Platos Complete works

[Anonymous No.15311550]

Is it a good start to philosophy?

[Anonymous No.15311560]

This question, to me often feels how Americans want to know not the substance of the thing, but how the thing will be perceived. If you have interest, read

[Anonymous No.15311588]

>>15311550
I would start with the Romans. Epictetus and Seneca are more readable and will be good to learn about virtue.
After reading them, you will understand Plato better.

[Anonymous No.15311606]

>>15311550
yes

[Anonymous No.15311625]

Yes it is

[Anonymous No.15311677]

>>15311550
Maybe read the first philosopers: the presocratics and sophists. good primer before diving in with plato.

[Anonymous No.15311731]

You have to read the preplatonics

[Anonymous No.15311742]

yes

>>15311588
if you're over 18 and can't understand plato then reading is not for you

[Anonymous No.15311832]

It's the best start. You don't need any background in philosophy, just be sure to read them mostly chronologically. If you are interested in higher-level Plato (Theaetetus, Philebus, Protagoras, Timaeus, etc.), you will probably want to familiarize yourself with the Presocratics. There is really no substitute for primary literature: even the biggest names in Platonic studies have made some stupid-ass doo-doo calls. Generally, I think Pierre Hadot's "What is Ancient Philosophy?" is a good background if you need it, though he goes off the rails when he tries historically to reconstruct the Academy. You can find everything you need on Libgen.

[Anonymous No.15311861]

>>15311742
There are plenty of people who have read The Republic who don't understand a thing about it other than parroting the allegory of the cave.

[Anonymous No.15311902]

>>15311550

You can skip Plato, and Aristotle, since they were wrong about everything.

[Anonymous No.15311923]

>>15311902
great bait

[Anonymous No.15311933]

>>15311832
recs on some good follow ups?

[Anonymous No.15311942]

>>15311861
Reading is not for them.

[Anonymous No.15312042]

>>15311677
This is what I did. I’m reading OP pic now
The Presocratics ideas turned out to mostly be bunk, but that specific book does a great job of teaching you how to think about philosophy. You have to think differently than normal

[Anonymous No.15312049]

>>15311861
I’m reading it now and just got past the part where he talks about how a spinning top is moving but it’s also not moving at the same time. Mind blown

[Anonymous No.15312051]

>>15311560
OP here I’m Dutch

[Anonymous No.15312054]

Almost all the Ancients had the idea that you had to read Aristotle's logical works (Organ on) before reading Plato. Then once you've started Plato you'll have to go back and forth between him and Aristotle again, like reading Aristotle's Political works before Republic and Laws (and you should read Laws before Republic), or Aristotle's ethical works before Plato's metaphysical works (Theaetetus-Sophist-Statesman, Parmenides, Philebus, Republic, Timaeus, Philebus).

Something like...
>Alcibiades I, "Last Days of Socrates" dialogues, minus Phaedo but plus Ion.
Since these are so simple, you can also add here any of the dialogues not mentioned later in this list.
>Aristotle's Organon
>Euthydemus, Protagoras
>Lysis, Symposium
Aristotle's Politics and Plato's Laws-Epinomis
>Cratylus, Theaetetus, Meno
>Aristotle - Physics, De Anima,
>Republic, Timaeus-Critias
>Sophist, Statesman
>Aristotle - Metaphysics
>Parmenides
>Philebus, Phaedrus, Phaedo (yes)

[Anonymous No.15312069]

>>15311550
>>15312054
Op be careful

[Anonymous No.15312088]

>>15311588
>more readable
What the hell is that supposed to mean?

[Anonymous No.15312133]

>>15312054
I don't understand why you can't start with Republic, I'm reading it now and it seems very straightforward. The entire book is literally just him slowly building on simple premises with well-explained arguments.

[Anonymous No.15312155]

>>15312133
Because you might get the impression that he's talking about politics and not the soul and heaven.

[Anonymous No.15312175]

>>15312155
It seems pretty obvious from the first book that the goal of the parts where he talks about the city is not to literally leave instructions for how a future city should be run

[Anonymous No.15312198]

>>15311550
I'd say you need some other preparations before jumping directly to Plato, but that is a much, much better start than those retards that go straight to Nietzsche or Marx

[Anonymous No.15312238]

>>15311550
Yes.

[Anonymous No.15312241]

>>15312088
I see fewer people misinterpretating Seneca than Plato (at least those who read Seneca rather than parroting Nietzsche's strawman).

>>15312175
Most people don't understand that.

[Anonymous No.15312253]

>>15311933
Good follow-ups to Plato or to secondary lit on Plato? If the former, most people recommend either Aristotle (Nic. Ethics and Metaphysics) or Plotinus and other Neoplatonists. Descartes tries (and fails, lol) to make a clean break with the Greeks, and most early Moderns follow that tradition. Only until Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard do you see a great groundswell of interest in the Greeks again. If the latter, a good general work is the Cambridge Guide to Plato, which is a mixed bag of scholarship. There's also the "Plato 1/..2" series, which is either edited by Gail Fine or Gregory Vlastos—again, a mixed bag of scholarship. You're best served by finding a specific dialogue in which you're interested and then looking in its category on PhilPapers. You can then download (on Libgen) whichever papers interest you the most.

[Anonymous No.15312259]

>>15312042
>The Presocratics ideas turned out to mostly be bunk, but that specific book does a great job of teaching you how to think about philosophy.
Which book?

[Anonymous No.15312273]

>>15311832
>just be sure to read them mostly chronologically.
The dialogues inside the book are in chronological order?

[Anonymous No.15312283]

>>15312241
I mean I'm pretty sure right before they start building the city he verbatim says something like "we want to find the ideal person but it's easier to talk about an ideal city than an ideal person so let's build an ideal city first then liken everything to a person"

[Anonymous No.15312292]

>>15312155
Care to ellaborate anon?
I was under the impression that he was talking about many things at the same time (the most important subjects being both politics and the soul), which would explain the use of metaphors instead of literal explanations to the topics covered in the book. Therefore, the notion of "justice", which is the end goal of Republic, should be both applicable to oneself on an ethical (and perhaps ontological) level and to the whole community on the political level. Why wouldn't this be an appropriate interpretation?

[Anonymous No.15312303]

>>15312283
Yeah, I know. And most people don't understand that.

Most people take two lessons from The Republic: "Plato is an authoritarian and this is bad" and "The allegory of the cave" (of course they don't think about what he meant by that, they just parrot it).

[Anonymous No.15312314]

>>15312042
Pythagoras is important, heraclitus and parmenides. Those are the three most important you'll want to once over them again later

[Anonymous No.15312323]

>>15312303
Ah well in that case I feel a lot better about starting with the Republic, I was afraid I was missing something somewhere but so far it seems very easily laid out.

[Anonymous No.15312327]

>>15311560
gay post

[Anonymous No.15312339]

>>15312323
Well, as long as you understand that Socrates' biggest interests were "what is virtue" and "what is a good life", you are good to go.

[Anonymous No.15312393]

>>15311550
Reminder that the Sage Emperor idealized by Plato actually existed and we call him Marcus Aurelius

[Anonymous No.15312405]

>>15312393
Aurelius was not the "sage emperor". He was a quite good man who tried to live like a philosopher. He faced tons of problems and is recognized as one of the greatest rulers ever.
But he was aware that it would be politically impossible to rule like a philosopher king.

[Anonymous No.15312424]

>>15312393
You're kind of right, but you're distracting yourself with a particular, when the Sage Emperor should be taken as an universal, an archetype. Yes, Marcus Aurelius was one Sage Emperor, but you could say the same about King David, for instance.

[Anonymous No.15312465]

>>15312424
He was the ultimate embodiment of that archetype, that was my point. King David, King Solomon and some others figures did come close, too

[Anonymous No.15312502]

>>15312133
It's recommended to read Apology before anything else since it clearly explains Socrates' motivation of philosophical inquiry, otherwise he comes off as a dick to the uninitiated.

[Anonymous No.15312604]

>>15312303
Also, people who know about the cave allegory haven't read that portion because they don't point out its more startling nuances like, if a person who leaves the cave were to come back and tell the captives the images on the wall are fake, they will get pissed off and try to kill him.

[Anonymous No.15312639]

>>15312283
>he verbatim says something like
lol

[Anonymous No.15312664]

>>15311560
Obsessed.
And that is a general part of human nature, not specifically American or even Anglo. We are social creatures so we naturally often care about perception over substance. I could give you examples from China to West Africa.

[Anonymous No.15312707]

>>15312393
>>15312405
>>15312424
>lets his wife fuck around, his son wasnt even his
>he has the state deify that bitch as a minor goddess
>his incompetence accelerates the decline of the empire
>writes a shitty self help manual that redditors worship and treat as the word of god while ignoring the severe behavioral flaws above

[Anonymous No.15312742]

>>15311560
jfc cringe
I mean read what you want but there's gotta be a reason right?
>>15312707
Meditations is basically just boomerposting from the king.

[Anonymous No.15312867]

>>15311560
Cringe. Why do you honestly think he started this thread?

[Anonymous No.15312875]

>>15311550
start with the greeks

[Anonymous No.15312968]

>>15311550
It's the best start

[Anonymous No.15313002]

>>15312042
>bunk

Pseud. Nothing is "bunk" in the infinite chain of thought experiments that is philosophy and literature. Do you also think Socrates and Plato were "bunk"? Their work was heavily influenced by the pre-socratics. Without the pre-socratics we wouldn't have Socrates and Plato as we do today, nor anyone else in the line of thinkers in Western society. If you think their ideas are "mostly bunk" then admit to us that you think Socrates and Plato are "mostly bunk".

[Anonymous No.15313013]

>>15312273
I think the edition in OP's pic is set up chronologically (to the best knowledge of modern scholarship).

[Anonymous No.15313403]

>>15311550
Plato's OK, but you might as well just skip to Hubbard. Start with Dianetics and go from there.

[Anonymous No.15313425]

>>15313403
i would actually go back a little further and study crowleys corpus before gettinf into hubbard.
book of lies is a good intro. dont read anything else until you get through it at least a couple of times.

[Anonymous No.15313428]

>>15312707
And that's why i said he's a particular incarnating an archetype. I'ts like you spergs are expecting the actual perfect idea of the philosopher king to come to life.

[Anonymous No.15313502]

>>15312393
Daily reminder that the Sage Emperor idealized by Plato actually existed and we call him Frederick II.

[Anonymous No.15313595]

>>15312875
Yes..?

[Anonymous No.15313638]

>>15313428
your choice is fucking gay. actual philosopher kings exist right now running china.

[Anonymous No.15313688]

>>15311560
>>15312051
Why are Europeans so exhausting?
>Americans this
>Americans that
90% of Americans don't read. The other 10% are literally the smartest group of people in the world.
Get over it.

[Anonymous No.15314046]

>>15311742
There are certainly different degrees of understanding Plato, you're definitely not getting everything on your first read

[Anonymous No.15314086]

>>15313403
>Plato's OK, but you might as well just skip to Hubbard. Start with Dianetics and go from there.

[Anonymous No.15314102]

>>15311933
Just search online for papers covering the Socratic dialogues. Here is a good one on Euthyphro.

https://studylib.net/doc/8115846/plato-s--euthyphro---an-analysis-and-commentary

[Anonymous No.15314107]

>>15312054
OP, this is retarded advice. Just start with Plato.

[Anonymous No.15314123]

>>15312465
FDR was the closest to one in modern times.

[Anonymous No.15314138]

>>15313428
>>15313502
It's Roosevelt. No one came closer to the authoritarian administration of justice than he did.

[Anonymous No.15314150]

>>15311560
You must learn to speak proper English my Macedonian friend

[Anonymous No.15314245]

>>15311550
Yes and no. You really only want Trial and Death and The Republic to start off with. Any of the other dialogues will be too difficult until you can return to them years later.
It's a good book to have though, so if you're certain you will stick with philosophy it's generally worth it. Basically 60 bucks to have it now or settle with the intro books and grab this later.

Also worth considering that the Bloom translation of the Republic is going to be much better than this, especially when starting out. You can probably find it for a few dollars.

[Anonymous No.15315207]

>>15311550
Actually THIS is the key philosophical text that any layman should read.
Metaphysics, Music, Colour, Truth, Its all fucking there.
I feel sorry for you plebs who havent even started with the Monkeys.

[Anonymous No.15315261]

>>15314150
I'm English and it scans fine, little flowery but fine.

[Anonymous No.15315263]

>>15312051
>OP here I’m Dutch
Yeah, Pennsylvania Dutch.

[Anonymous No.15315272]

>>15311560
americans seething at this post

[Anonymous No.15315278]

>>15312292
Not the other guy, you're doing fine. The aim of Plato is not to derive some preset set of statements, that's schoolboy Plato of two centuries ago. What you want to do is learn how to birth your own ideas from the discussions.

The problem I'm seeing a lot now is "I don't agree with this! It's trash!" idiots posting a lot and missing the point. So long as your interpretation isn't horribly oversimplified or missing key/basic points I wouldn't worry. Although you can maybe go deeper.

[Anonymous No.15315307]

>>15312292
There are obviously some political elements, like philosopher-king, the soul is like a city. Full of conflicting desires.
But this is why it is necessary to read his other actually 'politics' focused works like Laws and Statesman, or even Protagoras.
Yes Plato was "authoritarian", but his Ideal city is the IDEA city in the literal sense, the city of Olympus.

[Anonymous No.15315639]

>>15315278
Socrates does make some weak arguments in a few dialogues. It's okay to criticize his reasoning.

[Anonymous No.15316110]

>>15312133
The Republic is Plato's magnum opus against the educational institution of his time, the poetic oral framework. The theory of forms is quite can be quite literally understood to be "abstraction" in our current use of the word. The common Greek man in Plato's time (and before that) was taught through epic poetry of what goodness, morality, justice, etc. all were through demonstration of heroes and enemies each in their respective stories. However, the concept of each of those things was not a unitary "thing", so to speak.
Socrates then, for Plato, was a device to get people to think about abstract thoughts like justice in and of themselves. The allegory of the cave is Plato's attempt to show that most people of the time think of things like justice as this principle shown to them through the stories, aka the shadows. Those people, chained in the cave, have not begun to see the principle itself in its true form nor examine it for itself.
Plato in the Republic then sets arithmetic and geometry as the basis for higher education of the guardians because they deal with abstract thought primarily. This is because the primary purpose of the Republic is to explain justice as an abstract concept, not something that is mimicked through story. And its secondary purpose is to classify a kind of person who can grasp these abstract concepts, a philosopher (though the word didn't mean to Plato what it means to us), and what it takes to make one.

Anyway, hope everyone picked that up on their first reading. I did.

[Anonymous No.15317524]

>>15311588
plato has nothing in commin with stoics. He is all about metaphysics. Even the republic is only on the surface level about governments and virtues. It is (like all of platos works) much, much deeper than that. Plato is pure ontology (aristotle as well btw) and understandig him is no easy task. Pewdiepie completely missed the point and did a surface level reading, because he lacked knowledge of his other works to fully understand it. The romans wont help you. Just start with plato and dont miss a single one of his works. Sophistes is one of his toughest, be prepared

[Anonymous No.15317571]

>>15312259

[Anonymous No.15317591]

>>15317571
Not all of the presocratics are "bunk" though. Tell me Callicles didn't raise good arguments for example.

[Anonymous No.15317593]

>>15316110
It is all true but read phaedo to bring it to the next level. Platos republic has a deeper layer to it. The allegory of the cave is about the metaphysical dimension of truth. The big prism through which the shadows of all phenomena are cast to us humans. We, including plato, are all cave dwellers. He believed that death would elevate him to this higher realm of pure idea. It is the leitmotiv of his entire philosophy

[Anonymous No.15317595]

>>15317591
He didn't

[Anonymous No.15317621]

>>15311560
Americans eternally BTFO

[Anonymous No.15317648]

>>15317524
Plato obviously cared about Ethics. In Plato's books, Socrates clearly considered Ethics the most important part of human knowledge by far. And how would you explain Plato's "The Laws" if your theory was correct. Aristotle's most important book was the Nicomachean ETHICS.

Plato and the Stoics had much in common, with their emphasis on virtue as necessary and sufficient for a good life.

[Anonymous No.15317652]

no one ever reads the complete plato but autists always recommend it. this board is filled with stupid larpers who don't even read 9/10 of the shit they recommend. all they do is regurgitate whatever stupid, garbage chart they saw.

[Anonymous No.15317719]

>>15317648
Yes but he saw this education as a stepping stone to a fully fledged utopia that discovers more truths. You can learn a lot about ethisc and virtues from plato, he is one of my best mentors. But the most important thing to himself was metaphysics, it permeates every single one of his works

[Anonymous No.15317785]

>>15312424
Except Aurelius actually existed.

[Anonymous No.15317791]

>>15317652
What I read is Barnes and Nobles Essential Dialogues of Plato. I'm not OP but I recommend that one to anyone getting into Plato.

[Anonymous No.15317888]

>>15317524
Stoicism is an offspring of Platonism you uneducated pleb, in-fact it is a form of Platonism just like Aristotelianism.

[Anonymous No.15318061]

>>15317888
Stoics have a very different approach in their teachings. Here is the difference you midwit:
everything plato teaches is rooted in idealism, ontology and metaphysics.

Everything the stoics teach is based on experience and pragmatism. Stoics lack the appeal to metaphysics

It wont help you understand plato because plato is more about ontology than he is about ethics (even in his works on ethics). Ignoring that is like saying the bible is more about morals than it is about god. You will miss the fucking point going in with this attitude. So no! You dont need the stoics to understand plato. If you want a surface level plebian understanding of plato, sure go on! Plato has as much to do with stoicism as 12 rules for life has with the bible. So please shut up.

[Anonymous No.15318077]

>>15318061
Cicero disagreed with you.

[Anonymous No.15318087]

>>15312393
Reminder that the Sage Emperor idealized by Plato actually existed and we call him Julian the Faithful.

[Anonymous No.15318216]

I'm committed to learning Greek. My plan is to learn the elementary language; carefully read Herodotus; then dive into Plato.
Thoughts?

[Anonymous No.15319306]

>>15317593
True, however he stressed that there is more to being elevated to that higher realm than just dying.

[Anonymous No.15319679]

>>15318061
>what is logos
Stoics are literally monists, they believe in the Platonic World-Soul and connotes it with Zeus, they believe in Fate (but without the freedom) and their own version of the 'Good.'
Stoics are to Aristotelians what they are to Platonists. Stoics collapse Intellect into Soul, being short-sighted they couldn't see past the Monad of the Universe, just as Aristotle was short-sighted and couldn't see past Nous.
But it is the same World Soul in all three traditions; since it is good and one, in their contemplation they beheld this great God, thinking he was the first principle and were content. Which excepted from the stoic temperament (aka the masses). Same problem with most Indian schools. They all need glasses for their minds' eye.

[Anonymous No.15319683]

>>15318216
boring

[Anonymous No.15319693]

>>15318216
Read Philolaus, he's one of Plato's teachers.