The Republic Hate

[Anonymous No.11322367]

I want to "get into" reading again and into basic philosophy.

After going through the wiki it seems everyone seems to hate Plato's The Republic. How come?

[Anonymous No.11322373]

Also here's the plan for anyone that cares

>The Epic of Gilgamesh
>The Ancient Writings of Egypt
>Illiad
>Plato's complete Work
>The Republic

To spice it up
>Faust
>Siddartha
>Picture of Dorian Grey

Thoughts? More than enough for me to keep me busy for a while

[Anonymous No.11322402]

>>11322373
pretty good, if you manage to read those you will become smarter than the average /lit/ lurker

[Anonymous No.11322486]

>>11322367
Because it's nationalist and (object-wise) idealistic.

Nobody wants to accept objectivity today because it contradicts equity.
He argues there is a pure concept of love, intelligence or man (you can see how it bristles people) but also innocuous things like a chair.

It's interesting, it's basic philosophy. It, seems, to attack the individual so it gets no love from the current right either even though in Plato's time building Athens meant more intellectual diversity.

The metaphysics is a bit off but the reason for the hatred is there is no current ideology which supports the concept. Early and middle Christianity used him a lot though. He's considered THE Christian before Christ. A lot of ideas like immaculate conception, how heaven is depicted and a few other things kept scholastic philosophers busy for millenia.
He's a good read and later on you should read any opinion piece that gives it their context.

[Anonymous No.11322490]

>>11322373
Read the Odyssey after the Iliad

[Anonymous No.11322514]

>>11322367
Thrasymachus defines justice in an explicit form as the interest of the stronger then contradicts himself later by using the terms unjust and just not in the sense of his definition, but in the vague, common definition to refer to a just man as one who is “virtuous.” You cannot measure the justness of a man when you claim justice is relative. At that point, the dialogue falls apart as Socrates ignores Thrasymachus’ mistake and punishes him by dissecting his inconsistent arguments. I couldn’t continue reading with such a major flaw in the work.

[Anonymous No.11322516]

>>11322367
i think there's a google doc that has a good road map for philosophy for you

[Anonymous No.11322529]

>>11322516
There is it's just insanely ahistorical. It's hard to stick to it https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/mobilebasic%3Fpli%3D1&ved=2ahUKEwiT54XcjtTbAhWFQZoKHQZ0DGIQFjAAegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw0T46KekXUewlZnPqHdhx2H

I'd appreciate more commentaries that help sum up a section or lay down a foundation for the section and maybe a play or movie to watch. Obviously in addition to the readings

[Anonymous No.11322538]

>>11322373
What's Gilgamesh and the ancient Egyptian stuff for?

[Anonymous No.11322539]

>>11322367
To me second time is kinda dry. I liked reading Plato's Republic A biography by Simon Blackburn

[Anonymous No.11322557]

>>11322529
well there's the history of philosophy podcast
also you should read a book about the history of philosophy that would sort of be a introduction to it. I recommend this book if you want to jump right in to exploring for yourself but otherwise if you want to get a clearer picture pick one of the bigger history books

[Anonymous No.11322640]

>>11322538
Bronze age. Wanted a least a couple. Will revisit because Sumerian and Mesopatamia are pretty interesting considering they were the beginning

[Anonymous No.11322642]

>>11322557
I read that I meant what I said in the second paragraph

[Anonymous No.11322646]

>>11322373
Odyssey you need too

[Anonymous No.11322647]

>>11322490
Will do. Heading to the local library right now

[Anonymous No.11322648]

>>11322642
do you want additionally material on the republic or philosophy as a whole?

[Anonymous No.11322720]

>>11322486
https://wslamp70.s3.amazonaws.com/leostrauss/s3fs-public/Plato%27s%20Republic%201957.pdf

[Anonymous No.11322790]

>>11322373
>Plato's Complete Works
>The Republic
Why did you list Republic twice? Are you planning on re-reading it immediately? Missing Heraclitus and Parmenides before Plato. You should also read Sayings and Anecdotes of Diogenes the Cynic.

[Anonymous No.11322912]

>>11322648
No just as I wrote

[Anonymous No.11322920]

>>11322720
That's actually cool thank you

[Anonymous No.11322925]

>>11322373
bhagavad gita

[Anonymous No.11322940]

>>11322373
Seneca's letters are essential

[Anonymous No.11322956]

>>11322486
>Nobody wants to accept objectivity today because it contradicts equity.

GRECO-CHRISTIAN POLITY WHEN?

[Anonymous No.11323026]

>>11322367
For political reasons, friend. Plato advocates for pretty much everything that the modern left and modern right hates. It's fascism mixed with commentary on many, many subjects (including, most interestingly, Plato's metaphysics). That's the big reason it's been stigmatized. Many 20th century intellectuals blamed Plato for the rise of totalitarianism, esp. Karl Popper. Couple that with the general dislike of Platonism that you see in academia these days and you pretty much understand why it gets the treatment it does.

That said, ignore the hatred for it, it is the earliest and still to this day, the greatest, work of political philosophy. Plato was right about many things and, with some perhaps necessary changes here and there, managed to think up one of the most ideal societies.

[Anonymous No.11323038]

>>11323026
Proto-fascism, I should've said. And perhaps only in the sense that fascists drew inspiration from it. Many early European societies were inspired by it as well, though we wouldn't typically call them "fascist." Plato advocated for monarchy, to be clear.

[Anonymous No.11323153]

>>11322790
Interesting. Going to focus on these three for now. I'll pick up some philosophy once I finish these.
>>11322646
Just got back here's what I got. Also picked up Siddartha. Forgot to ask about Egyptian writings.

[Anonymous No.11323346]

because blubbering retards think that it is foremost a work of political philosophy and not ethics.The eponymous republic is largely allegorical.

[Anonymous No.11323369]

>>11322486
That makes sense. I saw in one if the Catholic infographics The republic if you wanted more theology

[Anonymous No.11323432]

I am very drunk and do not have the nerve to argue but I just want you all to know you are dumb motherfuckers and should get over yourselves
You know shit
And if you continue with your false beliefs you will perish into the very same mediocrity you despise

[Anonymous No.11323498]

>>11323432
>man yells at cloud

[Anonymous No.11323544]

>>11323432

[Anonymous No.11323549]

>>11322514
You don't think the clumsiness (and contradictory nature) of Thrasymachus' argument was intentional? I always got that impression

[Anonymous No.11323568]

Plato writes big books with big words in them, it might not be suitable for the average /lit/izen.

[Anonymous No.11323576]

>>11323549
Yes, I do, which is why I’m bugged by it. It almost seems as if Socrates couldn’t refute Thrasymachus’ definition of justice had a competent rhetorician been in his place instead. I can’t get past that section of The Republic because none of it makes any sense once you realize the flaw.

[Anonymous No.11323587]

>>11323549

Yeah, the whole point of Thrasymachus is rhetorical -- he's a foil whose purpose is to provide arguments Socrates will refute.

[Anonymous No.11323662]

>>11322373
What is The Ancient Writings of Egypt? Google just returns 'writings from ancient Egypt' or it shows me hieroglyphs. Is that the one?

[Anonymous No.11323857]

>>11323662
Yeah it's that one I messed up. Probably why I didn't find it in the library either

[Anonymous No.11323942]

>>11322373
I like it

[Anonymous No.11323967]

>>11322402
Not true. I've read most of these and I'm still pretty stupid.

[Anonymous No.11324243]

>>11323967
Probably me as well. What was the last couple books you've read?

[Anonymous No.11324264]

>>11322367
STOP LIKING PLATO

[Anonymous No.11324974]

>>11322367
please learn to look through ancient eyes.

learn to cherish what you are given and extract the valuable from the less valuable. learn to respect the people and the sources you are given, because, hopefully, you might one day become one of them.

no text and no man is perfect, but to discern one has to understand first and to do that one should at least place himself in the shoes of the ancients.

writing at a time when people tended to agriculture and crafts, and had the basic decency of any rural society(as exemplified in Republican Rome) being hugely different from what you currently live in, first and foremost because the people of the time did not consider themselves "persons"(what is the etymology of person?) but communicated through a deeper level that was for one thing real. they had simply not yet contracted the 2000-year-old mental disease we are still currently gripped by.

then take into consideration that they consider the Polis, they theoreticize on the basis of their city working as a Society instead of a random bunch of territory under a "government" trying to "govern" a bunch of disenfranchised and atomized individuals who don`t even know what it means to be an individual, let alone what it means to be a human in a human(e) society.

then mind that you cannot blame any text anymore than you can blame a gun. much better would be to trace lineages of ideas(like Marxism from Darwinism) and then follow the inheritance as it slowly morphs.

then you can immediately notice the connection between Plato and the later Dark Ages, but you can also place him within the far wider mystery tradition, which precedes him in Pythagoreanism, Heraclitus and Orpheus amongst others and succeeds him in Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, the Cathars and so on, most of which are the opposite of fascism, totalitarianism or authoritarianism. the tradition morphs to unrecognizable forms but a thread of its essence remains through the ages.

the "person" hates and likes(press the thumb), the human being delves into and studies layers and systems and realizes the only good there is, is within his choices and intentions and nowhere else.

How come they hate "The Republic"? When what you attach your notion of who you are to, is a form which does not exist, you define yourself by attaching to countless other things/forms and outline yourself by criticizing others, always remaining empty within, confused about what lies behind the mask and never finding the essence within anything, including oneself.

[Anonymous No.11325093]

>>11322514
I would love it if you could post the quote behind what you mentioned.

Justice is balance. Nothing more, nothing less.

You can go through law school and practice for decades without anyone providing a definition, not to mention understanding. When you injure someone`s rights you have your own injured to restore the balance between the two of you. That`s all.

Plat. Rep. 4.433a:
"For what we laid down in the beginning as a universal requirement when we were founding our city, this I think, or some form of this, is justice. And what we did lay down, and often said, you recall, was that each one man must perform one social service in the state for which his nature is best adapted.” “Yes, we said that.” “And again that to do one's own business and not to be a busybody is justice,"

In this context, when Plato defines justice he comes close to the Golden rule as we defined it(hardly for the first time of course) in Europe much later. But that definition is nothing but the prevention of the loss of the balance as outlined above(preventive justice). To each his own means equality and independence for each person so that they don`t interfere with each other, harming each other`s totality of rights, for in that case we would need to restore the balance between those totalities(corrective justice).

To each his own also means you receive as much as you have given, not more nor less, but that is also balance, the balance between what you have given or lost and that which you are given/restored. Please mind the times all of this is written in as well. The weak do suffer what they must. The strong indeed do what they can. If you cannot take responsibility for your life you deserve to be a slave. You balance your loss of freedom with being given a purpose. You balance the tasks you need to complete with the fact that, at least in antiquity, you had to be guaranteed food, clothing and accommodation. Just consider the slave episode from Terry Pratchett`s Small Gods. So you can`t simply say "look at antiquity, it was so glorious, look at how smart the Greeks were," or go with "such disgusting Greeks, pink cheeked aristocrats writing nonsense, having everything done for them". So justice transcends whether someone defines your role on society or not, as long as balance is preserved.

Saying that fascism is never just is like saying that America is a perfect democracy. First you need to define the essence of justice and that of democracy.

[Anonymous No.11325132]

>>11322514
Another example is a relationship, where the two partners do not hold the same sword, or two swords. They instead balance their relationship like a vessel above(as in valuing the relationship more than selfishness) and between the two of them. Any time one tucks the balance the vessel spills and the relationship comes ever closer to unraveling. As long as each partner has defined where his own interests and those of the couple lie, and preserves the balance(not making demands injuring the freedom of the other) the relationship will fruitfully continue. That is the only way it can. That doesn`t mean that only outwardly just relationships survive. It means that relationships survive only where the partners know and keep the balance of the totality of what the relationship consists of, not tipping it over by going into the other person`s predefined sphere of freedom. Everything that survives survives through and in balance(see Heraclitus). So an outwardly unjust relationship can survive as long as the injured partner gains in some way from the injury(satisfaction maybe, who knows).

Look at the people on the street, at the masses on Facebook. Land on an island of 100 children, you being the only adult, and you will(unless you are incredibly lucky) very quickly have to become a fascist, whether you want it or not. That doesn't mean that Fascism is manna from heaven, or that it is totally evil. It means Fascism has a far greater propensity for injustice than other "forms" of "government". To my mind, a real Republic(like the Roman republic before 107 BC) has always had the greatest propensity for justice, and stands as a holy ideal due to a lot of cultural and historical reasons. That doesn't mean we can`t learn to kick ass from Nazi Germany(and most importantly whose rich, "elite" ass). But it means that we can learn even far more from how Hannibal was defeated, for that was the deal not of a generation, or a leader, but of a culture of centuries, a culture of noble men and women, that proved they could defeat Alexanders. Men and women whose sense of justice awarded them the world, which they lost because they broke that same justice`s balance by assigning the power over the senatus and the populusque over from the auctoritas and potestas onto the imperium in 107 BC, that dreadful year, as dreadful as 1873 and 1913 were for our world. Thankfully, Rome was built on its forums, and we have the chance to do the same right here, right now.

All in all justice is absolutely always restored, simply because we have causes, effects and interdependence in this world, and disbelief in that notion stems from the misunderstanding of the nature of time, due to which justice can be restored(vengeance done) *before* it is even broken. In clearer terms, you can and receive punishment even before you have committed your crime. You even can commit a crime because of the punishment you have already received for it. But those are the works of the gods.

[Anonymous No.11325135]

>>11322514
ah monsieur but this is the double logic of the text! read derrida