/lit/ - Literature

What are you trying to read?

>>20046022
start with the greeks

You're not going to get anything out of philosophy unless you have a personal desire to see the questions answered. Plato isn't going to be meaningful unless you actually care about whether or not we can establish universal principles about ethics from particulars and so on.

Most of philosophy is just filler, really dense and painful filler. Like many others here, the only proper philosophy book I've read (not Alan Watts) is The Ego And Its Own, which is more profound, shorter, and easier than most of the other big titles from its era. It's still a real chore to read and the actual ideas of it could comfortably be put into a book 1/5th of the size, if not a single 4chan post within character limits.

Almost all people who read more than just the occasional 'real' philosophy book are doing it so they can say they did, it's worse for you than just reading digested versions.

>>20046042
Tbh most of the big-name philosophers are big for a reason, but that doesn't mean we should just tritely go down a list and read them one by one. Instead we read an author when we care about what that particular man addresses.

>>20046055
>Tbh
wtf, you can say this now?

>>20046042
See, i always get this impression that the author is trying to stretch the text in order to make their ideas seem deeper than they really are.

>>20046027
asking the important question

>>20046055
Some of these guys seem to not get that this is a joke

>>20046022
Just read pragmatic philosophy like Seneca, the Tao Te Ching, and Machiavelli. Don't fuck around with imaginary bullshit like Ethics or any of the other bullshit it spawned over the 2500 years that cancer has metastasized.

>>20046061
Absolutely but it's even more dishonest than that. Back then publishers were really obsessed with page count and their contract would often specify a minimum, so they had to squeeze it to that point even if they were out of material.

>>20046027
>>20046064
Last one i tried was Simulacra and Simulation. I though something more contemporary would be easier to digest but i was wrong.

>>20046073
This. Ethical philosophy is just one level (if that) above theology, desperate wishful thinking. We've turned this into a meme so people don't take it seriously anymore but Stirner was unironically 100% right and accepting it makes the majority of philosophy totally obsolete.

>>20046073
I've finished The Prince, but i was much younger and eveything was still new and interesting.

>>20046068
Just remember that you're literally a bag of meat. Just because it feels good when you pull your pud doesn't mean you're a magical and divine being. Anything that attempts to argue humanity is any more philosophically consequential than the mammals with 98% genetic similarity is just baseless, unfounded, and unjustifiable delusions. Try to find some method of thinking that doesn't justify your actions with baseless imaginary nonsense. Act with respect to the fact that the purpose of your existence is indistinguishable from that of any other ambulatory animal.

>>20046095
>Act with respect to the fact that the purpose of your existence is indistinguishable from that of any other ambulatory animal.

>>20046086
The problem with philosophy is that if philosophy were valid, then it would be an empirical science. If it is not an empirical science, it is no more legitimate than faith. Since faith is "free write", just make up whatever faith makes you enjoy being alive.

I've written an extensive cannon about the history of the Abrahamic faith, entirely pulled out of think air through magic, just because this is a far more entertaining way to justify my life and actions than binding myself to some pseudo-fantasy philosophy.

The only merit of philosophy is that the peasant cannot determine whether said fantasy is truly fantasy or somehow an accurate representation of reality. The only merit of philosophy is that it is fiction which the everyman cannot generally identify as fiction.

>>20046095
Psueds will call you an insincere edgelord but you are 100% right and there's no 'cleaner' way to put it that is worth the trouble. Life just isn't that fucking special, I'm sorry children. It is what it is. Accept this and you'll be able to learn how to take optimal control over your existence as a highly flawed, mortal back of meat, instead of being a sad faggot who sits around crying about how much more he hopes life could be.

>>20046109
>I've written an extensive cannon about the history of the Abrahamic faith, entirely pulled out of thin air through magic
Extremely based. There is way more to be learned through fraud than """actual""" """history""".

>>20046075
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/baudrillard/

>>20046109
Imo it's clearly:
>whites = lust (asmodeus)
>jews = greed (mammon)
>blacks = wrath (satan)
>amerindians = sloth (belfegor)
>turkic = envy (leviathan)
>east asians = pride (Lucifer)
Idk what race would be the most glutonous though

>>20046086
>I've written an extensive cannon about the history of the Abrahamic faith, entirely pulled out of think air through magic, just because this is a far more entertaining way to justify my life and actions
>pic related

Philosophy and faith are nothing more than the delusions and fantasies we use to justify our actions, so the least you can do is find one which is enjoyable.

If contemplating philosophy were a beneficial trait, then it would have naturally and universally throughout all conscious life. No other animals have philosophical thought, which is immutable evidence that it is in no way beneficial to the survival of the animals that wield this trait. When you attain no benefit, why pursue means that produce no ends?

Any aspect of philosophy that produces empirical ends such as morality, in the form of increased yield of society, can be boiled down to an empirical science of the management of populations of intelligent animals in such a way that increases net yield and reduces net detriment to the system. Any "meaning" beyond the empirical is pure bullshit, and it was designed that way because this was the most efficient way to indoctrinate people to become beneficial members of society for the least amount of physical investment of energy like force.

Faith just uses the natural instinctive paranoia to produce a psychological blight that ultimately forces the humans into socioeconomically beneficial behavior by hijacking them to feel baseless fear of God should they stray from actions that are beneficial to the optimization of society, even when these actions are detrimental to the optimization of the success of the individual.

Philosophy is an attempt to recreate the voluntary slavery produced by faith while replacing the fear of God with a general confusion, superstition, or delusion regarding one's own sense of self.


Here's an article that talks about that.
https://marzipanmaddox.medium.com/an-overview-and-history-of-common-types-of-slavery-7b6eb65837ed

Yeah, I just pull shit out of my ass, but that's all any philosopher has ever done. There's far more legitimacy in what I do than going full Two-Girls-One-Cup on a steaming pile of bullshit that some other dude just shat out of his ass onto a silver platter.

You can google "marzipan morality" if you wanted more reading. No, I don't make money. The currency of my people is blood, and there are few with enough faith in God to shed blood in my name.

>>20046109
You are implying that the only way of justifying something is through empirical science, which empirical science can ironically not demonstrate since it operates on scientific induction.

>>20046156
>No other animals have philosophical thought, which is immutable evidence that it is in no way beneficial to the survival of the animals that wield this trait.
No other animals build cars either. Guess cars are useless.

>>20046168
>You are implying that the only way of justifying something is through empirical science
obviously he is not, he's rejecting the concept of justification

>>20046022
In what way is philosophy inconsequential? Due to it's generality, it is extremely consequential.

>>20046180
Of course they're not "useless", dildos also aren't "useless". That doesn't make them beneficial for the long term survival of a species, though. Pretty much all the evidence tells us that cars come at a very high cost to our species.

>>20046147
blacks and Indians were essentially feral humans and had no moral agency, thus really can't be tempted by demons. The Jews are also demons, which again, don't have moral agency or free will.

It's not that any race has a "patron demon" or "patron vice". The dog who has sex with a child isn't an "evil dog", just like how the negro who commits a crime is in no way an "evil negro". The negro never evolved to produce meaningful civilization for a number of reasons, largely that Africa is detrimental to the evolution of intelligence due to the increased risk of suicdality that accompanies intelligence, and in Africa, as a savage, there are 1,000 reasons to kill yourself, 1,000 ways to kill yourself, and literally 0 fucking reasons to keep living if you cans strip yourself of the instinct to unquestioningly perpetuate your existence in the same right as any other animal. This is why the African cannot rise above his instinct, because in his natural environment, intelligence was incredibly dangerous and detrimental to one's own survival, so he evolved to avoid developing meaningful intelligence.

I'm not racist, these are just facts. I cannot hate a beast without moral agency. I can however, hold people with moral agency accountable for their actions.

The Turks and Asians are far more civilized than the Whites, genetically, at least, because their cultures were much quicker to execute people for deviation from pro-social behavior. These thousands of years of extensive genetic culling is why Asians are reliably incredibly pro-social and averse to vice, while the negro, by comparison, is seldom pro-social and incredibly predisposed to antisocial behavior should his instinct convince him that such will benefit him.

The Whites, by abstaining from culling, ultimately produced a cancerous race, one which cannot fight off the more legitimizing predators. This is why the White nations are being cannibalized by Morlocks, and when you are literally being hunted to extinction, regardless of any "apparent supremacy" this is hard evidence of your genetic inferiority.

The lack of stringent white genetic culling in favor of violence ensured pro-social behavior is why the race has become AIDS incarnate, which does nothing to fight off the parasites which feed upon it to survive. You may be a mighty beast, but should the mighty lion be hunted to extinction by parasites, this only proves the genetic supremacy of the parasite and the genetic inferiority of the lion.

I'm off, but christ almighty it has been hard to try and hold a coherent conversation on other boards.Too many people are afraid of words. I know plenty of people hate me here, but at the very least you can vocalize these sentiments in a way that rises above calling me whatever name is the current flavor of the 2-minutes hate.

The fucking Morlocks are relentless with their hatred of words, it's guaranteed that they always hate words and reading far more than their current scapegoat. Deuces.

>it's another "anon tries to debunk the concept of philosophy itself"
didn't read lol

>>20046230
I genuinelly wish to read what ID: QH4RCh5s had to say about european negroes and african negroes.

>>20046022
This happens to me sometimes as well. Just recently when reading Hume. Only finished the first book on understanding and didn´t bother with the ethic or aesthetic part. I will likely come back to it at another point.
>come back another time and read something else
>listen to podcast on the subject.
>research online

I never really had any problem reading Plato, Nietzsche, the stoics etc so it really depends on what time period is boring.

>>20046022
Just as a sanity reminder, you're gonna get a bunch of snobby answers from douchebags that really think they know what you and everyone else should do no matter you asked or how useless they are in their own lives

Anyway I read it until something gets my attention and go back and see what lead up to it and repeat basically

>>20046230
Okay, Chang. Go watch some more state-funded pro-breeding propaganda so you can create more soulless "pro-social" husks to uphold your civilization which only serves to further venerate inferior White culture by endlessly recycling our inventions (or helping us sell them at a lower cost). I'll be over here enjoying my White heritage and culture (which ultimately means nothing because beauty can't be measured objectively, I'm sure you'll cry) with my Indian bros who, despite being soulless animals, as you claim, have also created far more enlightening works than anything the East has also recycled from them.

>>20046230
What kind of "free will" would "choose" strength if the "chooser" was not strong itself? And the same of weakness, or any condition?

>>20046230
kek nutty posts like this are why I come here

>>20046075
Baudrillard is actually obtuse compared to, say, Descartes. Unironically, start with the greeks.

>>20046255
this is truly and unironically pathetic
>Noooo! My volumes of words about how reality is real (or not real, as the case may be) have to be valuable! You can't just apply common sense, that's rude!

>>20046255
intellectual standards collapsed
you're only expected to be a cog in the late capitalist machine now
don't think just praise science and consume product and get excited for next product

>>20046040

>philosophy
>"the goal is to actually answer the questions dude!"
>goal

>>20046061

Pretty much any narrative outside of detailed scientific investigations* can be condensed to 200 pages, and almost all can get under 100 pages while easily keeping all the important details and asides intact.

*But even this has its exceptions. Math PhDs tend to run around 100-150 pages, whereas History PhDs notoriously have the longest page counts, 5-800 pages. Those students are padding, hard. "Look at me teacher I know how to read related things and cite those too".

>>20046022
>How do you guys read philosophy?
By only reading philosophers that are good writers and that I’m interested in, like Plato and Nietzsche. I don’t bother trying to read philosophers that are bad writers and that I’m not interested in, like Kant and Hegel.

>>20046156
>No other animals have philosophical thought, which is immutable evidence that it is in no way beneficial to the survival of the animals that wield this trait.
Absolutely retarded
I went to quote this line specifically but then saw that someone else had already done it
Humans are the most dominant animal on earth, pointing to an absolute victory for all the abstractions of human thought that you describe as pointless.

Your posting and your pic related is absolute meme tier word salad.

>>20046022
Unironically, read Nietzsche. He deals with a subject that isn’t going to be so abstract for you. Also, question your desire to read philosophy. What are you trying to gain?

>>20046042
>>20046084
I started with Stirner, how do I erase it from my memory? I need it because it's painful to read anything else now.

>>20049289
Dominant yet depressed, going insane and suffering from problems we have created that no other species has. It is a double edged sword. If you believe one edge can be dulled, just know it hasn’t happened yet and people have been trying for centuries

>>20049339
>Dominant yet depressed, going insane and suffering from problems we have created that no other species has
It's still better than being a cow and shitting on your own legs because you have no flexibility. Have you ever seen a beaver try to play the guitar? They can't play the guitar for shit.

Jason Becker pretty much single handedly BTFO all Beaverdom for all eternity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e_PZsBMbCg
Probably like 50% of the entire animal kingdom if you think about it

>>20049289
Humans are one of the most short lived species on earth and all the signs are showing that we will soon destroy ourselves.

>>20049365
>It's still better than being a cow

>>20046191
When you "" you really show how much of a pseud you are.
I mean, do you even have a system?
Kek, probably not.
Fucking fag.
ngmi

>>20049375
>Humans are one of the most short lived species on earth
We're one of the longest living animals you prune
Hamsters live to 3 years old
Many animals lifespans double in captivity, and if they're lucky that might get them like 30 years or something

>>20049381
>Implying Mables Fatal Fable doesn't outweigh this fat person
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h4S8vvwYTU

That section at the end? Yeah that's the theme tune of Leave it to Beaver, reversed.
Do you see what I'm getting at with the Beavers? DO YOU SEE?

>>20049403
I'm kind of flabbergasted that there is someone here who is dumb enough to need it explained to him that "shortest lived species" in the context refers to the species itself, not individuals. Anatomically modern humans have existed for about 200,000 years (depending on who you ask), and The Holocene (meaning the time frame in which humans have been 'dominating', in short) is about 12,000 years. By contrast, many extant animal species have existed from millions to hundreds of millions of years.
>you prune
You redditors have such stupid insults, it's just embarassing to be on the same website as you.

>>20046042
>Has only read one book
>Compares it to the rest of the books he hasn’t read, saying it’s better
I hope you get flayed and salted and tied up with barbed wire and kicked into a vietnamese booby trapped hole in the ground filled with boiling water

>>20046095
>>20046101
I saved these to read later and I have come back to tell you that they are retarded and you are a retard for posting them

>>20049720
I've read lots *about* those books and talked to people who have actually read them. It's pretty much the general consensus of all non-autists that they're more fluff than anything.

Have you read even one of these books?

>>20048894
Philosophy's a way of life, sure, but that way of life consists in the active pursuit of answers to the major questions.

Why is the so much anger here?

>>20049737
>I've read lots *about* those books
In other words you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about. Your knowledge is based on 4chan posts you braindead faggot nigger retard
> It's pretty much the general consensus of all non-autists that they're more fluff than anything.
Maybe the general consensus of all faggots like you who pretend to have an inkling of what they are talking about on /lit/
> Have you read even one of these books?
Yes, which is exactly why ignoramuses like you make me want to gouge my own eyes out. You trivialise things you don’t understand because you’re a disrespectful ignorant low IQ uneducated loser. You are the reason this board is shit

>>20049461
When you extend that logic you are forced to admit that animal life of any kind (thinking or unthinking) is inferior to single-celled organisms in terms of longevity.

>>20049804
Well obviously, you fucking retard.

>>20049749
No one is buying your shit. If you actually read books you wouldn't sound like this much of a redditor faggot.

>>20049819
And if longevity is a metric of worth, then what does it matter if one animal has a longer history than another when all are inferior to the single-celled organism. Of course until I take a disinfecting wipe to the surface of my screen then look, all gone!

>itt: edgy 110 iq intj teenagers who read one book and think it entitles them to shatter the delusions of "neurotypicals" like their favourite philosopher diogenes the cynic

>>20049850
You are such a coward. You don't even have the balls you state the antithesis that these books don't suck, you just say "umm sweetie have you even read the entire canon of philosophy? If no then stop forming opinions" without offering anything tangible.

>>20049865
*to state the antithesis

>>20049842
>what does it matter if you have $100 or $100,000? They're both less than $100,000,000!

>>20049907
If it doesn't matter whether I have 100 or 100,000 dollars compared to 100,000,000, why does it matter that humans are less long-lived as other species? Why is the comparison between human and other animals longevity-based, while the comparison between animals and other forms of life is not?

>>20046022
I'm using a more systematic problems-oriented intro. textbook because the one I used in college was not very systematic at all. It's called A Concise Introduction to Philosophy by William H. Halverson. Something I really like about it is that the author writes every chapter as if he were really convinced of his point, so he quotes liberally from the relevant philosophers and makes his points as persuasive as he can. I really recommend

Beyond this getting your hands on anthologies or better yet full texts can get you farther. After you do the systematic approach, there's also the anthology A Historical Introduction to Philosophy by Albert B. Hakim. You can use both, but I recommend the systematic approach for much the same reasons as given by Halverson. The historical approach is good for non-philosophers who want to understand who said what and approach philosophy in terms of what each individual author believed about a certain issue. But the limitations are that not every philosopher was interested in every topic, and not every philosopher will present each position on the same issue in perfectly objective terms. So, I would read anthologies like this one carefully. One advantage is that you don’t have to read full texts to see exactly how an author formulated his arguments. However, full texts can sometimes provide more context, a need especially felt with Plato.

Some other good anthologies are the volumes in the series called The Great Ages of Western Philosophy. The Enlightenment volume, The Age of Enlightenment, is edited by Isaiah Berlin, himself a 20th c. philosopher, which is sure to make things interesting.

Happy reading Anon :)

>>20049930
No one said that. It's just not something that was brought up in the conversation. Of course single-celled organisms have better longevity than humans. Whether that "matters" is up to you, it's an amoral fact.

>>20050015
Is this >>20049375 you or someone else. If this is you, admit you have no cohesive argument and just want to dab on humanity using whichever justification is easiest at the moment.

>>20050049
I am that guy, I am not the guy who posted those artices. The argument is what I said and nothing more, it doesn't need to be. It's just invoking the barebones concept of evolutionary survival.

>>20046022
Read secondary literature instead.

>You are such a coward. You don't even have the balls you state the antithesis that these books don't suck, you just say "umm sweetie have you even read the entire canon of philosophy? If no then stop forming opinions" without offering anything tangible.

>>20050354
You aren't good at soijaking, mate.

>>20046022
>What will be said:
It's easy man just read
>Reality for most /lit/izens:
4 years and thousands of dollars down the shitter at some Ivy League program. Maybe some were even stupid enough to go for a masters.

>>20050432
you have a pretty odd view of the average person here

>>20046075
deleuze was a troll dude, you're not supposed to understand it.

philosophy isn't about finding answers.

professors in philosophy give you argumentative essays about the most abstract shit.
becuase they want to make sure that you have the skill to pick out arguments, and then find all the stuff the essayist uses to support their arguments.
all philosophy professors that hear their students wank to a single or a few philosophers usually roll their eyes internally.

thats basically what an average philosopher needs to learn how to do.
much like a literature person needs to be able to distilll the main themes of a book.

this is what most of undergrad philosophy is focused on.
its also partially making sure you can construct your own arguments. but this skill is much more instilled at the masters and doctral level of philosophy.

and while you can do that just as easily if you majored in communications and rhetoric or business marketing, philosophy is privlisged to deal in alot of abstract hypotheticals the make you sound more smart than a comms major, but only just as skilled as one.

i know its even more work and bullshit to go through.
but if you want to start to get good at philosophy, try to write down what the arguemtns are and what evidence the author provides.

>>20046058
Tbq.h that replaces for "desu"

>>20046095
>>20046101
>>20046109
>only empirical science is valid
>we are all meat monkeys
go back to plebbit you retarded fucking nigger

>>20050587
yeah I know that but he just said desu (test)

>>20050587
maybe if you capitalize it then it's okay

Tbh (test)

>>20046022
To understand the truth and how my reality is structured, instead of just passively consuming and listening to what other people tell me

>>20046022

Are you actually interested in philosophy?

>>20050612
>i prefer to get my truth from a book rather than tv thank you very much

>>20046075
You lack any kind of philosophical understanding and you're starting to read source material written by 20th century obscurantists who draw references to the previous 20 centuries of philosophical history. What did you expect?
Start with the greeks and supplement your source material with secondary texts or you won't understand shit and evidently get bored. You're trying to build a house starting from the ceiling. No wonder you despair.

>>20046095
I'd expect this kind of rhetoric from a child.

>>20046022
You do not have enough background information to properly interpret the material. Your brain recognizes this fact and starts to divert your attention elsewhere in a bid to use its resources more efficiently.
solution: >>20046031