/lit/ - Literature

>>8930568
Start with the Greeks.

There's a few annoying children on here who find it unbearably epic to post a classic /lit/ meme in every vaguely applicable thread. my diary desu and that corn picture also apply. It's easy to ignore though.

>>8930579
Start with the Greeks.

Start with the meek

Does anyone (from experience) actually think that reading the Greeks has improved their ability to understand contemporary writers?

>>8930596
Start with the Fleeks

>>8930596
Yes.
Now start with the greeks.

>>8930604
I'll start with yo mama.

>>8930568
The reason you think that is simply because you did not start with the Greeks. That is why we post it faggot.

>>8930568
You're not missing something, per se. I think the force of the suggestion is that later philosophy makes better sense having first read the Greeks. Personally, I can see someone beginning with the French, say, with Descartes. I fear, though, that the basis for his ideas and arguments would be harder to see. Not impossible, just harder.

Fucking /pol/ thinks everything is a meme because they can't understand anything.

>>8930596
Yes. As an example, I've been working on a senior thesis on Leibniz's mathematics and theology, and how the one in a way helps us to understand the other. His whole notion of forms and individual substance would make less than no sense if I had not had Plato and Aristotle in my freshman year.
>Granted, Plato's forms and Leibniz's are not quite the same, but whatever.

>>8930641
This intrigues me greatly. So, in a sense, pure mathematics can be understood as the "world of ideas" and applied as the "world of forms?" In the sense that pi is an expression of our failure to be able to understand eternity, and that the Pythagorean constant is an expression of how irrationality is embedded within even the simplest of structures?

Liebnitz and Newton both solved Zeno's paradoxes (which are based on eternal recursion and the concept of infinity) by instantiating the limit - this essentially reflects Godel's Incompleteness Theorem in that the system which includes infinity will essentially be forever bound to such paradoxes as Zeno pointed out, until one steps outside of that system by understanding infinity as strictly abstract, and understanding things only at certain bound points as they approach it, yes?

So, is there value in extending this principle to the binary duality inherent in the Law of the Excluded Middle, and approaching things from a perspective of more than a bivalent truth value? Can we construct a new calculus, where bivalence is considered as a function of time, and that things are only true or false at a given moment, but along a trajectory must be considered simultaneously both? Would this be a way to break out the systems which bind us?

I'm sort of 'sperging out on you, here, I know, but I've sort of been obsessed with this stuff for the past few years, and your seeing those connections got me all worked up. Answer whatever you can, or just think seriously about it and let it rattle around for a while...

what are you even talking about? 4chan literally started a "Start with the Greeks" reading group and there was a 100-post argument because they didn't start with a handful of American and British secondary sources.

You must think this is Bizarro /lit/, where people actually read, and maybe even read the classics...

Didn't the Greeks like to fuck little boys?

Maybe there's a reason /lit/ jerks off to the classics so much

>>8930568

Truth is nobody on this board has even read the Greeks

>>8930688
>In the sense that pi is an expression of our failure to be able to understand eternity
Oh my god, stop.

> the Pythagorean constant is an expression of how irrationality is embedded within even the simplest of structures?
Irrational numbers have nothing to do with the concept of irrationality in thought, the name just means they can't be expressed as a ratio of two integers.

>Liebnitz and Newton both solved Zeno's paradoxes (which are based on eternal recursion and the concept of infinity) by instantiating the limit
No, the point of a limit in most cases is that it is never reached, it's just what the function approaches and gets arbitrarily close to. So if you want Achilles to actually reach the finish line, saying he gets arbitrarily close to it doesn't solve the paradox.

> this essentially reflects Godel's Incompleteness Theorem in that the system which includes infinity will essentially be forever bound to such paradoxes as Zeno pointed out, until one steps outside of that system by understanding infinity as strictly abstract, and understanding things only at certain bound points as they approach it, yes?
STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP

>>8930749

I've read the greeks and I'm a pol migrant who thinks this entire board is a sack of heaping dog shit until we came

What does that say about /lit/

>>8930755
Why is it that what I find most interesting about Mathematics is inevitably what makes mathematicians always tell me I'm wrong and to just stop? It sort of makes me sad. I'm sad now.

>>8930763
It says you are lying sack of shit.

>>8930596
Fucking no. I think it was mostly a waste of time for me.

>>8930763
>Identifies with 4chan boards.
something went wrong with your life

>>8930763
this

>>8930772

Why are you so mad? Don't you like migrants?

>>8930780

I dunno what you mean, could you please explain more thoroughly?

>>8930769
Sorry man but it triggers me to see people misunderstanding mathematical concepts and thinking they're applicable to things they aren't, especially when they try to make it mystical or spiritual. A lot of popular misconceptions start this way because people pick up these memes without a rigorous understanding of the concepts involved. Really understanding math takes a lot of hard work and the more you understand it the more you understand that, while it is fascinating and even beautiful, math doesn't hold any profound insights into human nature or metaphysics.

>>8930568
>am I missing something?
The importance of the fucking Greeks.

>>8930596
Plato's dialogues are still the "tutorial level" of philosophy.

Virtue ethics has been experiencing a revival since Anscombe's Modern Moral Philosophy and MacIntyre's After Virtue, which results in FUCKING READ ARISTOTLE.

The Miliṇḍapañha is the Start with the Greeks of Buddhism, with one of the most concise yet thorough descriptions of the latter's philosophy, in the form of a dialogue between the Indo-Greek king Menander I and a Buddhist sage, with the kind of questions a Westerner would ask.

You could identify Freud's misreading of Oedipus Rex if you read or watch the fucking thing, and so on and so on.

If you know your myths, poets, tragedies, fables, etc. you know how genre fiction writers make a living out of reselling them to their ignorant audiences. Just like the Bible here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebfjuk2fHJo

Then again maybe it's just a meme, and /lit/ recommends people to read timeless influential literature out of spite and hatred.

>>8930596
starting with the greeks has a negligible benefit when it comes to digesting most contemporary books
starting with the greeks has a significant benefit when it comes to digesting most contemporary literature

>>8930811
>Plato's dialogues are still the "tutorial level" of philosophy.
I read these (it was a collection of 3 books of same series, about 1000 pages or so) and I was annoyed by them. They were things that I had learned by proxy and nothing was new of them. Felt like reading a recap, which was wasted

>>8930769
If you really, truly have an interest in that type of mathematics you're doing yourself a disservice by not actually learning about it. People try to jump to wild spiritual pseud conclusions about math without a grasp of the work it takes to reach them based on some vague clickbait article they skimmed once all the time.
I study physics and it's probably even worse. You get all kinds of 15 year olds who just learned what QM was and are convinced it proves/disproves free will, or a hundred flavors of batshit crazy multiverse interpretations, or Scrodinger's Cat jokes. Then, when you try to explain to these people why they're so wrong, you literally can't because they don't grasp a single one of the underlying concepts.

>>8930811
>out of spite and hatred.
I was thinking more misguided pride and traditionalism.

But I appreciate your post. I am mainly worried about this >>8930816 sort of experience. But I have enjoyed the older pieces of writing in my field more than the modern works so I think I want to give the Greeks a chance. I have Pope's Iliad and Odyssey on the way.

>>8930814
Cheers m8. Getting more insight into Freud and Jung interests me, and not only do they reference the myths a lot, I see them as a sort of reincarnated Plato and Aristotle. I'll check out the classics.

>>8930799
So, that's like the tenth time I've heard that response, almost verbatim, from people in the field of Maths. Why are you so terrified of there being meaning in it? You do realize that such a visceral reaction actually suggests that you're afraid of the power of exploring it, right? I'm not trying to be a dick here, it's just that you seem allergic to the idea, and it should really make you explore why that is. We know that Math is essentially a language insofar as it is a system of expression, and the concepts it is capable of expressing are greater than that which the human mind is able to fully understand... is it just that you're reminded of the limits of human intelligence? Is Graham's Number, for example, a concept you don't enjoy? It's just so paradoxical, the idea of being so adamant about there being no connection between the language of math and essentially the entire history of philosophy that informed it. Anyway, I appreciate your response.

>>8930799
So you dismiss the philosophical questions about mathematics being of the human mind or of the objective universe, then?

The fact that maths, like language, paints a picture of the bridge between human subjectivity and the external world. It draws us into the mystery of human achievement and understanding itself.

A lot of writers up until 1930-1940s referred to Classics extensively, from Marx to Nietche to Early Christians to Arab Philosophers to Shakespeare you need to know a little bit of classics if you want to comprehend them.

Not saying you need to know everything or read every work of plato before moving on but it is very absurd to trying to read Early Christians who have a lot o platonic references, without knowing plato

>>8930936
>>8930942
I don't think that anon was saying there is no beauty/mysticism/philosophy that can be found in math, he was just saying that laymen who don't actually know too much about math look for all of that in the wrong places.
I don't mean to offend but both of you sound guilty of that, picking popular subjects like pi and posting vague statements about how it pushes the limits of human intelligence or whatever.
It would be like making a long post on /lit/ about how The Fault In Our Stars is just so aesthetically perfect and makes you marvel at John Green's mastery of the english language and amazing power over human emotion. To someone who knows more about literature, it just sounds like a dumb or at the very least out-of-place statement.

>>8930918
So, that's the thing - I *am* "actually learning about it." I've studied math and physics for the past 20 years (albeit without a degree in those disciplines), and yet everyone in the field seems to have taken some blood-oath to simply refuse that there's any possibility of any sort of nurturing comfort in the improbability of our existence. Even worse, because there *are* so many intellectually dishonest zealots out there trying to use QM or Pythagoras to convert people to their version of god (can we just forget that the name "Intelligent Design" ever existed?), I wind up getting lumped in with the people that piss me off just as much as they do the Mathematicians and the Physicists! I'm in a no-man's-land of the nexxus between the humanities and sciences, and I'm seeing all these connections that neither end of the bridge give a fuck about because they're so wrapped up in the academic warfare of justifying and legitimizing the funding for their department over another (or, more to the point, showing how some corporation is going to specifically benefit from their work so they can earn a grant for the uni) that they can't be assed to consider it. It's sort of frustrating, tbqh.

>>8930568
start with the greeks, you cucked piece of shit

Sage!

>>8930963
So, you've nailed down Pi, then. Got that all figured out and can neatly explain it to us? You can reconcile the fact that a circle, when divided by its diameter, will result in a number that could be calculated until the alleged heat-death of the universe occurs without ever showing repetition or terminating, and you think that bringing it up is the equivalent of calling contemporary YA lit the best thing since sliced bread?! Are you actually serious, or are you trolling?

>>8930963
I am this >>8930942 poster.

I didn't say it pushes the limits of human intelligence. I'm saying that mathematics in itself is a reflection of human intelligence communicating with the external world in a profound and very successful way, and that is amazing. The more intricate mathematics becomes, the more interesting this relationship becomes.

>i don't think that anon was saying there is no mysticism/philosophy that can be found in math

But he was, see below:

>>8930799
>especially when they try to make it mystical.
>math doesn't hold any profound insights into human nature or metaphysics.

Books I've read outlining the history of philosophy beg to differ, and I think some people want maths, like literature, to be their own precious little bubble of expertise that they can claim social ownership of. AND/OR they are so emotionally reactive against metaphysics that they don't want to be "tarnished with the same brush" (again implying that maths is something that belongs to them in any way).

>>8930568
It's not a meme, you dip.
What rustles MY jimmies is when people ask the same stupid questions over and over again without searching the archives and then get annoyed when someone gives them a shot - but entirely correct - answer, that they need to start with the Greeks.
Also, nice image macro, faggot.

>>8930579
Can someone post the corn picture for reference?

>>8930967
>So, that's the thing - I *am* "actually learning about it." I've studied math and physics for the past 20 years (albeit without a degree in those disciplines)
Good, I'm glad anons like you take interests in it.
>and yet everyone in the field seems to have taken some blood-oath to simply refuse that there's any possibility of any sort of nurturing comfort in the improbability of our existence.
I'm confused by what this means. Academia isn't comforted by the improbability of our existence? I think many are, based on the popularity of people like Carl Sagan in the scientific community (with views like the ones expressed in his pale blue dot monologue). But I'm unclear what exactly this is supposed to be and why you're convinced stem lacks it.
>I'm in a no-man's-land of the nexxus between the humanities and sciences, and I'm seeing all these connections that neither end of the bridge give a fuck about because they're so wrapped up in the academic warfare of justifying and legitimizing the funding for their department over another (or, more to the point, showing how some corporation is going to specifically benefit from their work so they can earn a grant for the uni) that they can't be assed to consider it.
So, what, scientists don't pay enough attention to the humanities and their connections to it? I agree. I don't think it has anything to do with the often-memed desperation for funding that is supposedly plaguing stem, though, and is more just a result of the type of people that are attracted to the field. The researchers I know are all very staunchly analytical and mostly see philosophy, especially modern philosophy, as language games without any rigor.

>>8930981
Thank you for being the eloquent and far more charismatic voice that I can't quite seem to muster right now.
>mathematics in itself is a reflection of human intelligence communicating with the external world in a profound and very successful way, and that is amazing. The more intricate mathematics becomes, the more interesting this relationship becomes.
Like, seriously, that is beautiful. I'm deeply touched by it because it's so much what I've been trying to say, and it frames it so well as a dialectic between human and non-human intelligence. I seriously love you, anon.

>>8931019
>anons like you
Ouch.
>The researchers I know are all very staunchly analytical and mostly see philosophy, especially modern philosophy, as language games without any rigor.
You're sort of exactly confirming my point, here. Mathematics is also a language game, and the word "rigor" gets used all to often as a stand-in for "mindless repetition." We need to be looking at the underlying structures in both Math and other languages. We need to be learning Universal Grammar along with Calculus, and recognizing the algorithms that underlie so much of our functional cognition, and where our consciousness truly begins. We all need to start realizing that we're really speaking the same language.

The only thing the Greeks really help you understand is Ulysses. Most literature isn't that deep in Greek references, and if there are ones they'll be explained in the introduction or literally every single literary analysis of the work.

>>8930936
>that's like the tenth time I've heard that response, almost verbatim, from people in the field of Maths
I mean, when that many people who are knowledgeable about something tell you you're wrong about that thing for the exact same reasons, you should probably consider the possibility that you don't know what you're talking about rather than that everyone is just too close-minded to accept your wisdom.

>>8930967
>I've studied math and physics for the past 20 years (albeit without a degree in those disciplines)
Have you actually been reading textbooks? Stuff like A Brief History of Time doesn't count. I mean it's cool if you want to read that sort of thing but you shouldn't consider yourself qualified to challenge people who actually had to earn degrees. Can you do this undergrad level real analysis proof? Look, it even has a hint. Sorry if it sounds like I'm picking on you but the fact is you're giving off a distinct impression of pseudointellectualism.

>>8930977
>So, you've nailed down Pi, then. Got that all figured out and can neatly explain it to us?
Yes, π is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Numerically, it can be defiend as 4 times the integral from 0 to 1 of sqrt(1 - x^2) dx. Admittedly, I couldn't give you the proof that π is transcendental but it's not like it's some sort of great mystery, it just involves more complex math.There's no answer to "why is it like that?" except the proof that it is like that. It's like that because it follows logically from our definitions and axioms.
>You can reconcile the fact that a circle, when divided by its diameter, will result in a number that could be calculated until the alleged heat-death of the universe occurs without ever showing repetition or terminating
Reconcile it with what? It doesn't contradict anything, except maybe intuition.

>>8931080
>Can you do this undergrad level real analysis proof?
forgot pic.

>>8930811
Why is MacIntyreposting so big now?
>nobody reads him
>shill him and Anscombe for about 2 months
>come back after a month of inactivity
>lit is even worse with more pol but somehow, MacIntyre is even a meme

>>8931032
Ok. If you're wondering why scientists as a whole rarely address those topics, it's because they're incredibly nebulous.
>looking at the underlying structures
There's all kind of research that happens in number theory, abstract algebra, and evolutionary linguistics, but none of it is within my grasp at all. I don't think you can relate disparate fields like these by just saying "we SHOULD relate them." I suppose this depends on what you mean by "looking at" them. What are you looking for? How do you look?
>recognizing the algorithms that underlie so much of our functional cognition, and where our consciousness truly begins.
There are people doing this right now, it's just really fucking hard.

I also didn't mean to sound sarcastic with the "anons like you" comment, I'm genuinely glad people like this kind of thing and want to have these conversations. I'm actually part of a group at my uni that goes to elementary schools and demonstrates physics experiments because I really like introducing this stuff to people.

>>8931022
My pleasure, anon. Takes two to tango.

>>8931106
>shill him and Anscombe for about 2 months
Macintyre has been a thing since the start, some anons even sort of stalked him years ago iirc. So unless you shilled him on 2010 you're late to the party.

>>8930755
Dumbcunt

>>8931080
>>8931085
>>8931113
Not that anon, but you are sounding like a bitter elitist. Being an intellectual (as opposed to pseudo-intellectual) does not mean you have to be a detailed expert at every system of knowledge in the world, and people CAN make meaningful commentaries outside their fields of expertise.

I don't need to know the ins and outs of architecture to comment on the quality of a city skyline and whether it is beautiful or not, or be able to paint a masterpiece to comment on the mystery within a work of art. All that anon is saying is that the phenomena of mathematics, and it's place in the universe, fills him with wonder. This is not even a new stance to take in mainstream philosophy (e.g., start with the Greeks), because maths has been used within philosophy to generate meaningful contemplations of reality as a whole for a very long time.

You continually shutting him down, comparing him to a primary school student, and throwing equations in his face, makes you come across as a tired academic who deep down is bitter that your own subject matter does not fill you with the same degree of wonder.

>inb4 backtracking it IS wonderful, I never said it wasn't
Then you are in agreement. I'm sorry people are more impressed with the grandiose wonders of the universe than your postgrad maths skills.

>>8931106
Because he managed to sell Aristotle to non-Catholics, a way out of emotivism for analytic meta-ethics, and the human being and the culture thereof to ethical investigation in general.

>>8931260
>All that anon is saying is that the phenomena of mathematics, and it's place in the universe, fills him with wonder.
That's definitely not all he was saying. He was making a lot of incorrect and vague claims that someone really familiar with mathematics would know better than to make and then calling mathematicians zealots for trying to correct him. Only the first two posts you quoted are me btw but I agree with the other one.

>>8930568
it's a meme you dip

>>8930931
>But I appreciate your post. I am mainly worried about this >>8930816 sort of experience.
What the fuck, are you actually scared of being potentially tricked into reading timeless literature? I'm triggered right now, this is the type of person I share this piece of shit board with, juvenile brainlets who needs to be hand-held through everything who would rather look for reason NOT to read rather than the opposite.

look LOOOOKK AT THIIIIIS >>8930568
>>8930688
>>8930769
>>8930777
>>8931260
look at these complete pseuds holy shit mane im cringing right now

>>8930568
>Why am I suggested to learn basic arithmetic before jumping into calculus?

I think the Starting with the Greeks graphics we have are too extensive and time-consuming to recommend to newcomers to /lit/. We need a "Greek Starter Pack" instead, containing only the most vital pieces, excerpts, or abridgments so people don't give up from being overwhelmed.

>>8931407
I'm just starting with Plato. I finished Cratylus and really enjoyed it but I think I'm going to reread it after finishing some of his other work. Might read Symposium next. But I just plan on buying his Complete Works, as well as Aristotle's Complete Works.

Here's the thing, people are complaining about being told to start with the Greeks, but are they just complaining without even giving it a chance. I can't seem to put it down and I now understand why it's recommended as such a focal starting point. I enjoy it, but perhaps it's one of those things were when you are told to do something, you want to do something else, almost out of spite. I don't know. I'm enjoying the ride, then again depending on the preference of literature and writings that people enjoy, it might not be for everyone.

>>8931423
Come back after you've read the first 1,000 pages that are contained in the Start with the Greeks infographic. You'd still only be on the 2nd book too. That's how much there is on that graphic.

>>8931435
I know, I'm not in a rush. I've got whatever time I have left in life to enjoy reading and learning. I'll read through it in pieces and mix it up with other novels and literature as I please.

I'm up for the challenge. But yeah, I suppose a guide would be nice and perhaps I should have followed the guide before jumping right into Cratylus, but oh well. I'm doing this for my own enjoyment.

>>8931423
I'm of the opinion that the complete works of anyone are rarely worth reading. I'd rather knowledgeable academic sift for the greatest pieces and read those.

>>8931477
True, but I also just want the Complete Works for my bookshelf. I can read what I need as I go along and can go back to everything else later as I please.

>>8931496
Many Shakespeare Complete Works are inferior to buying the Arden/Oxford editions which contain only one work each because the Complete Works lack sufficient footnotes or supplementary material. Good editions, to me, have long footnotes, a long introduction, and criticism in the back.

I am unfamiliar with Plato/Artistotle editions though, but you might want to examine them.

>>8931586
If I were to buy the Shakespeare Complete Works I'd be looking at the Oxford edition.

>>8930811
Thanks for informing me of the Milinda Panha. Looks interesting as fuck but I've never heard of it before.

>>8931032
>We need to be learning Universal Grammar along with Calculus
UG is pseudoscience. Chomsky is a rationalist hack. Read more Quine.

>>8931646
>Chomsky is a rationalist
>Read ... Quine.
Holy shit anon do some basic research before posting.

>>8931407
There's a short one with like 5 core books. You have to read Homer regardless btw.

>>8930568
"Start with the Greeks" was originally a response to those looking to get into philosophy and didn't know where to begin, and still stands as sound logic for such.
it just got out of hand because you're all a bunch of parroting newfags.
You don't have to be familiar with the Greeks beyond The Odyssey/Iliad for literary pursuits

>>8930596
I've never read the greeks and I usually don't have a problem reading philosophers except for Kant, Hegel and some of the other difficult ones. I might go and read some of the pre-socratics at some point in my life, but it will probably be after I finish Lacan and some of the frankfurters.

>>8931974
>some of the pre-socratics
Don't miss out on based Heraclitus.

>>8930568
Start with whatever you like.
It's just a meme

>>8931317
I hope you are as successful in the world as you clearly think you are.

>>8931887
>he doesn't know the significance of Greek mythology
Bet you didn't read the Bible either, huh.
And what about drama? You don't think the Greeks are important?

>>8930918
>schrodingers cat jokes
I fucking hate big bang theory for ducking using this now all the normies think they know what it means and overuse the shit out of it

>>8933629
I read the Bible cover to cover twice and I pick it up now and again.
I still maintain the fact that "start with the Greeks" started as a meme response to philosophy threads and Odyssey/Iliad are the only real "requirements".
Sophocles important, but I wouldn't consider him essential.

>>8931080
You're really missing the point. I respect the expertise of people who have devoted their studies to acquiring the understanding that they have - I'm just trying to make connections between disciplines. I have a Master's degree. I know how research works. I recognize that there are many areas in which retreading concepts can be seen as an insult to those who have spent their entire lives establishing generally accepted theorems, and I know how frustrating it is when someone refuses to accept your authority. I'm not doing that. I accept that you are an authority on Math because I can tell from your writing and the fact that you give at all of a shit about it. And obviously I'm not able to do that undergrad proof because I'm not literate enough to be able to translate it into the concept it represents - I know it's asking for proof that a pair of coordinates in the Real Number set that is continuous is also injective based on the idea that it's monotone (which it defines in the proof). I've taken enough symbolic logic to know that it's a set theory issue, and that it's essentially asking if being monotone is a necessary consequence of its being injective, and I'd probably go about proving it by demonstrating that for all a and b, given their continuity, there is no case where the function would not be distinct (which is essentially what disjunctive means, given the wiki). This proof would be somewhat tautological, however, because it is essentially what the definition of Injection is, according to what I could gather from five minutes on the wiki page for it: "Let f be a function whose domain is a set X. The function f is said to be injective provided that for all a and b in X, whenever f(a) = f(b), then a = b; that is, f(a) = f(b) implies a = b. Equivalently, if a ≠ b, then f(a) ≠ f(b)." The point is, I know I'm missing a lot of the details, but that doesn't mean that I don't understand the concepts. As for Pi, it's astounding that you are so glib about one of the most long-standing mindfucks of human history, and you're just shrugging it off. It *does* represent one of the limits of human knowledge, and this should be humbling to anyone who has tried to understand how the world works - which is anyone who studies math.
>>8931284
What's incorrect? What claims are you talking about?

>>8930688
Wow, you certainly did throw a lot at that. Thinking about pi in particular, I'd refer you to an essay of Leibniz's called "On the True Proportion, Expressed in Rational Numbers, of a Circle to a Circumscribed Square." He there treats the variable as a sort of contained whole that we cannot functionally describe except in the comparison of two harmonic series. He, moreover, refers to it as a mechanism that is given by a law of progression. The problem is that we can understand it, but not practically work it out. Leibniz's religious-mathematical arguments suggest that there is a gap between what we figure out in terms of efficient cause (physics & materials), and what can be said of final cause (metaphysics & forms). I don't know if that suggests that the two necessarily inhabit different worlds (idea vs. form, etc.), but that's something I'm still struggling with in the course of writing. Math seems to apply to both sides of the isle, and that's why I'm focusing on it.
DESU, I haven't read enough Godel to say much about it, but I'm working through the Nagel/Newman for my math course in college. And you lost me totally with the excluded middle bit.

Cheers!

>>8935374
Law of Excluded Middle is like the thing not in Hegelian logic but in Aristotelian logic, and is something Kierkegaard thought for example allowed for personal choice.

While it isn't the same thing as the principle of bivalence the two are not entirely separate either. It's in this part that people get confused.

>>8931260
> Being an intellectual (as opposed to pseudo-intellectual) does not mean you have to be a detailed expert at every system of knowledge in the world
>people CAN make meaningful commentaries outside their fields of expertise
Did you miss his entire post where everything he said about mathematics is wrong? Your whole post is that x is possible therefore x in this case must be true. Those things you said can be true but were most definitely not true in this instance.

>What's incorrect? What claims are you talking about?

>In the sense that pi is an expression of our failure to be able to understand eternity
> the Pythagorean constant is an expression of how irrationality is embedded within even the simplest of structures?
>>Liebnitz and Newton both solved Zeno's paradoxes (which are based on eternal recursion and the concept of infinity) by instantiating the limit
> this essentially reflects Godel's Incompleteness Theorem in that the system which includes infinity will essentially be forever bound to such paradoxes as Zeno pointed out, until one steps outside of that system by understanding infinity as strictly abstract, and understanding things only at certain bound points as they approach it, yes?

That is what that poster was talking about. Those are all the wrong claims that OP makes.

>>8935409
What texts do you have in mind for Aristotle and Kierkegaard? It's been a while for me as far as the first goes, and I'm woefully under-read on the second.
>Yes, I fell for the Fear and Trembling meme, but it isn't totally my fault. It's my school's curriculum to start with it.

>>8935374
Thank you - I will be reading it shortly! The LEM bit was a thing that struck me during a Symbolic Logic course (just LSL [Language of Sentential Logic], but I did some work with LMPL [Language of Monadic Predicate Logic] after the quarter was finished). As >>8935409 mentions, it's not exactly the same thing as bivalence, but it sort of is, too - here's the context in which I am using it: Given a truth-value in LSL, there is exactly one option for an atomic sentence: true or false. This can be mitigated in a sense by the inclusion of existential statements ("There exists a ___ such that...") and "For all ___" statements, but the bivalence of atomic sentences (which are essentially statements without any logical operands, such as "My dog is sleeping," that can be symbolized in a Well-Formulated-Formula by adding conjunctives (&), disjunctions (v, or "or"), negations (~), conditionals (->, or "if A then B"), and biconditionals (<->, or A if and only if B) seems to be a fairly solid bottom line in logic. Then, after reading Ruben Hirsch's "What is Mathematics, Really," and seeing the example of why division by 0 can't be defined (because we'd either have to treat 1/0 as 0 or 1, which would allow for a simple proof that equates 1 and 0, thus undermining the entire foundation of the real number system), it reminded me of how binary systems are essentially based upon the LEM, and yet how in "real life" truth-values do not really work like that, and something can be true and false simultaneously, based on context (not to mention the idea that it can be true until proven false). Of course, the particle/wave duality maps onto this idea in a pretty obvious way, because if we consider the wave-function as a piece of information, it can't be bivalent, because it is collapsed only upon observation, which places it in a superpositional state. Thus, I would like to see a system of logical expression built upon a non-bivalent foundation, such that a truth-value is conditional upon contextual factors, if not a function of time itself (if that makes sense... it might not, that's really where it gets squidgey in my head).

Anyway, thank you again, and good luck with the thesis!

>>8935421
Again, please explain what's wrong with them. I understand if that's not how you would say it, but what about these things is objectively "wrong?" How would you rephrase these things in a way that you feel would be more mathematically valid?

>>8930579
I was the first person to post my diary desu actually

>>8930769
cute if girl

>>8930568
>am I missing something
I don't know you fucking retard have you ever read the Greeks? No you haven't, so please stop wasting everyone's fucking time.

>>8935540
Oh, you think girls who like math are somehow cute because they subvert the traditional patriarchy? Or do you just associate the capacity to feel sadness (and actually express it) with some inherent femininity? Either way, it seems like a manifestation of some toxic masculinity constructions, and you really need feminism, tbqh. Of course, to be fair, I'm reading your post as inherently male, which underpins the heteronormative hegemony of gender construction, so this response is actually also a product of toxic masculinity, and now I need feminism. Of course, you still have no idea if I'm a girl or a boy, and even if I define myself as one or the other, you don't know that my body conforms to your definitions of the same, so we're in a lovely little state of non-binary identity, and I guess I have Schroedinger's genitals (which, the original thought-experiment being a pussy in a box, makes a certain amount of sense).

tl;dr: hey there, sailor.

>>8930596
Writers, philosophers, scientists, politics, film, and just about everything else.

Now, start with the Greeks.

>>8935592
Hey man, I was sold a while ago, but thanks for the double whammy.

>>8935542
Είναι ειρωνιkό το γεγονός ότι θα υποθέσει ότι πρόkειται για ζήτημα προϋποθέτει μια kατάσταση άγνοιας. Θα πρέπει να διαβάσετε Παρμενίδης kαι να εξετάσει τα πέντε επιχειρήματα. Πώς μπορεί να σπαταληθεί χρόνος όταν θα συμμετέχουν στην μεγάλη παράδοση της συνομιλίας;

>>8930568
All I got from Greeks was how to be a man via Odysseus.

>>8935519
>In the sense that pi is an expression of our failure to be able to understand eternity
This isn't even maths. This is of the level of bullshit as saying that 2+2=4 is an expression of a belief in a perfect deity since the first equation seems so elegant you must also believe in God. It's taken two separate and completely unrelated matters and jammed them together because to the user there is some conceptual similarity between them. This isn't maths, this is terrible, terrible philosophy. Everything that user said was exactly like this. I can't refute anything he says mathematically because he isn't doing any maths.

Let me give an example from this
user >>8930755 responding to the bullshit.
>Irrational numbers have nothing to do with the concept of irrationality in thought, the name just means they can't be expressed as a ratio of two integers.
This was his response to
> the Pythagorean constant is an expression of how irrationality is embedded within even the simplest of structures? You can't refute this mathematically because there is no math happening.

>>8935763
>This isn't even maths
I think you're a troll now. Pi is a number that doesn't repeat, and goes on forever. Forever. Once more for the people in the back: forever. You know what some synonyms are for that word, "forever"? "Infinity" is one, and "eternity" is another. It's a basic concept (finding a ratio between the number that represents the length of the circumference and diameter of the same circle) that unlocks a process by which you have a single number that will never resolve into a whole, and you could literally go on FOREVER with it. This is also true of other irrationals, I know, but there's something about the specific instance of Pi where you have the multiple infinities idea that Cantor (I think it was Cantor) had playing into it that really makes it seem particularly suited. Have you considered the possibility that *you* haven't put enough thought into it? Because at this point, I think you're actually trying to convince yourself that there's no connection. Come on, anon... give maths a hug and tell it you're sorry you thought it was just a cold and dead system of reckoning numbers. It knows you love it, and it's very forgiving.

>>8935450
Aristotle for logic would be Organon, although his works like rhetoric and poetics are related.

Kierkegaard Fear and Trembling is actually related, though have a look at his journals to clarify. Either/Or is probs the most explicit work in this way though

>>8936006
I won't lie; Aristotle's Rhetoric helped me cope with existing in a very powerful way. If you can learn how to apply Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to a wide enough scope (probably way the fuck wider than you're thinking right now), then it can be ridiculously transcendent.

But if you want to sound more bad-ass when you criticize art, you should start with Poetics.

>>8933440
I'm successful at not being a postering pseud, more than anyone can say about you.

>>8936055
*posturing*
>throws around that "pseud" label to cover up his own intellectual insecurity
You're so meta I can't even tell what's real anymore, anon. Are you in the cave being tricked by the shadows, or am I in the cave, and are you a shadow?

>>8936072
Sing through me Muses! By Phoebus' light, even the shadows of the cavern can not escape the retracting light which my aegis illuminate! Ignorance in knowledge and knowledge in ignorance, who's light are you basking in? Helios or the very son of Letona?

>>8935582
This is quality pasta material

It's a meme, and it's probably the meme that has done the most good.

>>8930628
Describe this /pol/ that you speak of. Are they in this room right now? Does it cause you anxiety and interfere with your day to day living? Has your doctor ever discussed a drug called Abilify with you?

>>8930579
Maybe you should just read the Greeks

>>8935615
Glad to hear it, and you're welcome!

*flashes the most virile thumbs up you've ever seen in your life*

>>8930596
starting with the greeks has been the smartest thing I've ever done

>>8930579
Should have started with my diary desu

>>8931015
How newru?

>>8936625
I'm new enough that I didn't know what the corn picture was until now, and I still don't know the real meaning of "my diary desu". Is it a reference to Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, it being his "diary" of sorts?

>>8936631
yup

>>8930568
> hasn't started with the greeks
> posts a violent black man from a movie made by and for dumb americans, as if this is an argument against reading the greeks

thats about right

start with the greeks

>>8930568
They tell you to start with the Greeks because most of the shit people think about isn't not more advanced than what the Greeks thought about, and a lot of more complex thoughts contain ideas that the Greeks already covered.

Let's use an analogy, because those are so accurate and useful. You learn addition first because the concept is easier to understand than say, division. You could absolutely learn to divide before adding, but it would certainly be more difficult than learning addition and you'd have to learn addition as some point anyway to help you divide things more accurately.

Or, it's sort of like stealing someone else's Java library or reusing a premade function so that you don't have to always program how to add numbers from scratch.

It's just a matter of complexity. If you've read the Greeks, you're going to have an easier time understanding more modern, complex thoughts and you'll also save yourself the time of having to go back and relearn it when you encounter Greek thought in more modern thought.

You could also skip that shit entirely and read Eastern philosophy, or reject all of it as useless and just dive headfirst into Post-Modernism. Western Philosophy is, as it turns out, just another kind of limited human thought that is not intrinsically superior to any other.

inb4 autists lose their minds at the suggestion of reading something not written by their genetic ancestors

>>8930568
Read the Greeks

>>8936732
>posts a Canadian ((?) American?) '''''comedian''''' as if this is an argument for reading the greeks

thats about right

start with the greeks

>>8936732
>takes memes seriously
>proceeds to meme

thats about right

start with the greeks

>>8936180
Add butter and garlic; you won't find no sauce for that shit.

>>8936145
*whose*
All light has only one source when you follow it back to an origin, and all of us are shadows thereof...

>>8935374
>>8935515
>>8930688
And this folks is why logic should always belong to the mathematics department and be kept out of the hands of philosophers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQCU36pkH7c

>>8938372
Lololololol
>implying that logic and math isn't literally the product of philosophy
>holy shit do you even human history?

>>8931496
>>8931586
I can only speak for the Complete Works of Plato (Hackett), but for a neophyte, one can be lost when reading it as it is not really meant for the best reading experience as it is a reference tome.

In the introduction, the editor (Cooper), discusses best to read Plato - whether following certain themes, chronologically, etc - and he concludes it us up to what the reader wants to get out of Plato.
The Hackett edition is meant to provide a contemporary collection of Plato's works which matches up with the original collection created by Thrasyllus. Since there are so many of Plato's works, both authentic and dubious, they needed to compromise on the legibility for all the works to fit into a single volume.

Basically, I would recommend getting the complete works once you feel you have a decent/strong grasp of the philosophical project Plato is attempting. There are hardly any footnotes throughout the dialogues in this volume, so you are best getting smaller collections of Plato's works in order to better digest them.

I would recommend you look at more digestible editions of Plato's works that are sold as individual books and have in-depth treatment of each of these dialogues:

These five dialogues are, I think, the best introduction to Plato and to Philosophy as a whole. At the end there is a great further reading section if you wish to expand your understanding of these great dialogues. Also, these five dialogues are the same five translations used in the Complete Works, so you will not miss out on the translation, but in the Complete Works, you will have less footnotes.
https://www.amazon.com/Plato-Dialogues-Euthyphro-Apology-Classics/dp/0872206335/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=BVKHPQ990HT9RNDZ1EGN

Here are some great volumes of the more important of Plato's middle dialogues. Also, would help to have this with you throughout reading Plato:
https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Companion-Plato-Companions-Philosophy/dp/0521436109/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0521436109&pd_rd_r=2HRJ2VZTR3VMNTVVJHZX&pd_rd_w=BQ96y&pd_rd_wg=qp0YD&psc=1&refRID=2HRJ2VZTR3VMNTVVJHZX

Phaedrus:
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0872202208/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/

Symposium:
https://www.amazon.com/Plato-Symposium-Hackett-Classics/dp/0872200760/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1483754383&sr=1-1&keywords=plato+symposium

Gorgias:
https://www.amazon.com/Gorgias-Hackett-Classics-Plato/dp/0872200167/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0872200167&pd_rd_r=Y2ME1N044VEZG20QZX65&pd_rd_w=Xl98I&pd_rd_wg=ygfab&psc=1&refRID=Y2ME1N044VEZG20QZX65

Meno:

https://www.amazon.com/Meno-Hackett-Classics-Plato/dp/0915144247/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1483754641&sr=1-1&keywords=plato+meno

>>8938744

After reading these, I would actually say you are ready to approach The Republic as you have covered some of the important ideas which led to the development of this great work.

A great first reading of The Republic is, you guessed it, the Hackett translation:

https://www.amazon.com/Republic-Hackett-Classics-Plato/dp/0872201368/ref=pd_sim_14_7?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0872201368&pd_rd_r=ZA6WPWK42B95H598JM1D&pd_rd_w=P02Bc&pd_rd_wg=vULmq&psc=1&refRID=ZA6WPWK42B95H598JM1D

However, the most based translation is reading Allan Bloom's translation:

https://www.amazon.com/Republic-Plato-Allan-Bloom/dp/0465094082/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Hope this helped!

For literature, it's kind of a meme.
For philosophy, absolutely necessary.

>>8936631
I find it hard to believe you're not baiting, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. "my diary desu" refers only to the poster's diary, and is used as a sometimes funny response to questions like : "What's the saddest book ever written?" An anon would likely reply "my diary desu" since we all know anon is a sad little faggot, just like I am for explaining this.

Now stop asking dumb questions you faggot

>>8939391
That was my other guess as to what it meant. Sorry for being so new, but thank you for explaining.

>>8936764
>inb4 autists lose their minds at the suggestion of reading something not written by their genetic ancestors
You can't inb4 the OP idiot

>>8939762
Yes you can. Inb4 is a phrase to preemptively strike against a common response or obvious misinterpretation of what you're trying to say, and not exclusive to an OP.

inb4 newfag

What is going on ITT? Am I just losing it or...

>>8939762
>>8940342
is this bait?

>>8939391
Isn't it actually "my diary t.b.h" but word-filtered?

>>8940410
is this bait?

>>8940455
is is this this bait bait?

>>8930596

Philosophy (reading it specifically) is not all that difficult. It just requires a lot of prior knowledge. To understand [insert contemporary philosopher], you generally need to understand [insert philosopher from last century or last two centuries] because [contemporary philosopher] is usually responding to or building on earlier philosophers. And then to understand [earlier philosopher] you need to understand who influenced him. This goes for most philosophers even when talking about the most original of philosophers. Even if just to understand the context of terms they use.

So, sure, maybe you don't need to always go all the way back to the beginning to understand a lot of contemporary or modern philosophers, but it helps starting there and then reading the people who were directly influenced by them and then reading who was directly influenced by those later philosophers and so on. Or maybe that's just helpful to me.

Before you read Zizek, for example, it's nice to be familiar with Hegel and Lacan, and before you read Hegel it's nice to be familiar with Kant and Fichte. And it goes on.

>>8940558
there's a spare word in there, amigo.

>>8940615
This is not something particular to philosophy, but can be expanded to almost all academia...
(pic related)

>>8940683
Que que?

>>8930568
Just start with the fucking greeks

>>8940707
But, like, why not the Mesopotamians, then?

>>8935632
This is some impressive knowledge of how to use google translate.

>>8940774
Nobody could read them for centuries, and they left us fragments, not complete works. We can't even reconstruct the biographies of their kings.

It's not their fault that Western authors would only read alphabets they could understand.

>>8940774
the same reason we started with Roman Art

Well?

>>8931981
Yeah, I was thinking of him and Epicurus. I'm also planning on reading the Upanishads if I can ever find a good translated copy.

>>8940449
I don't actually know what desu means, because I'm not autistic, but since /lit/ seems to avoid the spectre of weeabooism, it seems to be valid. However, I feel like "my diary desu" might predate the filter, it's only a couple years old.

>>8930596
Its a continum.

Start with the greeks to understand Socrates
Understand socrates to understand Aristotle
Understand Aristotle to understand Christian Theology (Augustine/Aquinas)
Understand theology / bible to understand the foundation of western literature.

>>8940962
That comment make me go "no shit" in my head so hard that I'm literally constipated right now. Being able to use technology to access multiple languages is essentially one of the greatest achievements of humankind, and allows for the kind of intercultural communication that might actually help us transcend the traditional boundaries of communication that have historically prevented us from coming together as a species. You really want to attach a negative stigma to that?!

>>8941044
https://prezi.com/nd1nvoawlud0/mesopotamian-religion-and-philosophy/
Pretty sure that if this undergrad group could throw together a Prezi on it, that it's pretty accessible at this point. Have you not read Gilgamesh? What century are you posting from?

>>8940455
am i bait?

>>8930777
You clearly haven't read shit

>>8943693
I'm posting from the century where we don't have Phoenician literature, and nothing prove any kind of written transmission from the Near East to Greece, and despite the archaeological progress, much of these civilizations' religions is still guesswork. Not to mention ISIS's efforts in destroying and smuggling some of the best stuff we ever had in Iraq.

As for Gilgamesh, he's a hulking retard who does not have a shred of the Greeks' metis.

>>8931317
fuck off memelord