/lit/ - Literature

Philosophy worth reading

Lao Tzu
Chuang Tzu
Dogen

Nietzsche
Wittgenstein

a bit of Schopenhauer

Enjoy wasting your time parsing shitty prose to get to useless concepts that can be summarized with the first paragraph on the wiki page.

>>2631733
>Summarizing Poetics
Oh no you did not.

>Enjoy wasting your time parsing shitty prose to get to useless concepts that can be summarized with the first paragraph on the wiki page.

This, a billion times. Wikipedia and plato.stanford.edu will save you decades of reading, especially with shitheads like Kant.

>>2631689
>the game

Got me.

>>2631733
>Dogen
Surely, you must be trolling. If anyone wants to read the worst of Zen philosophy, here it is.

>>2631689
Just read the wiki.

IMHO yes, of course.

>>2631733

you forgot to recommend Long Fat Dong

>>2631991
long fat dong is a favorite of mine

If you read someone else's summary of the ideas of a writer like Aristotle or Kant, you are getting a summary in line with the interpretation of the summarizer. There is not such a thing as a perfectly objective summary - and could not be such a thing as a perfectly objective summary. If you trust a summary alone, you are not coming to grips with the writer and you are, to some extent, taking on an interpretation which may be flawed or at least limited.

I'm gonna need a source on dat ass if you wouldn't mind.

>>2632008
>If you read someone else's summary of the ideas of a writer like Aristotle or Kant, you are getting a summary in line with the interpretation of the summarizer.

And what's wrong with that? What privileges your own interpretation?

>There is not such a thing as a perfectly objective summary - and could not be such a thing as a perfectly objective summary.

Right, and this applies to your reading of the text as well. There is no 'pure' reading of a text period. It 'loses' something (or rather, the semantics shift inescapably) the MOMENT it is written, the moment it is ushered into existence. Even the original creator's reading is irretrievably altered by the passage of time. A body of text is not a fixed monolithic transtemporal event.

>If you trust a summary alone, you are not coming to grips with the writer

Wrong. You're acting like a reading of a text is a singular, sanitized Ideal activity.

If you ever actually read philosophy rather than just whined at people about reading primary texts, perhaps you'd be aware of the trends in literary theory and epistemology for the past 100 or so years.

>>2632173

The point is to have your own interpretation, you nebbish. Stop asking everyone else to do your thinking for you.

>privileges

Oh Christ, look that up in a dictionary some day and switch majors, because you're clearly getting fed a bunch of--

>Marxist bullshit

Yep, there we go. The original writer's meaning does not change through the ages. A work of art or literature is created by a person to communicate a specific idea, and that which is the greatest is that which communicates the greatest ideas in the clearest way. That's what makes it great.

Someone is ruining your mind and trying to vaccinate your brain against learning from the greatest products of Western civilization.

it's probably useful to read a summary on aristotle just to get an idea of the historical context and a rough outline to start from and then read it properly. then again, aristotle is probably a bit outdated to waste too much time on

>>2632181

>the greatest products of Western civilization

>Aristotle

>>2632181

If you'd like an example of hilarious Marxist doublethink, point out the prof who's trying to inject that corrosive sludge into your intellect that by that standard Marx's work are to be interpreted as the logical product of the condition of the 19th-century English working class -- a condition that no longer exists.

Therefore, by his own standards, Marx was not much of a thinker, and his ideas are completely irrelevant and pointless today.

>>2632185

Philosophy and great art deal in concepts universal to humanity, my friend. Focusing on the context of a great work is an attempt to distract a would-be student from learning anything from it.

2+2 = 4 is as true today as it was 1000 years ago as it will be 1000 years from now. It's the same with Plato or Shakespeare.

>>2632191
>lol wut does Aristotle have to do with Western civilization

Dear Lord.

>>2632193
>>2632181

look everybody the guy who thinks authorial intent matters wants to be taken seriously

>>2632181

the meaning doesn't change but the perception changes over time. which is why it's useful to read secondary literature by people with a wide knowledge of the historical context

>>2632181
>he used 'privilege' completely appropriately

you're an idiot. There's nothing 'Marxist' about the indeterminacy of language, you fucking clod.

>>2632193

everybody is a product of their time. learning the context helps to ubderstand the motives and the intention of the author. Philosophy isn't maths

>>2632195
>authorial intent doesn't matter lol!

I know, it's weird how they even bothered to choose any words at all! Writers should just throw down a flood of random letters and numbers on the page, and then we'll just look at the date and place it was published and from that we can draw our conclusions as to what it really means.

>>2632198

Indeed! Nothing really means anything after all, everything's just a product of its time and the socio-economic oppressive conditions involved, right? There's certain no universality to the human heart and soul.

>>2632202
>philosophy isn't math

Strange. The fathers of philosophy would laugh at you for saying that. Remember what was written over the entrance to the Academy?


PROTIP: You're having your minds poisoned by Marxists.

Read Aristotle then read Aquinas

>>2632206
>"classy" neoconservative 20 year-old community-college fedora-wearing neckbeard who likes "classical" music and The Great Books confirmed

Go suck Alan Bloom's dick in hell.

>>2631768

Intellectual pissant.

>>2632206

you're laughably stupid

>>2632220
>anal devastation
>no counterargument

You know what's sad? When I did my degree (in real science), I supplemented it by reading the greats, for free, from the library. In this fashion I was able to touch my mind to some of the greatest geniuses of history -- the closest thing possible to attending a lecture by them. I became a better person for the reading, by hearing what they had to say (which is why people wrote it down).

All art and writing is a communication from an artist or thinker to us, the audience. The whole of deconstructionism and indeterminacy is a massive logical fallacy -- it is argumentum ad hominem elevated to a discipline. I mean, "consider the source" is a logical fallacy. What you guys have been taught to do is consider ONLY the source. That's sad.

I became educated for free -- you are clearly actually paying some washed-up old radical to vaccinate your mind against the collected wisdom of centuries of civilization, and that's a bitter shame.

>>2632236
>colonic fukushima in progress

Ah, the mark of the Liberal Arts intellect -- "ur dumb lol"

Consider that your education dollar may not be producing much of a benefit.

even if you don't buy into 'the author is dead' argument, which is debatable (but i tend to side with it)

this is quite undeniable http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/seminar/Fallacy.htm

>>2632238

or it could possibly be that people are able to engage with your arguments but don't feel like it because your posting is belligerent and boring

just a lil something to ponder

>>2632235

how the fuck is deconstructionism and argumentum ad hominem

i'm not sure you understand what either means if you think this but do explain

>>2632247
>trainwreck of grammar
>pretension of intellectual superiority
>thinks we're having an argument
>belligerent

I suggest you look up that word in the dictionary sometime, friend <3

>>2632252

Easy -- to treat the historical and social context of a given work as its actual 'meaning,' rather than what the author actually intended to communicate when he or she wrote it, is the same principle as disregarding what a person says because of who he is. It is "consider the source," which is anti-logic.

It's no different from Hannity viewers disbelieving something they saw on CNN because it's THAT DAMN LIBRUL MEEDYA.

The message is what is important, not where it is coming from. If a neo-Nazi skinhead says "the building is on fire," "consider the source" might just get you burned to death.

Sadly, I'd love to stay longer but I have to run. For fun, try apply deconstruction to the works of Marx and Engels and see how much an English prof applauds your intellectual consistency.

>>2632263
0/10

You're not even trying.

>>2632263

deconstruction is pretty much the opposite of this though

it considers the text in itself and in relation to other 'texts'

it is not at all comparable to disagreeing with a person because of who they are, it removes people from the equation because of how language and literature can be viewed as an event and becomes detached from the author once it becomes a text leading to a multiplicity of meaning

you're arguing against a more historicist reading of texts, but your confusion over this shows how dumb you are

historicist interpretations also often use authorial intention as a line of argument

so yeah, you dumb

>>2632235
OK so basically you got a two-year degree in lab tech and spent your leisure time listening to TTC lectures on Greek antiquity. What you posted was a TTC lecture intro verbatim.

Should've tried "Western Philosophical Tradition: Descartes to Derrida". Maybe then you wouldn't be floundering and punctuating your arguments with memes and reaction images.

just wanted to point out that someone was saying "lol look at the person who thinks that authorial intent matters lol"

apparently without realizing that this is a conversation about philosophy, not literature

>>2632315

still applicable homie

>>2632319
not really tho because philosophy is not art it is an argument

if you want to adopt your own interpretation of a given philosopher that's cool and legit. but it's also completely legit to talk about "what philosopher x really meant" or to talk about his views or his intent in a way that it is not necessarily legit to do with writers of fiction

yeah

yeah

>>2632323

this seems pertty reasonable, thanks for making me think about stuff with a pretty reasonable post

>>2632323
>>2632332
>>2632315
>>2632263

samefag. Just leave already dude.

>>2632173
>Even the original creator's reading is irretrievably altered by the passage of time.

Does this fact also apply to your post? In this case, my interpretation of your post is this:

The author intended to say he is gay and loves cocks.

>>2632533
You never know. She might read Aristotle.

>should I just read someone's summary of his thoughts?

ROFL.

Don't bother. Just admit you're lazy.

>>2632579
THAT'S SEXIST!

>>2632341
>actual arguments
>"lol ur the same guy"
We're clearly in presence of a master debater here.

One of those posts you accused of samefagging is even disagreeing with the others, you dumb moron.

90% of Plato should be read, the rest is optional since it's mostly prose satire of sophists and might not tickle your fancy
90% of Aristotle should be read, the rest is optional since it's so niche or so heavily deprecated by modern thought, and only interesting for historical context/curiosity

If you read summaries without the intent of reading the actual work, you are a pleb. If you don't enjoy reading philosophy and you don't look forward to and relish reading Plato and Aristotle, you are a pleb, and should not be doing philosophy.

>>2632173
This guy's a retard. The implication isn't that only by reading a text can you glimpse its ~TRUE FORM~. It's that continually developing and contrasting different interpretations is important. This can be proved remedially, either through logic or example.

>>2632185
>it's probably useful to read a summary on aristotle just to get an idea of the historical context and a rough outline to start from

This is true. It's easy to lose perspective of this and give bad advice to newbie readers, when you've been doing philosophy for years. Most people picking up Plato don't know how the fuck to read him or who the fuck he's implicitly critiquing. You need to understand the intellectual climate in Athens and Greece, the sophistic movement, the Presocratics, etc., to read Plato or Aristotle. Likewise, you need to read Plato to fully understand Aristotle.

THIS IS A REALLY BAD THREAD