/lit/ - Literature

>>22024886
Use google, nigger.

Copleston's history of philosophy

>>22024886
Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy

>>22024886
>open philosophy book
>read book

>>22024896
:(

Aristotle The Desire to Understand
Also Plato but if you're new to philosophy there's always the chance that you might miss the significant of what is being discussed
I think the edition Plato: Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo by Hackett or The Last Days of Socrates by penguin are good

>>22024886

>>22024886
start with the greeks

>>22024908
Also Simon Blackburn, Think

>>22024886
If you are genuinely a complete and utter layman I can recommend Bryan Magee's The Story of Philosophy. It gives a broad overview of major philosophers in the western tradition written in very simple and conversational language. Other history of philosophy's like Coplestones or Russell's as already mentioned are already quite difficult and lofty if one is a complete layman.

For other secondary texts to begin with, this anon's recommendations are also good>>22024908>>22025001

When beginning with primary texts, this anon's >>22024932 recommendation of the five plato dialogues is certainly the best place to start. After that Descartes Meditations for another easy text which gives you the starting point for modern philosophy. Then you can start to go in your own direction a bit, but the Stoics i.e. especially Seneca, Cicero, Epictetus, and Aurelius, are a good place to visit, as well as Schopenhauer's works and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. But by this point you will have gathered a little bit of philosophical momentum to start exploring yourself.

>>22024896
>use a globohomo satanic corporation to tell you how to research philosophy and any research at all for that matter
There are far better search engines out there. Now post your axe wound tranny

>>22024886
Just read it man! Go! Go! Go!

>>22025139
Calm down, sperg

>>22024886
Whatever you do, don't start with the Greeks.

>>22025186
>use google nigger
>"hey anon dont be a retard"
>noo ur the sperg not me

>>22024905
This, Greeks through Neoplatonics (emphasis on Plotinus/Porphyry)

>>22024938
>>22025303
I don't get what's this meme about "starting with the greeks"

Someone please tell me what does it mean to "start with the greeks"

>>22027368
You start with the greejs

>>22027368
You read Plato and Aristotle and some discussions of the presocratics. In the western tradition, most philosophy is written in direct response to prior art, and Plato's Socratic Dialogues are the most common starting point. He, Aristotle, the stoics, cynics, and epicureans broadly outlined the bounds of western philosophy for 1500 years, and heavily influenced the Islamic philosophers as well. From there, classically, you'd read the Romans, then the neoplatonists, and jump to Descartes, Hume, and Kant. Everything from then on is basically responding to those influences.
This does ignore Asian philosophy almost entirely, a set of traditions that actually predate the Western tradition. For those, you'll want to look into the Vedas, the I Ching, Confucius, and taoism.
Since the 1800s, philosophy has become very cosmopolitan, with people like Schopenhauer being early to take influence from eastern philosophies, so sticking strictly to the european line will stop working at some point. However, for a complete newb, and an anglophone one, the Greeks are probably the best entryway to eventually being able to discuss current topics effectively. Just make time to come back to the east Asian and Islamic stuff eventually.

SWTG

>>22024886
I don't know how good it is but there's a /lit/ guide to philosophy : https://web.archive.org/web/20220927072710/https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/pub

>>22024886
Start with the Romans.

do a cursory google search broadly summing up various "schools" of philosophy
decide which one interests you, then find some pop-level literature on it to read

if you want a book that generalizes a large spectrum of philosophy, I suggest "the story of philosophy" by will durant

>>22025186
>>22026119
both of you kikes need to settle down

>>22024886
being stupid actually helps you to be a good philosopher

>>22024908
fuck no

>>22025021
It's also worth reading Heraclitus and Epicurus since their surviving works are unfortunately only fragmentary. Their names appear in the works of their contemporaries though. Both philosophers are great and highly influential though the modern conception of 'Epicureanism' has been somewhat bastardised

Try watching along with these, and doing the readings
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9GwT4_YRZdBf9nIUHs0zjrnUVl-KBNSM

Also Daniel Bonevac has several good intro courses up for free. Here's a general lecture by him
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AycTgPJtBP0&ab_channel=DanielBonevac

Here are his playlists (go to the bottom)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3Jivn57V6HIAY_Id_XNkYQ/playlists

His Ideas of the 20th century courses are really good, and his analytic one looks solid (he's primarily an analytic but very pragmatist so you will probably get a well rounded approach). He also has a general Introduction to Philosophy one apparently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ7zfvSJJU8&list=PLzWd5Ny3vW3T3ied1iFd4J09t_OnW55r7&ab_channel=DanielBonevac
It looks pretty good for an overview, it's more thematic than chronological.

Arthur Holmes (the first one I linked) is much more continental, and strictly chronological.

Also read things that interest you on earlymoderntexts.com

>>22028072
>>22027456
Forgot to mention that I'm not the anon who wrote the comment that I just replied to. Was supposed to say that his comment is a decent introductory guide but the diversity in schools of thought is so vast that it's not uncommon to use concepts rather than philosophers as a starting point. Personally I started with phenomenology, philosophical hermeneneutics, and semiotics. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu/)) is an incredible resource for this. Definitely worth skimming a few articles but a few minutes on that site can easily turn into a couple hours

>>22028103
christ I was supposed to quote >>22025021 not >>22027428

>>22028076
oh god he really thinks

if you're an absolute retard who needs to be spoonfed philosophy try pic related it was my gateway into philosophy but i read it in high school. it was written by a bunch of contributors rather than one guy so there isn't any overarching bias but as with most introductory secondary texts it's iffy in a few places and outwright wrong in others

>>22028103
Based on your subsequent comment, I can't tell if you meant to quote me (>>22027456). If you did, yeah, that's a huge drawback, but I was just trying to explain the practical reasons for "starting with the greeks" without ascribing any particular qualities to their work. Naming people whose ideas have been built upon just seemed more accessible for a newb than random schools of thought without definitions.
Besides, all the schools are just varying combinations of epistemology, aesthetics, and metaphysics, and those three concepts are also translatable to one another through reframing anyway. Build a cogent, coherent, and complete metaparadigm, or don't waste my time with your fluffed up sociology and math.

>>22024886
This program from the ancient Platonic academy gave me the tools to read Hegel, or any other writer, and actually understand them. Also, Hegel is a neoplatonist and I am astounded people don't see that. They see the Hermetic Egyptian influence on him, which is pretty much the same thing as neoplatonism, but still.

Plato
>First Alcibiades
>Gorgias
>Phaedo
>Cratylus
>Theaetetus
>Sophist
>Statesman
>Phaedrus
>Symposium
>Philebus
>Timaeus
>Parmenides

Aristotle
>Categories
>On Interpretation
>Prior Analytics
>Posterior Analytics
>Topics
>Sophistical Refutations
>Nicomachean Ethics
>Politics
>Physics
>On the Soul
>On Memory
>Metaphysics

Proclus
>Elements of Theology

I am now able to shit on writers from history who are less well read than me. Hume and Locke should have read the Theaetetus and Posterior Analytics which refutes the blank slate. Kant's "thing in itself" is literally just the Platonic ideas, which gets picked up on by ol' Schope, who is also a neoplatonist. I doubt if Kant ever read the Parmenides, because if he did, he would see how we are able to see into the thing into itself and how metaphysics is NOT a fruitless enterprise.

>>22024886
With philosophy you just have to get your foot on the ladder somewhere. The ladder moves up and down and knowledge fills in and builds upon itself. Plato is a good place to start because almost every philosopher references or builds off of him. My advice would be to pick up what interests you

Wow thank you for all the help anons, I want to archive this thread and save it for later but don't know how I do that.

>>22024886
Greeks. First dive headfirst into Plato's Dialogues, I think starting with Meno or Apology is typical. Work your way up to the Republic. If you're not understanding, a guide or outside source won't be a bad idea, I think Stanford University has a decent webpage for this. From Plato you should probably hit the Presocratics briefly, then move onto Aristotle (N' Ethics, De Anima, Metaphysics, etc). From this you will have a great base and familiar with all the fundamentals of philosophy. If you want to skip ahead over 1000 years, fine. Really it is a question of fundamentals first, then after that anything is fair game. By that time you will be confident and aware enough of the schtick to read whatever you want. Don't fall for some Durant meme though, or try to start with some fool like Bataille, and walk backwards into a pile of shit. It should only take a matter of hours to at least see you're on the right track, it's supposed to feel daunting or slow in the best of ways.

>>22028840
Help

>>22029119
Is Plato simple enough that you could just read him without knowing anything or is there something that I should look into before? Also is there any good introductory literature on the Greeks specifically?

>>22030350
according to the guide linked in >>22027576
>It is quite right to start off with learning the history and mythology of Ancient Greece so we have that covered but I would argue that one only needs to read Mythology, The Iliad, The Odyssey and The Histories before moving on to reading actual philosophic texts of The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and the Sophists & the complete works of Plato and Aristotle

Honestly start with contemporary and look into other stuff from there.

>>22024908
Absolutely not.

>>22024886
Read wikipedia and stanford encyclopedia of philosophy then get into big flame wars online like the rest of the sophomores who take philosophy class

>>22024886
Animal Farm by George Orwell.

>>22025139
>>use a globohomo satanic corporation

How is having a mind of a baby?

Is this a good start with the Greeks list?

>>22024886
Ask chatgpt

>>22024908
ignore everything from this retard (by retard you can understand both the poster and russell)

>>22024886
There are two "ins" to philosophy, already covered by this thread.

The first is the Greeks. You would be hard-pressed to find a philosopher who comes after the greeks that doesn't in some way respond to what the greeks have said. They don't just merely quote greek claims, but often the entire discussion is structured around premises that the Greeks established. Key Greeks are Plato/Aristotle, but they are already 300-400 years deep into the philosophical traditions of their own time, and it's important to generally know who they were responding to. The advantage here is being decently thorough, although to be truly thorough, you should probably learn Attic Greek, given a huge variance in translation. It helps read them on their own terms. Even so, a comprehensive background is invaluable and you will have to encounter the greeks sooner or later. The downside is that this is obviously tedious, and might not be immediately interesting.

You can also instead take the contemporary/analytic way in. Any "distilled ideas", encyclopedia articles, or "problems of philosophy" type stuff all follow this approach. The benefit of this approach is a reduction in tedium, but not in difficulty. You can really appreciate the challenge right from the getgo. Although not all contemporary approaches are easy to understand and relate to, you will find the most relatable approaches here. If you don't plan to take philosophy seriously, you can start here. However, I personally started from a contemporary approach and later went greek mode.

Whichever way you go, avoid being baited by the popularity of historical figures, and by the simplicity of some arguments

>>22024886
you have to feel inspired by the muse

>>22034725
This is useful for literary/english-major type people to understand ancient greece, but is downright harmful if you want to learn greek philosophy. Going from Republic to metaphysics is just a huge and unrelated leap. It's better not to start with the presocratics because we have very limited primary sources on them. Also the sophists can be skipped. Everything else is non-philosophical

>>22034849
What would be a good compromise for someone mainly interested in lit bit would like to dabble a bit into philosophy? Add a few works?

Just pretend like you understand it

>>22024886
Start with Euthyphro

>>22026265
If you are trying to get into "Serious" literature you either "start with the greeks" or the bible.

>>22035874
Yeah. I would say dont bother with aristotle' metaphysics, maybe google presocratic fragments.I would suggest actually, to read excerpts or sections based on a topic you find interesting. The material is rich and will often exceed the topic, esp in Plato.

>>22025139

>>22036554
Everything he said is correct and your drug dealer therapist is a retarded woman who thinks men can become women by cutting their cocks off.

>>22036556
I'm in the van parked across the street beaming 5g waves into your brain can you feel me

>>22036565
Might as well sell the van and buy a shotgun to kill yourself with, not even that free candy sign on the side is going to lure in any kids when they see a 6'4" man in a dress is driving it

>>22036571
how can they tell how tall I am when I'm sitting down? checkmate

>>22036576
They recognized you from the Steven Universe discord and googled your name and the sex offender registry came up

>>22036599
I don't even know what that is so you played yourself, who's the cockless one now? You are.

>>22036606
This helpless admission of defeat is the first authentically feminine thing you have ever done

Sadly the last thing you ever do will be supremely masculine, as only men successfully commit suicide

>>22024886
You're not an idiot Steven.

>>22034830
Newfag to this board here. I've noticed noone recommends the stoics here, so far i've read Meditations and Letters from a Stoic but how does it differ from the Greeks?

>>22036847
Those works are very much built upon the grounding set by early Stoics, who themselves were primarily responding to the Cynics, who were mostly inspired by the same ideas that Plato was.
The early stoics focused on concerns of metaphysics and epistemology. By the times of Seneca and Aurelius, the focus had shifted almost entirely toward ethics and morality.
The cynics, very basically, thought that we should all try to just get over wanting things like civilization and comfort, that we should mildly torture ourselves until we don't mind it anymore. The early stoic schools more or less expanded that into something very much alike Theravada Buddhism in metaphysics, but decidedly less nihilistic in morality, prescribing broadly the same virtues that Seneca and Epictetus refined, which then influenced Aurelius.
"The Greeks" means surveying the cynics and early stoics, but also Plato, Aristotle, the Epicureans, and "presocratics". That last group alone includes thinkers whose ideas varied from "everything is made of water oh and also I helped invent the geometry that Euclid would get credit for", to "everything is constantly changing and therefore nothing can ever have value, since that change itself is illusory in its consistency", to "dude, what if things...are made from other things?" and "damn, it sure is hard to go from point A to B".
Everything you ascribe to common sense in terms of philosophy was up for debate in early Greece, thanks to their dense multiculturalism and primitive languages. You don't start with them because they were right, just because they were influential for millennia.

>>22036890
Thanks for writing that up, i've been lurking a lot of threads on this board not really understanding what everyone is talking about but your comment explains it quite a lot for me. Guess i've got a lot of reading to do.

>>22024886
If youre not 130> iq chances are you won't find any enjoyment in philosophy or ever truly understand it. Sorry bud, but its an intellectual elite for a reason. Understanding peeps like Kant and Hegel doesnt make you a philosopher fyi

Has anyone used this chart to read Plato? How important is the order of the readings?

>>22038597
The rationale of the flow chart seems otiose to me, but the first four dialogues are good, just add Phaedo so you get the actual conclusion to the Euthyphro/Apology/Crito/Phaedo sequence. I'd also read the Meno either first or very early since it's famous, short, easy, interesting, and metaphysical. Throw the Phaedrus on there too since it's metaphysical and punchy. Other dialogues listed early on in this graph vary in difficulty and obvious/immediately appealing metaphysical content so YMMV.

I would follow my advice here and then just read whatever you want past these dialogues. There are downsides to everything: if you jump right into the Timaeus and Parmenides you're gonna be lost, but maybe you like getting lost because the metaphysical fare is so good? If you feel compelled to read Gorgias and Protagoras early on for completionism's sake, you will be a better reader of Plato, but also you may burn out and NEVER read more Plato because it becomes a massive chore in your mind.

When in doubt, read what you want. You're gonna read them all eventually. Maybe have a slight preference for reading early-middle dialogues before reading famously rich and difficult ones like Parmenides Timaeus Theaetetus etc.

Republic is hard but gets way easier as you go on. First book is hardest because it was probably a standalone dialogue originally. Then the first half is all fun ideal city building stuff. The second half gets more obviously metaphysical. So just know that it gets easier and easier as you go on, or at least the themes become more and more clear.

But the basic advice of Meno and those four dialogues + Phaedrus early on is very good advice in my opinion. Plus Symposium.

>>22024908
ignore anglos

Which books should I start with to understand Bataille better?

>>22038621
Thanks. I'm most interested in reading the Republic and was wondering if I should get the other dialogues(besides Citro, Euthyphro, Apology and Phaedo which I already own). I'll read those first and as I work through them buy the others or read a pdf. Timeaus seems pretty interesting but also complicated.
Also is there anything I should read/know before Plato like any secondary literature? I'm familiar with Greek mythology and have read the odyssey and am currently reading the Iliad.

I wanna read more 20th century continental philosophy (deleuze, foucault, Frankfurt school, etc), is there a lot of pre-reading I should do or should I just jump in and try to figure it out?

>>22028611
I like that your style.

whats the name of that contemporary german philosopher which advocates for nuclear hecatomb, similar to pentti Linkola
from what i recall he's bald and has a big mustache

>>22039039
You should just try to get into them. If you want a short list of philosophers to know for getting into the ones you listed, understanding the signifcance of Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, and Marx in the history of philosophy should be more than enough for an introductory sketch of the place of those 20th century philosophers.

>>22024886
here it is