Supplemental Literature for Plato + Aristotle

[Anonymous No.15578128]

Well, /lit/, I fell for the meme and started with the Greeks, and it's finally come time to read the peak Greek himself, Plato. I want to make sure I understand him as thoroughly as I possibly can. What secondary sources have you found to be illuminating in this task?

Also accepting recommendations for Aristotle because I'm reading him next.

[Anonymous No.15578235]

>>15578128
reading Plato for the method is as important as reading for the concepts so you should just read Plato, move onto aristotle and explore concepts that interest you further as you continue your reading afterwards

[Anonymous No.15578276]

There's a lot of good secondary lit on Plato, but there's even more terrible shit out there. (The premier Platonic scholar of the 1950s, Gregory Vlastos, was fucking retarded.) Honestly, you'd be much better served by reading the dialogues in a good translation, coming up with your own questions and theories, then researching specific topics from specific dialogues. The Hackett edition is consistently fairly good. Socrates firmly believed that written philosophy was inferior to dialogue, and so Plato wrote in such a way that the reader must be an active participant in the dialectic (many of the dialogues end in aporia, with the initial problem unresolved). Someone said that there are only two philosophers that are widely read for pleasure: Nietzsche and Plato. You should enjoy reading Plato your first time.

To answer your question, reading Herodotus and Thucydides would be helpful to understand the historical backdrop of Plato's Athens. Herodotus is also very fun to read. Debra Nails has a great reference prosopography, "The People of Plato," (which can be found on Libgen) to keep track of who's who in the dialogues. You definitely should know who Alcibiades is, which you will if you read Thucydides. Did you read the Presocratics? If not, my favorite source is the recent Cambridge publication, "The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy," which has opposite-facing Greek and really good notes. You could read some Aristophanes also, obviously The Clouds, to understand some of Socrates' impact on Athens. (Aristophanes is also an important character in Plato.) If you want, brush up on your Greek mythology beforehand: I like Bullfinch. Iris Murdoch is an interesting read (not her fiction) because she has a fresh take. The first couple chapters of Pierre Hadot's "What is Ancient Philosophy?" make an excellent crash-course before going into Plato, if you want the tl;dr version of things.

Can't answer on Aristotle right now, but I will after I look at my bookshelf. In short, the best commentators on Aristotle are Catholics. I've never known GEM Anscombe and Peter Geach to write something false or terrible, for example.

[Anonymous No.15578512]

>>15578128
Watch Greg Sadler's videos and read his articles. They're very good.

[Anonymous No.15578516]

>>15578276
>Socrates firmly believed that written philosophy was inferior to dialogue,

True but he didn't outright hate all written words as is frequently said on this board. In Phaedo, it is said he spent his last day reading Aesop and other writers.

[Anonymous No.15578550]

>>15578128
Philosophy and a Rite of Rebirth if you are very interested in the mystic and spiritual aspects of Plato like spiritual purification and the ill understood connections with Mystery tradition and Egypt.

[Anonymous No.15578598]

>>15578128
i have klein's commentary on Meno, Bloom's Republic, and Cornford's Timaeus. Good but I've nothing to compare them to sorry. I plan to cop analyses of Laws by strauss and pangle

[Anonymous No.15578672]

>>15578235
>>15578276
>>15578512
>>15578516
>>15578550
>>15578598
Thanks so much anons this was very helpful

[Anonymous No.15578748]

What are the best crit that ties in Christ to Plato and Socrates, especially the Republic?

[Anonymous No.15578751]

The big book of reddit

[Anonymous No.15578760]

>>15578128
WKC Guthrie

[Anonymous No.15578779]

>>15578128
Socrates was a degenerate nigger Jew trying to subvert traditional Hellenic society for Zion. Plato was a reality detached decadent boomer white liberal that bought his bullshit, and normalized the deconstructions. Aristotle was a zoomer that got redpilled about Plato’s cucked basedboy bullshit and was pushed out to the fringes of Macedonia for going against the Zionist establishment. Alexander the Great is the generation which the Zoomers will educate which will once again bring about the glory of the aryan race, defeating the hordes of niggers, slaying the kikes, and conquering the current world order, bringing about a new heroic classical age.

[Anonymous No.15578801]

>>15578550
https://mega.nz/file/y0FVXABb#vUNrCInULm_89ckWAJ6Ua8sMLrFoDwppQ9Bgmu1JwXE
>>15578128
Toward a New Interpretation of Plato
https://mega.nz/file/z51TAIKI#r25M8fUCPDqjFGk34tc7c8nuXuu1CRC-xHYxL-K2LdI

[Anonymous No.15579219]

[Anonymous No.15579422]

>>15578779
you really need to go outside, man

[Anonymous No.15579481]

>>15579422
Where the fuck is the janitor? Ban that fucking idiot. Cut its father's nuts off and make them eat it at gunpoint.

[Anonymous No.15579507]

>>15579219
I will collect his works and look them over.
Maybe add them all to my digital library.
Given that he writes on Plotinus it seems he may not be one of the sickly modern philosophy majors who has forgotten how to read esoterically and just think Plato is some mere ethics preacher.

[Anonymous No.15579631]

>>15578128
It doesn’t offer starting off points and is a little unwieldy without being carved up, but unironically rapture’s reading list on Plato is the best I’ve ever seen. He was posting again last night:
pykewater.com/public-reading-lists

[Anonymous No.15580320]

anons, you have finally memed me into starting with the greeks. anyone have a good infograph of the ones to read?

[Anonymous No.15580869]

>>15580320
My general recommendations for how people might find what they like is this:
Think of somebody from the Enlightenment or Renaissance you think you relate the most with, that you'd like to learn from. Check their influences, their influences influences, work this all the way back to Greece - then work your way back up. In this way you end up with a more coherent evolution of ideas than taking on a lot of random names.

[Anonymous No.15581180]

>>15578128
Read the presocratics, Homer(no great translation into English), Hesiod, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, Pindar(be aware of translation problems) and Sappho if you want. Read about the effect Socrates had on Greece and philosophy in general, the multiple schools of thought which his teaching left to the creation of and such, Plato being one of many, and particularly Antisthenes. After them be familiar with the Greek Stoics and their works. Read Epicurus as well as be family generally with Greek Epicurianism. Read about/the texts of Pyrrhonism. Greek oratory is good to read, and very entertaining, so Demosthenes is one. As well as the Greek myths so Hamilton. And of course, the famous historians of Greece, so Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon and you can read Arrian's Anabasis as well considering the topic of Alexander.


You should read Homer, Hesiod, the Presocratics, Sophocles, Aeschylus and Hesiod around or before the time of reading Plato and Aristotle, but you have to read Aristotle's Poetics before diving too deep into any Greek poetry, the work stands on its own, but you should also read Plato before any Aristotle so of course Plato and Homer stand as the starting points. Supplement with other books if you want, but this group is the general "complete" Greek reading.

[Anonymous No.15581193]

>>15581180
>*led* to the creation of

[Anonymous No.15583113]

This

[Anonymous No.15583149]

Aristotle is better than Plato; Socrates is retarded and you would be best served by doing the opposite of most of his points.

[Anonymous No.15583207]

>>15579507
Yes exactly. He believes, and proves definitively, that Neoplatonism is the best conception of Plato's thought.

[Anonymous No.15583281]

>>15578128
Bro, just watch the Pewdiepie Plato video

[Anonymous No.15583542]

>>15583149
>Plato and Aristotle are in disagreement

[Anonymous No.15583583]

>>15578128
Good for anytime
https://b-ok.cc/book/2284141/a0cc33

[Anonymous No.15583625]

>>15583149
There are people who actually believe this.

[Anonymous No.15585181]

>>15581180
I notice you left off Aristophanes when his play is the most relevant to Socrates.

[Anonymous No.15585207]

>>15583149
I didn't realize Socrates left behind writing