/lit/ - Literature

Can we get flowcharts going for most of philosophical lit? Kant, Hegel, etc.?

>>7240959

I'll post what I have.

Hopefully someone will answer the intial question or post a better version of that chart.

>>7240919

>>7240919
2/?

>>7240975
3/?

>>7240976
4/?

>>7240982

>>7240990
6/?

>>7240998

Still waiting for someone to inform me if the image in OP is a good guide for Plato.

I don't think he meant all general reading charts.... I think that poster just wanted someone who knows their philosophy to make more guides for individual philosophers.

>>7240975
Can't say much about the content. But I'm thinking about saving it because of how beautifully arranged it is.

>>7241043
Yeah, I know, but I used it as an excuse to keep this thread alive and hopefully get an answer to my initial question.

There's also the possibility of some other knowledgeable Anon coming here and posting a quickly made up guide for other philosophers.

7/?

>>7241058
8/?

>>7241061
9/?

>>7241067

>>7241071
11/?

>>7241074
12/?

>>7240919
That's a really forced order that also offers shit info for what to expect in some of the dialogues (the difference between Apology and Crito is practical vs. theoretical? The Phaedo's about destiny? Meno's about pragmatism? What the fuck?).

People will disagree, but for your first encounter with any of these, don't worry about the order. Maybe start with the Apology, but take on everything else as it seems to make sense for you. Worry about order for re-readings, and direct it towards the relationships that dialogues have to each other.

(For example, there's a dramatic order to the eight dialogues that take place at the end of Socrates life: Theaetetus, Euthyphro, Cratylus, Sophist, Statesman, Apology, Crito, Phaedo. Some dialogues can be read together on the basis of how themes are treated, e.g. Gorgias, Republic, Phaedrus, and Symposium, which could set up in a few different ways, since as the Republic is to the Gorgias, so is the Symposium to the Phaedrus, i.e. justice is to rhetoric about justice as eros is to rhetoric about eros. Some dialogues you can order by contrast, Protagoras and Meno for example, which have different takes for different reasons on the subject of how virtue is acquired. Or Parmenides, Symposium, and Phaedo, which all discuss Socrates making his "Socratic turn". Etc. etc. etc.)

Ignore "early-middle-late" stuff or anything that insists that his work culminates in one or two dialogues over the rest, since they *all* treat their topics partially and abstracted from other circumstances.

>>7241274
Finally, an actual answer. Thanks a lot, Anon.

I'll just play it by ear, then.

can i get an organized imgur or something for all the phliosophy images? So much to dive into. Thanks Based /lit/ philosophers.

>>7241294
And I didn't even finish posting them.

>>7241303

>>7241305

>>7241303
My Bad. It's early here but it's nice to have these things in one convenient place. If something gets posted like an Imgur to help make an easier reading guide I'll be looking at it eventually. Thanks.

>>7241307
I think this is the last one. Or it is at least the last one I got.

>>7240919
Where's Lysis?

>>7241720
the fuck?
who cares about that stupid bullshit
(you're gay)

>>7240919
No, this is definitely not a good guide. You have to read his works in the (alleged) chronological order to make sense out of the contradictions between the texts and the overall evolution of Plato's philosophy.
In his early works, he just restituted the thoughts of his teacher Socrates. Then he began developping his own thoughts and it turns out he didn't have the same objects of interest as Socrates. And finally, in his later works, he wrote about things related to his initiation to egyptian mysteries; things that had nothing to do with Socrates.

>>7240919
The traditional route is following the tetralogies. But I will give you my reading order based os some lists that I found on the internet and some secondary sources that I read:

Socratic Dialogues:

>Charmides
Temperance
>Lysis
Friendship
>Laches
Courage
>Euthydemus
Sophistry
>Ion
Poetics
>Phaedrus
Rhetoric, Love (Eros), Theory of Forms
>Cratylus
"Proto-linguistics", Theory of Forms

The Trial of Socrates:

>Euthyphro
Piety, Knowledge, Theory of Forms, Dialetics
>Apology
Knowledge, Justice, "The only thing I know is that I don't know shit".
>Crito
Politics, "Should the Individual go against the State?"
>Phaedo
Escatology, The Soul, Theory of Forms, "Proto-gnosticism".

The Road To The Republic:

>Protagoras
Mythos vs Logos; Definitions, Univocity and Teachability of Virtues, Sophistry
>Meno
Definitions and Teachability of Virtues
>Symposium
Love (Eros), Boipussy
>Gorgias
Definitions and Teachability of Virtues (Justice especially), Sophistry

>The Republic
Justice, The Origin of the State, Ethical Education, State's Ideal Constitution, Virtues, Epistemology, Immortality of the Sould, Theory of Forms, Critique to Poetry, Escatology

Later Dialogues:

>Timaeus
Cosmology, Demiurge, "Proto-gnosticism"
>Critias
The Origin of the State, Atlantis
>Parmenides
Critique to The Theory of Forms, Critique to Parmenides' Philsophy
>Thaetetus
Epistemology
>Sophist
The definition of the sophist, Alternative Metaphysical Theory to the Forms
>Statesman
The Ideal Statesman, Legislation
>Philebus
Goodness
>The Seventh Letter (Not a dialogue)
Epistemology
Laws
>The Ideal State, Legislation, Critique to City-state's Laws, God's Existence Argument

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/pub

>>7241792
While this sort of approach is worthwhile with thinkers whose writings and development we have pretty good evidence for (Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Russell, etc.), it's much harder for it to show anything about Plato's writings besides that very particular elements of style in writing (use of particles, how hiatus is used, stuff of that sort) seemed to change over time. In terms of philosophical content, it's largely unhelpful and runs into problems of not being able to deal with seeming contradictions between dialogues written from the same period (Protagoras and Meno with their opposed takes on how virtue is acquired during the early-middle period, for instance, or the difference in how eros is dealt with in the Symposium and Republic, both written during the middle period, or even the completely different treatments of the forms between Sophist-Statesman and Timaeus, all written during the late period).

Let alone the problem with not really knowing how the dialogues were ever used in the Academy. Aristotle refers to the dialogues every once in a while, suggesting they were read, but we don't have any indication of whether they were ordered, and Aristotle also refers mysteriously to Plato's "unwritten teachings". Further, the dialogues are so dripping with irony (not even understood in some special way that we owe to Plato, but by the very common meaning of the word during his time, "dissembling", "dissimulation"), that taking the dialogues *only* at face value is bound to lead (arguably intentionally on Plato's part) to misunderstandings. Two examples will suffice:

1) The Republic in books 2 and 3 offers a critique of poetry, part of which treats of the narrative approaches of the poets. However, the careful reader may note that Plato uses both of those forms in his writing of the Republic itself; we have a surface that says one thing, but then the dialogue as a whole in its very being says something else about poetry.

2) The Phaedrus, towards the very end of that dialogue, contains a set of passages that critique writing. This is more obvious, in a certain way. The surface offers very particular and qualified criticisms of writing from the mouth of Socrates, but Plato*wrote* those passages! Something else is being suggested that needs to be worked out with the help of the dialogue, but is ultimately not written in the dialogue but maybe alluded to.

(cont.)

>>7243647
There's also the matter of plainly bad arguments in Plato. I don't think anyone would deny that there are, but a focus on *only* the explicit arguments ignores how much the rhetorical dimension of dialogue is involved in every single dialogue. The Meno, for example, has a famous set of passages about Recollection. If we take abstract those passages out from the context of the dialogue, we end up perhaps missing the point of why Plato set them where they are, namely, at a point wherein Meno wants to drop the search for virtue, as a result of his "Meno's Paradox" (look it up on Wikipedia). But the context reveals a few things: 1) That Meno probably uses the paradox for dishonest reasons (is opening question can be translated as a challenge to Socrates, not just "do you know", but "do you have it in you to tell me"; Socrates refers to Meno's tyrannical nature several times, and Meno historically lived up to that character trait; Meno was a student of the rhetorician Gorgias, and his answers are often merely memorized, used to show off and make displays before others, so his paradox is probably memorized from Gorgias, especially if one's familiar with Gorgias's take on Non-Being), and 2) that Socrates draws Meno into continuing the conversation by dressing recollection up as an esoteric mystery, and by using the slave boy demonstration to shame him into continuing. If a reader takes Recollection on its face and abstracted from the dialogue, then they have no explanation for why Socrates immediately *drops* Recollection as soon as the demonstration is over, or why his account of what it has proven has changed (from the earlier claim that it shows we have innate knowledge that needs to be recollected, to the claim afterwards that says that it just shows that we have true opinions).

Some may disagree with me, but Plato's more valuable for re-readings, and OP shouldn't feel intimidated to take on the Republic, let's say, due to feeling inadequately prepared. A first reading at whatever point may even be helpful insofar as it does precisely the work of setting down the preparation needed for a re-reading.

Just remember to formulate lots of questions about what you're reading, how so-and-so might have been better able to defend their point, how such-and-such supposition works, and so on. The best readings of Plato don't look for explicit arguments, but ask questions about how they work, and if they seem to contradict another passage, why that might be the case on the basis for reasons other than merely formal differences.

>>7240975
Has anyone tried learning Greek on their own? How difficult is it?

>>7243833
Harder than Latin, lots of forms to memorize, but not impossible if you're motivated.

>>7243915
I also have an interest in learning Latin, would that help with learning Greek? Should I start there?

>>7243919
It can, I suppose. Some of the cases in Latin (the dative, ablative, and locative, I think) are all contained in one case (the dative) in Attic Greek.

Biblical Greek (Koine) is really easy and regular. If you'd like an easy way into Attic Greek, you could always start there. I had a friend who learned Attic after Koine, and found it pretty easy to adjust to.

Or if you decide to really settle on Attic Greek, you can start reading Xenophon pretty quickly. That's how most classicists started studying Greek throughout history. Very straightforward.

>>7243930
Hm, I'll start with Xenophon I think. I'll have to get my hands on the Greek versions of his texts. Thanks for your help!

>>7243939
I mean, he's easier while working through a grammar at the same time! You can pick up his Greek faster than almost any other writer. But good luck any which way!

>>7240919
>hegel and...
Dropped. There is nothing beyond hegel. Once you start hegel you never stop hegel.

>>7244001
So you never reach the absolute? :P

>>7244444
You'll know you've reached the absolute when the chariot of light sweeps you away into the ultimate beyond.

>>7245332
That sounds like as good an indication as any.

>>7241838
Solid list there

Dude just watch some youtube videos ok, they have all the important stuff with the boring parts taken out. You can learn things a lot faster that way, I've probably learned 10 times more philosophy than the average /lit/ user

>>7246603
this tbh fam