/lit/ - Literature

>>8828222
>Protagoras
>Symposium
>certain parts of The Republic

As far as being entertaining to read, I most enjoy Symposium.

For profundity of ideas, Phaedo is by far the best, in my opinion

>>8828222
The Symposium is honestly really funny. I think the Phaedo is my favorite as well.

>>8828323
>>8828290
The ending to Phaedo made me tear up desu senpai

>>8828222
Probably Euthyphro. Gods BTFO, may never recover, on suicide watch etc.

Parmenides because it's the closest Plato ever looks at his own shtick

>>8828413
underrated

real nigga dialogues

I'm reading the Symposium now and the narrative is just bizzare
>Five or so dudes spend an evening getting drunk circlejerking over love
>Abusive boyfriend of Socrates comes along, scares the shit out of him, but he just wants to get drunk

>>8828553
My thing about Symposium is that Aristophanes was preparing a rebuttal, but we never get to read what it was. What a tease.

>>8828413
>>8828435
I want to read Permenides but should I read Theaetetus, Sophist and Statesman first since they're supposedly related?

Is this my best bet if I want to read Plato?

>>8828602
Yes

>>8828413
This. After that I guess Phaedo, even though seeing Socrates defending afterlife so firmly after what he said in the Apology was a little weird.

>>8828602

>Check Amazon
>1808 pages

Mein gott. Only £20-£30 though.

>>8828650
It's his complete work but that doesn't mean you have to read it all unless you want to. Start by reading the essential dialogues and then you decide whether or not you want to finish Plato's body of work or move on to something else.

>>8828654
What would you say are the essential dialogues?
Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Symposium, Republic, and Parmenides?

>>8828717
Timaeus as well.

>>8828324
>"Then call on me as your Iolaus, as long as the daylight lasts."

fuck

>>8828583
Parmenides first. Theaitetos/Sophistes resolves the problems uncovered in Parmenides.

>>8828933
thanks

>>8828222
euthyphro
symposium

>>8828324
>Cebes laughed and said: Assuming that we were afraid, Socrates, try to change our minds, or rather do not assume we are afraid, but perhaps there is a child in us who has these fears; try to persuade him not to fear death like a bogey.
>You should, said Socrates, sing a charm over him every day until you have charmed away his fears.
>Where shall we find a good charmer for these fears, Socrates, he said, now that you are leaving us?

;__;

No love for Meno?

>Pre-Christian 'philosophy'

*tips*

>>8830542
Meno's ok. His proof of the theory of recollection in that one seemed reeeeally shakey

So was Socrates the original shitposter?

>>8830579
And he knows it

>>8830589
I don't understand.

Anyone who doesn't say the Republic is lying

>>8830603
Most of Plato/Socrates' arguments are purposefully shaky, to illustrate how certain truths are not communicable

>>8830603
Well, they are supposed to be dialogues, not doctrine. I would imagine Plato wouldnt want his readers to just take what he was says as fact uncritically.

>>8830496
this is the part that gets me

>That part in The Symposium where the hierarchy of Beauty is described

>>8828222
Theaetetus

>>8830795
It's called the ladder of love you dip

But yeah it's cool

>>8831248
That sounds like a pleb translation.

>>8831363
That's what it's called in academic commentaries and criticisms.

You have read commentaries of Plato, right anon?

>>8831248
They call it Diotima's ladder at my uni

>>8828602
Yeah, but if you care enough you should read Bloom's translation of the Republic (with his excellent interpretive essay) separately.

If dialogues are so good, then why don't philosophers write any today?

>>8830621
>
This is great. I think its shown really well in Aristophanes' speech in Symposium:
>talking about ideas which can't be communicated fully using language
>uses a metaphor in which people can communicate mind-to-mind,

Genius.

>>8831877
Another example which might help, and relates to the issue you mentioned, is considering how we can speak of "what is" vs "what is becoming." Our language is too clumsy for fluid metaphysical distinctions, and we often without even realizing mistakenly predicate being to what is not, but maybe rather is becoming: even saying "x is not" predicates some being "is" of the subject x, and appears to refute itself if we don't laboriously specify the kind of predication we mean.

There's that whole fucky page in Timaeus that deals with something like this. Looks like 49c-50a:

>The safest course is...never to speak of anything else as "this," as though it has some stability, of all the things at which we point and use the expressions "that" and "this" and so think we are designating something.

>>8828222
I really like Protagoras, if only for the fact that it's one of the few "dialogues" that isn't just Socrates speaking with a few "Well, of course, Socrates" and "Most understandably so, Socrates" thrown in between. Protagoras made some really good arguments.

>>8828222
Apology. Crito is good too. And that one where Socrates died (but not for that reason).


The Republic is a fucking meme book. As is ancient Egyptian(?)

Only faggots like his The Republic book.

Diotima featuring Socrates was important to remember

>>8830573
>he thinks the Christians didn't start with the Greeks

>>8832050
They started with the Hebrews.

>>8831997
>The Republic is a meme
Explain