Boring and tedious

[Anonymous No.16531955]

How does anyone read this? How is this the cornerstone of western thought?

It's just mind numbing tedious nonsense that goes on and on. An absolute slog with an interesting point every 40 pages or so

You really have to read this faggot fuck to understand the rest of philosophy?

[Anonymous No.16531957]

>>16531955
Try the symposium

[Anonymous No.16531961]

>>16531957
isnt that a gay orgy

[Anonymous No.16531972]

>>16531961
It is fun anon :) give it a shot :)

[Anonymous No.16531973]

>>16531955
Go back

[Anonymous No.16531975]

you seem really smart so I suggest you start with Kant or Hegel instead

[Anonymous No.16531977]

>>16531973
To where? A better writer?

[Anonymous No.16531978]

skip the greeks*, just read the summaries on wiki whenever their names come up in later interesting writings

*except Plutarch

[Anonymous No.16531979]

>>16531975
I'm reading through plato and aristotle so I can read Kant

I can tell you right now finding the circle jerk of Socratic dialogues boring doesn't mean youre dumb

[Anonymous No.16531984]

>>16531979
The absolute state of litshit zoomers

[Anonymous No.16531993]

>>16531955
"For heaven's sake, do not throw Plato at me. I am a complete skeptic about Plato. . . . Plato is boring"

- Nietzche

[Anonymous No.16531999]

>>16531955
Never read multiples books in one sitting, if you didn’t do that it would have beeen less a slog

[Anonymous No.16532027]

>>16531984
There’s definitely a really annoying trend in zoomers to consume philosophy like entertainment

[Anonymous No.16532045]

retard alert

[Anonymous No.16532056]

>>16531979
Just read until you get what you can out of it. I would read a secondary if it's boring although I don't have one to really recommend. His concept of virtue underlies his Socratic method of debate in that he tries to get the truth and goes through both sides to find it without relying on just "winning the debate" as Aristotle's and Cicero's rhetoric attempts to do.
This concept of an ideal or necessary truth vs a truth inherent in what helps a person underlies the rest of his ideas and the dialogues use this as a method on different topics. The early ones use it as just a method itself while holding truth as universal. He doesn't expound on his ideas until middle platonic dialogues.

[Anonymous No.16532058]

>>16531961
yea, and what about it?

[Anonymous No.16532059]

>>16531955
filtered

[Anonymous No.16532061]

>>16531955
read parmenides

[Anonymous No.16532085]

>>16532056
ah alright

yeah his stuff like remebered knowledge was interesting and the dialogue on the soul and all that

[Anonymous No.16532092]

>>16531955
yeah his dialogues are fucking lame, did not care much for the republic

[Anonymous No.16532116]

>>16531955
That stuff is easy, it's the Republic that is absolutely agonisingly dull.

[Anonymous No.16532146]

>>16532092
>>16532116
What has capeshit done?

[Anonymous No.16533735]

I love plato

[Anonymous No.16533759]

>>16531955
Op, you will value it in the end if you focus and actually appreciate the ideas and poetic content, especially Phaedo, but the others are still great works(often you will come back to them after reading the other Plato's works and really enjoy them for what they are, this was the case for me, but I was modest and kept reading thinking that it was evidently on my side that I did not see him as the cornerstone), and here's something I wrote a few weeks ago for another anon:


-Plato Five Dialogues(Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo which includes the trial and death of Socrates)
-Laches
-Ion
-Protogoras
-Gorgias(best possible explanation and condensing of all of Plato's typical philosophy and orientation)
-Cratylus
-some other smaller/earlier dialogues
-Symposium
-Republic
That's a pretty good intro-to-middle list. As far "last dialogues", there are quite a few and the Republic isn't one of them. There's a radical change in late Plato from early Plato which is an even greater genius than what most people see, it's truly remarkable. How he was able to, as it were almost begin a new start in a philosophical orientation. Nevertheless such dialogues are:

-Phaedrus(has the secret to the whole structuring of the dialogue, as well as the reason for Plato's use of it, and in the case of the dialogue, especially his late, Plato's poetic as well as philosophical genius comes into its greatest ability--; and Plato does nothing and puts nothing in the dialogue for no reason, it is all, working backwards to forwards or vice versa, structurally it is all there purposefully, even ideas one might first think are "silly"[I felt this much when I was younger and first read him] Plato is very self-aware of, that is a normal reaction or conception of them)
-Philebus(continues from Gorgias, but I should say a lot of Plato's dialogues intersect with each other in very interesting ways where you have to keep in mind where something he previously arrived at is being rejected, or built upon or such)

-Parmenides
-Theaetetus
-Sophist
-Statesman
-Timaeus
-Critias
-Laws

[Anonymous No.16533767]

>>16532116
The Republic was greater you gutter-pig, but I admit parts of it *could* be a slog.

[Anonymous No.16533878]

Yeah the first five don't matter OP, start with Protagoras

[Anonymous No.16533909]

>>16531955
I skipped the Greeks when i started reading philosophy and went straight to Descartes and Hume, then to Schopenhauer and the idealists. Then i decided to do a philosophy course in uni and i had to read the Greeks for the introduction. I found it the most boring shit ever full of the most basic bitch takes and stupid allegory stories and dialogues with "haha GOTCHA!!" tier morals and conclusions. Socrates was a massive fedora faggot, glad they executed him.

[Anonymous No.16533932]

>>16531979

Oh boy if you think Plato and Aristotle are boring just wait until you get to Kant. You have another thing coming your way anon. Enjoy and savour those pages of the Phaedo, you will remember them fondly when you are being suffocated by the fat arse of something like: "Transcendental Doctrine of Elements; Second Part - Transcendental Logic; First Division - Transcendental Analytic; Book I - Analytic of Concepts; Chapter II - Of the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding; Section II - Transcendental Deduction of Pure Concepts of the Understanding". And this is but a taste of the Prussian goblin's autism.

[Anonymous No.16533960]

filtered

[Anonymous No.16533971]

>>16533909
Please don't send your kids to school to study the humanities

[Anonymous No.16534012]

>>16531955
So what have you read so far?

[Anonymous No.16534736]

>>16531955
Did you actually read it or did you skim it and now you're bitching about it? Seriously though, those five dialogues are prob on the more boring side, aside from the Apology and the Crito, which are good. I can understand why someone might find the Euthyphro boring, but it's an easy dialogue which allows one to into Plato. You should at least read the Apology & Crito and then go on to the Gorgias (which is my personal favorite dialogue).

[Anonymous No.16534960]

>>16531955
read laws lol

[Anonymous No.16535010]

The man who had administered the poison laid his hands on him and after a while examined his feet and legs, then pinched his foot hard and asked if he felt it. He said “No”; then after that, his thighs; and passing upwards in this way he showed us that he was growing cold and rigid. And again he touched him and said that when it reached his heart, he would be gone. The chill had now reached the region about the groin, and uncovering his face, which had been covered, he said—and these were his last words—“Crito, we owe a cock to Aesculapius. Pay it and do not neglect it.” “That,” said Crito, “shall be done; but see if you have anything else to say.” To this question he made no reply, but after a little while he moved; the attendant uncovered him; his eyes were fixed. And Crito when he saw it, closed his mouth and eyes.

[Anonymous No.16535303]

At least the Meno teaches how to cross-examine a witness.

[Anonymous No.16535413]

>>16535010
Oh, I'll give a cock to Aesculapius >:)

[Anonymous No.16535450]

>>16533759
Thanks anon

I'll go on to Laches and some more, I'm sure it gets more interesting

>>16534012
i read the five dialogue and the first dialogue of the republic. I've moved onto Aristotle and already find him much more interesting and easy to read

>>16534736
yep

[Anonymous No.16536048]

>>16532027
>There’s definitely a really annoying trend in zoomers
You could've just stopped there, mate. Maybe one day they'll integrate Socratic dialogues into Fortnight or Rocket League or whatever and the kids will finally muster the attention span to marathon a whole 2-3 lines of Greek writing.

[Anonymous No.16537216]

>>16531979
Hahahahahahaha

Just read Kant you zoomer dolt. There is no reason to read Plato before Kant.

[Anonymous No.16537230]

>>16531955
You have to go back.

[Anonymous No.16537465]

>>16535010
Not going to lie, I cried when Socrates died
Maybe it's because I read Phaedo rather late in my reading of his works, but it hit me hard

[Anonymous No.16539051]

>>16531955

If you find them boring and tedious it is likely either one of two things. First, it could be that you are already enmeshed in western thinking and so you think certain thoughts are so obvious as to not be worth stating. If that's the case, consider this question when you are reading it: when did any of these ideas make their way into the mind of a person? You certainly don't think that humans 10,000 years ago were having thoughts like that, so imagine the dialogues as putting those thoughts out on the intellectual scene for the first time.
The second possibility is that you are just a moron who can't read properly and aren't actually engaging what you are reading. This is a pitfall of /lit, where people conflate "reading" with understanding. If that's the case, idk, stop smoking weed? Read some supplemental literature? Give up on philosophy and go back to pop-culture fluff?

[Anonymous No.16539109]

>>16537465

That moment really only has one fair comparison in history and that is the Crucifixion. (Maybe Nietzsche was right about something?) It even seems to me at times as though his death really was the birth of Christianity and that Christ was just its implementation.

[Anonymous No.16539115]

>>16532116
it was pretty dope when I read it at 18

[Anonymous No.16539167]

>gets btfo by thrasymachus
>writes an entire book about it
>still doesn't properly dispel the point thrasymachus made

[Anonymous No.16539790]

>>16537216
Im not a zoomer but what should i read before Kant

Some forums said Hobbes and Hume

[Anonymous No.16540560]

>>16533759
>Gorgias(best possible explanation and condensing of all of Plato's typical philosophy and orientation)
yes
if you only read one of Plato's dialogues it should be this
>>16539790
Hume's Treatise sets out the skepticism that Kant tries to refute
Start with Kant's Prolegomena To Any Future Metaphysics - he wrote it as an introductory summary to the chadwerk that is Critique of Pure Reason

[Anonymous No.16541985]

The absolute state of lit

[Anonymous No.16541994]

>>16531955
There is nothing wrong with this post and anyone who thinks otherwise is a bootlicking brainlet. I didn't enjoy Plato's Five Dialogues either, I enjoyed his Laws and Symposium much more. The people who think you have to enjoy everything a past figure writes because "they're like so intelligent and ancient and learned" are retarded.

[Anonymous No.16542027]

>>16541994
Tbf a lot of ppl read it for the plot and miss the whole point

[Anonymous No.16542109]

>>16541994
Making this thread and this post is proof you both are retarded though.

[Anonymous No.16542120]

>>16542109
Name one (1) thing wrong with my post, I dare you. I'm not OP btw.

[Anonymous No.16542155]

>>16542120
Depends what you didn't enjoy

[Anonymous No.16542163]

>>16542155
Doesn't read as fluidly as Laws and Republic, a bit pedantic, have nothing against the actual arguments presented.

[Anonymous No.16542257]

>>16542163
I loved Republic but just cause the ideas and it was my first ph book. I enjoyed the first few dialogues but I was already neck-deep in ph at that point.