper context but you can always read philosophers at multiple different points of your life and experience with philosophy and that would probably be rewarding in its own right, watching your relationship with the texts age with you.

>>19787945
what does this image mean? is it a reference to something or just a shitpost?

>>19789012
reference to lewis carroll's logical regress fable which is itself riffing on the old achilles and the tortoise paradox of zeno

>>19787870
>NOOOO YOU NEED TO GET A PHD IN PHILOSOPHY BEFORE YOU CAN NIETZSCHE BRO!!!!
You’re all fucking gay!

>>19789019
thanks anon gonna look into it

>>19789019
>>19789039

It’s explored ad naseum in Godel Escher Bach by Hofstadter, if you want 700 pages of variations on a theme.

You should just stay there and reread Plato again and again until Truth itself becomes manifest to you.

>>19787870
stay with Plato and Aristotle, ignore this fuckwit
>>19787881

read Mario ferreira dos Santos while you read the Greeks

>>19788247
>Descartes
a brainle who couldn't realize he assumes a self exists throughout all his arguments to prove a self exists

almost all his fellow philosophers from his time were schizophrenics like this as well

>>19789111
Lol ok let’s see how many people know your name 400 years later. Better get to work.

>>19788595
I guess I'll just ignore philosophy for the rest of my life
thanks for the forewarnings Pharaoh (1999) PhD Hursserl knower

My main advice to myself 12 years ago when I started reading philosophy and taking classes in undergrad would be:

>Get topical surveys in addition to historical ones and primary sources. You'll learn way more about philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of language, etc. reading what all the big ideas around it are at once, and seeing them linked together, then you will going chronologically and only hitting that topic once every few hundred pages.

>If people didn't stop at one guy who seems to explain it all, it's generally for good reasons, normally gaping holes in their arguments.

>Don't spend to much time trying to follow pseudoscience philosophers came up with to explain the world. The similarity and difference particles /world soul isn't the core of Plato, nor are the Monad's the highest value for Spinoza.

>Read some intro neuroscience with philosophy of mind so you don't fall into positions that don't hold up to observation. Same for physics.

>Find out positivism collapsed for a reason and don't walk around with a stick up your ass about it for so long.

>Theology, particularly the Patristics have a lot of interesting stuff.

>Take a class in formal logic early.

>Start with Hegel earlier since you will get stuck on him for years. But also you need everyone else to get Hegel. Get Hegel's Ladder before reading PhS the first time, and read Boehme.

That's the big ones.

>>19789120
>Lol ok let’s see how many people know your name 400 years later
my descendants God willing since I will pass a genealogy to them, which are all the people I care about remembering me

>>19789128
>If people didn't stop at one guy who seems to explain it all, it's generally for good reasons
they're illiterate or have egos to fill or didn't get it or want to sell more books

>>19789128
>Same for physics
I have bad news for you mate
https://youtube.com/watch?v=5Rf1rnffxaI

>>19789128
>Read some intro neuroscience with philosophy of mind so you don't fall into positions that don't hold up to observation
this post was made by a gay person

>>19789128
Should note I started with almost everything Nietzsche published, Camus, then an intro modern phil course, then did the Greeks.

In retrospect, a good move since it got me interested and Nietzsche is fun to read. I have to admit though, while I at least still have a soft spot for Nietzsche, I actually can't help feeling that existentialism as a whole is kind of vapid.

Maybe not fair though.

>>19789142
So who figured it all out? it was pic related

>>19787870
>>19787956
>complete works of Aristotle
You know that's like 12,000 pages, which considering your rate re Plato should be about 3 years of reading, right?

Plato and Aristotle are two of the dullest philosophers imo. Book-keepers to a man.
Pick out whatever is written of Socrates by Plato and discard the rest. Read Parmenides tract and the scraps of Heraclitus, then Hesiod and Homer... and isn't that enough?
Read Nietzsche if you must, but understand that everything in Salome's tract is true. Nothing but obstinacy and delusions of his own over-instated purpose.

>>19789111
> The man who invented modern algebraic geometry was a brainlet.

There are brainlet tier takes and then there's this.

>>19789230
I bought the first half of his works and it’s only about 1200 pages. I could’ve finished Plato earlier but I take long breaks from reading him due to how boring I find him. I’ve heard that Aristotle is even more boring. I guess I’ll find out.

>>19789271
Math was refuted by Nietzsche (PBUH)

>>19789271
Not to mention to fact that the Meditations' modernization in the 'Brain in the Vat' thought experiment continues to see publication. These ideas generated absolute shit but culturally relevant movies in the Matrix series. Descartes is widely taught as the paradigm shift in modern philosophy and this fucking schmo thinks he's checkmated Descartes with circular reasoning.

Unbelievable.

>>19789111
> He doesn't realize the Cogito bears within it its cogitatum.
God help you son.

>>19789302
Neurotic

>>19789186
>So who figured it all out?
Aristotle
Later, Mario Ferreira does Santos, the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, a man who could talk with Aristotle and Plato as an equal, further explained and developed Aristotle's philosophy

>>19789271
you can invent analytic geometry and still be wrong about philosophy you moron

>>19789302
>the Cogito bears within it its cogitatum
it doesn't bear anything, it tries to prove something it assumes in it's premises (it assumes but without mentioning anything, which is a sign Descartes didn't realize what he was doing)

>>19789421
>it tries to prove something it assumes in it's premises
>It tries to prove itself
Apodictic.

>>19789447
Dogmatic

>>19789455
> He thinks saying something is a brute fact is somehow a criticism.
???

>>19789455
I never really understood why people hate brute facts so much. And in any case, God's existence has been proven thoroughly using all three axiomatic groundings, infinite regress (Leibniz), circular (Hegel), and brute fact (Aquinas/Aristotle).

>>19789447
>Apodictic
not when that "apoditic" premise is the object the guy is trying to prove
what he did was nothing short of petitio principii

>>19789461
Explain why I should believe your axiom over other axioms without appealing to knowledge derived from that axiom.

>>19789462
What's a brute fact of God's existence?

>>19787870
Just read secondary sources and summaries don't waste your time anon why read 1000 pages when a 10 page chapter can tell you everything valuable in the text in 1% of the content
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcxNSF6C_0k

>>19787870
Im reading this now. Is it just me or Socrates sounds condescending in all his dialogues?

>>19787946
is this true? I felt like I wasted my whole life studying moderns once I got to the greeks. unironically, the greeks are way smarter than 99% of the moderns.

>>19790114
it's because he is. Socrates loves irony and being patronizing as it allows him to deconstruct the frameworks of the time. you correctly note that Socrates knows more than he's letting on. he refuses to speak at the highest level he can with most people.

>>19787870
read what you want first... just do what you want or you won't enjoy it you retarded faggot... I doubt you will really get something out of it if you read it against your will... I would recommend to read Kant to you... Nietzsche is a waste of time... read Kant, start with the first Kritik and go on with second and third... those works are really his core philosophy

>>19789296
I wouldn't have called him a brainlet, but Hume certainly had a solid rejection that there was an I to think.

Hindus actually had a more advanced notion of this going with Atman / Pakrati. Cartesian Dualism was btfo at the time it was published.

>>19787870
>Should I continue?
Yes
>I just want to read Kant
Good
>and Nietzsche.
Not philosophy.

this guy is first and final boss

>>19790220
you just didn't read anything past him
no need to excuse your laziness

>>19789296
>this fucking schmo thinks he's checkmated Descartes with circular reasoning.
not me dummie, I learned it from a modern national philosopher, it was obvious after he pointed out but I didn't see it

>>19790283
>a modern national philosopher,
Kek, what kind of retard claims this?

>>19789012
Just be yourself, is meaningless statement.
A misuse of language. Read Tractatus logico-philosophicus.

>>19790864
>Just be yourself, is meaningless statement
No it isn't, it is used constantly and commonly in natural life and is assigned a meaning and a function within language.
>>19790864
> Read Tractatus logico-philosophicus.
Interesting for the logical developments, but otherwise literally weaponized autism.

>>19790215
>Hindus actually had a more advanced notion of this going with Atman / Pakrati. Cartesian Dualism was btfo at the time it was published.
How does cartesian dualism not being the case invalidates the Cogito?

>>19791168
Dualism fell out of favor as a philosophy of mind because it fails to explain much of what we see in the world. If mind is unrelated to matter, why don't rocks have minds? Why do animals with more complex nervous systems exhibit more evidence of conciousness? Why does brain damage to given areas of the brain reliably predict the type of changes in personality and described experiences as person has?

Physicalists philosophies of mind dominate because they explain far more. Physicalism as an ontology has many problems, but as a philosophy of mind if is very strong. You don't have to posit what physical things are to say that observation of how minds work gives you and idea of what they are, and that evidence points to minds being generated by bodies.

So what is the "I" in the cognito? People with the main connections between the two hemispheres of their brain will write down different answers to the same question and not be aware of the difference. They can, however, live fairly normal lives. So which I is giving the real answer?

Modern neuroscience and cognitive science tells us the brain is a network of specialized systems that compete for dictating behavior. There is no centralized I. Decartes had to posit a homonculus up in the pineal gland for his system to work. No such center of conciousness exists anywhere we can find it. Bits of the brain appear to keep running when other parts needed to transform processes into behavior are defective. When someone with aphasia wants to say "are you going to the store?" but says "the cards of mayhem are chopped and lit," and doesn't notice the ridiculousness of the statement, which I is speaking, which I wants to speak?

Observation agrees way more with Hume, who didn't find an I when he looked inside, but a bunch of disconnected, competing strands of thought, sensation, and desire.

Decartes assumes the self, but where is it to be grounded? That's what the other anon was probably referring to.

Buddhists had this idea of theory of mind a long time before Hume for what it is worth. There is no I, no Atman. See Hindus have a better case because for then sensation, emotion, and physical objects are Pakrati. Atman is only that which experiences. But here again empiricism has a challenge. When split brained people appear to see different things with different hemispheres of the brain, which "Atman" is doing it?

Pic related and the Great Courses Mind Body Philosophy (which has more science information than most philosophy, which is good) are solid primers on this issue and major issues for physicalism, as well as other ideas like hylomorphism, predicate dualism, etc.

Hegel is the shit at combining this with answering nominalism vs dualism too but hard to read.

>>19790100
dood you are a serious retard man...

>>19788020
Oh shut the fuck up you dumb larper.

>>19787870
>not exclusively reading authors whose aesthetic tastes resonate with yours
>not being able to quickly and accurately detect an author's tastes through images of the author, a brief summary, and a few quotes alone
ngmi

>>19791275
why???

>>19789230
if i read a measly hour a day it will only take 6 months

>>19787870
If you don’t want to read it then don’t read it. If your not passionate about it what’s the point? Why make your hobby grueling? Read Kant and nietzsche. Unless your almost done then I guess finish. Also what I mean by not passionate about I mean no enjoyment what’s so ever. If your not enjoying reading it at the moment or you think you won’t be satisfied by the end or think you won’t gain any important knowledge to you by the end there’s no point

>>19788329
i just finished in 1.75; op needs to hurry up!

>>19791255
>Decartes assumes the self
This is wrong. Descartes starts from the entirety of his natural experience, which very clearly includes selves. He suspends his belief in them, operating a crude but nevertheless valid phenomenological reduction, at the end of which he realizes that consciousness is a phenomenological residual. Motivated by his own metaphysical interest, he dismisses the phenomenological value of the Cogito in order to draw attention to its logical/epistemological value. There is no assumption, but a strict (if crude) process of reduction.
>Modern neuroscience and cognitive science tells us
Cringed hard. "Self" is not an object to be defined by empirical sciences (even if they will handle the concept somewhat). It is the result of transcendantal autopoeisis. There are multiple selves within the different stratas of natural life and experience. Cognitive science names at least 5 iirc. The Cogito is available itself either through a logical or an "thematico-existential" access (through the thesis of the inexistence of the world).
The Self isn't cognitive, it is mereological.
And to circle back, none of this relates to cartesian dualism. The Cogito is apodictic and remains unaffected by the truth or falsehood of metaphysical theories.

>>19787870
Plato is about as fun as philosophy gets. Have fun.

>>19792250
>"Self" is not an object to be defined by empirical sciences (even if they will handle the concept somewhat). It is the result of transcendantal autopoeisis.

When people get brain damage their 'self' changes radically Doesn't seem transcendental or self-creating to me. Seems very reliant on outside inputs and brain structure.

>>19792357
> brain damage can stop the ego-pole from being tied to an object-pole in intentionality.