/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13036028]

Read Euthyphro, i swear when I read philosophy, it is some of the most confusing shit ever. Why does plato write like that? Like he makes it confusing as fuck on purpose, but somehow at the end of the dialogue, it all makes sense and I feel like an idiot. Why is he like this?

[Anonymous No.13036100]

>>13036028
Euthyphro is great. Not to insult you, but maybe read a study guide or something about it. And then reread it. It basically BTFOs paganism.

[卐 No.13036108]

(1/2)
There’s a part in Euthyphro where Socrates starts talking the difference between carrying and being carried, leading and being led, seeing and being seen and asks Euthyphro if he knew where the difference lies and Euthyphro says “I think I understand”. I certainly didn’t have a clue what the fuck Socrates was on about so I wrote it out and I got this; one is to do, the other is being done to. “And is not that which is beloved distinct from that which loves?” ask Socrates. “Certainly” Euthyphro says. Socrates goes on “Well; and now tell me, is that which is carried in this state of carrying because it is carried, or for some other reason?” What Socrates is saying here is that there is a difference between a thing being, and the state in which it is being. What’s more, that “a thing is not seen because it is visible, but visible because it is seen” as in the being comes first than the state it’s in. “Nor is a thing led because it is in a state of being led” the point being, the state follows the act. There is a primacy in being, that being causes form. The state something is in is a result and not the cause i.e. the form it’s in is a result of its being and not the reverse. “The state of being loved follows the act of being loved, and not the act the state.” The state follows the act. Now if your familiar with the dialogue you know it’s Socrates drawing out the contradiction of Euthyphros definition of piety, what is dear and loved by the Gods.

[卐 No.13036113]

>>13036108
(2/2)

At this point of the dialogue (10a-c) Socrates shows that what is dear and what is loved are not identical to the Gods. The way he goes about proving it I find much more faciniating, his method of thinking is much more than blind probing questioning, but he seems to me to be thinking of circles within circles. So far we see that being takes precedence over the state of being. This matters because it constructs Socrates rebuttal “whether the pious or holy is beloved by the Gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the Gods” - “The one is of a kind to be loved because it is loved, and the other is loved because is of a kind to be loved.” Notice this beautiful idea Plato wants us to analyze, the loving something for what it is vs loving something because it is a kind to be loved. How this is worded within the argument is as follows: is piety loved for what it is, or is piety loved because it is a kind to be loved. Rhetoric stresses the importance of saying the right thing at the right time to the right person in the right way, so there a definite context that necessitates the dialectic to spring to action, so it makes sense why Plato must teach in dialogue form, but what he’s teaching cannot be said outright because you remove how it comes to work in general. So I’m trying to figure out this method of thinking that Plato seems keen to write about, I don’t believe for a second he’s writing to propose a set of doctrines through Socrates but rather how a certain dialectic reveals the truth as itself, that thinking brings us to the world as it is, instead of a state that it’s in. I know the eleatics were very secretive so I think there is a deliberate subtlety to Plato’s dialogues. The very essence of Plato seems to me to be untapped, except for Hegel and maybe Derrida.

[Anonymous No.13036247]

>>13036100
>pagan philosophy
>btfos paganism

sounds kind of deluded...

[Anonymous No.13036314]

>>13036028
If you find it confusing then you probably need to restructure the way your brain understands things or just keep reading until it starts to make sense. You also need some preparation beforehand, read second hand sources before jumping into primary texts.

[Anonymous No.13036445]

The Anglo thinks literacy is mere memorization of as many obscure words as possible, adverb abuse, run-on sentences, stupid puns, bombastic digression, etc. such that proper grammatical structure, Language itself, vexes him to no end and meaning eludes him altogether in overarching "legato" text. The Anglo is paralingual.