/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18529247]

I've never read a book in my life and I'm trying to become more literate. I'm by no means a retard, I aced English in high school despite not reading the books in the curriculum (not a brag). I've just never enjoyed reading books and could never get into them, and even if I did, I'd forget what I read the next day. I really want to explore the works of philosophers and read good novels. I've read the wiki and it has been quite useful. I just want a second opinion on what I should begin with, before I "waste" my time reading a book.

Sorry bros, I know you guys probably get a lot of threads like this.

I'm 19m btw

[Anonymous No.18529251]

>>18529247
read plato and read existentialist works

[Anonymous No.18529257]

The dead white male in the pic is a decent start. Enjoy, anon.

> I aced English in high school despite not reading the books in the curriculum (not a brag).
This is definitely worrying. A sign that your education wasn't that great. Disregard grades, OP. They don't really matter if you are not good.

[Anonymous No.18529260]

>>18529257
But you can fix it and age 19 definitely isn't too late. Good luck.

[Anonymous No.18529268]

>>18529251
Straight into Plato? The wiki tells me to start with "Mythology" and then go onto "The Iliad"

[Anonymous No.18529273]

>>18529268
Well, you should read the presocratics but Plato's dialogues are common sense dialectic so you'll get it for the most part.

[Anonymous No.18529275]

>>18529268
What the fuck do you want, anon? Do you want to get /lit/ or do you feel like getting into Philosophy? If it is philosophy, get straight into Plato and read a secondary source on the pre-socratics then get a philosophy textbook. Maybe you can start straight with the textbook and get back to Plato. I did that (I honestly don't like Plato that much).

[Anonymous No.18529337]

>>18529273
>>18529275
Thanks bros, any secondary sources or textbooks you recommend?

[Anonymous No.18529482]

>>18529275
why dont you like plato anon?

[Anonymous No.18529551]

>>18529482
Because radical perspectivism makes a lot of sense to me. Specially since I'm not fucking blind, yet my father kept calling me blind as I grew up. Considering that neither of us is supposed to be in a mental asylum. Radical perspectivism seems like a decent explanation to it. Which is incompatible with Plato.

[Anonymous No.18529557]

>>18529337
Any textbook should suffice, anon. I used one called voyage of discovery by william lawhead. Great book, but there are plenty of other options. Just pick one that isn't too old and you should be fine.

[Anonymous No.18529570]

>>18529337
They are usually organized chronologically (like that Lawhead one I just recommended), by subject, or around questions. Any of those should be a good start. Just don't stick with any of those. Consider that they are secondary sources and ideally you want to get into either another secondary source or the real thing.

[Anonymous No.18529581]

>>18529551
And this whole 'philosophy as the guardian of reason' thing annoys the shit out of me. Specially considering its doings throughout history, this is the kind of thing that is dangerous af.

[Anonymous No.18529622]

>>18529581
>There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

[Anonymous No.18529778]

>>18529247
Starting with the greeks means Homer, not Plato. Homer > Hesiod > Aeschylus > Sophocles > Euripides > Aristophanes > Plato (Ideally you read everything they read.)

[Anonymous No.18529843]

>>18529247
Read these before 21

[Anonymous No.18529991]

>>18529247
read Capital

[Anonymous No.18530031]

>>18529557
>>18529570
Thanks

>>18529778
>>18529843
>>18529991
Noted

[Anonymous No.18530065]

>>18529991
He said philosophy, not pseudoscience.

[Anonymous No.18530082]

>>18530065
I recommend it because it's really easy to read and understand, and you cannot claim to be a philosopher unless you read all sorts of philosophy, retard

[Anonymous No.18530189]

>>18529843
How long would it take to read all three

[Anonymous No.18530217]

>>18530189
plato will take a month with heavy reading. idk about aristotle but itll probably be longer

[Anonymous No.18530229]

start with the stanford.edu intros to get a good frame

[Anonymous No.18530276]

>>18529247
Don't listen to all these tardbois in the thread. Philosophy is entirely useless to anyone under thirty years old- perhaps even older. Your brain is not even complete yet, not until you're 26. so filling it with a bunch of ideologies from various long dead people who range from incredible thinkers to irredeemable retards is just going to muddle your mind and choke your own personal growth as a person. You can dabble into philosophy at a surface level, but doing a full dive when you're so young will likely damage you more than it will build you up. Instead you should focus on reading other things that you will find enjoyable as a start, for example fiction novels, or whatnot. Then, once you've got a taste for reading, move on to literature that is more high minded- like non fiction and classics from people that are considered all time greats. After some years when you've matured you can get into philosophy. If you do it now, it's the equivalent of trying to understand trigonometry before you grasp alebra, or trying to cook a traditional cultural dish when you can hardly boil an egg. Or don't listen to me and do whatever you want- if you want to become a pseud that is.

[Anonymous No.18530278]

literally watch a video that explains the context in which plato's republic or apology takes place, this is the first step you illiterate internet mongoloid

[Anonymous No.18530329]

>>18530276
You guys have so many mystical attitudes about reading. You need to read to form a worldview, and this worldview is better if formed in formative years because it will dictate your decisions moving forward. Why wait till 30 you finally have a robust worldview? Better to have wisdom now, and to not hold regrets later.

[Anonymous No.18530440]

>>18529247
the way to fix this is to read books you like.

you have to open books and read them and if you are not captured or engaged then go and pick up another book. keep doing this until one actually interests you.

then find other books that interest you until you have your own taste in books not pretending to like things because others told you to

[Anonymous No.18530470]

This is beyond fucking retardation. People start studying Philosophy in fucking college at age 18. And philosophy goes way beyond the mundane shit of wordly life. Don't listen to this retard. Besides, there are books that teach philosophy to kids.

>You can dabble into philosophy at a surface level, but doing a full dive when you're so young will likely damage you more than it will build you up.
Have you even fucking considered that you don't know the OP? Does this even cross your mind? He is interested in philosophy and feel like getting into it. He might enjoy learning about it. I used to love math as a young kid. So just STFU and get out of this thread. Get to the other shit threads and troll there.

[Anonymous No.18530476]

>>18529247
stop listening to these tryhards
don't start with philosophy if you don't like reading
read no longer human, american psycho, anything by bukowski or the stranger
it's easier to find these enjoyable than the greeks

[OP No.18531387]

Now I'm confused about what I should read. When did you guys start dabbling into philosophy. Am I too young and should I stick to reading novels? I really wanted to get into Plato, so I'm probably going to give it a read and also trying to read good novels like American Psycho.

[OP No.18531401]

Now I'm confused about what I should read. When did you guys start dabbling into philosophy? Am I too young and should I stick to reading novels? I really wanted to get into Plato, so I'm probably going to give it a read, whilst also reading good novels like American Psycho.

[Anonymous No.18531409]

>>18529268
"Mythology" is a meme book. Genuinely reads like an awful compilation of dry wikipedia articles. Just read another book on mythology or start with the Illiad and google/duckduckgo all names you don't recognize.

[Anonymous No.18531679]

>>18531401
I got into Hume, Aquinas, Carnap, etc when I was 17 years old, you should be fine. There's basically three initial approaches you could take: (1) get familiar with ancient philosophy by reading the chief works of Plato and Aristotle, or prepare yourself for Kant by reading Descartes Spinoza Locke Leibniz Berkeley Hume in that order. (2) Read the Routledge series introduction to philosophy along with Blackwell anthologies in each field, then supplement all this with some articles from plato.stanford.edu. (3) pick any author you like and trace their inspirations and influences

[Anonymous No.18531857]

>>18531679
Thanks thats really helpful. Also, what do you do to help retain the information you obtain from reading?

[Anonymous No.18531877]

>>18531857
There's plenty of ways you can try to help your retention of information, be it memory palaces, note taking, discussions, etc. I'll repost this step-by-step note-taking method that I got from a professional historian of philosophy, you can omit any of the steps except the first.

0. Do a preliminary casual reading of the text.
1. Read a selected portion of the text very carefully by (a) pausing after every sentence and reflecting on what you had just read; (b) write down a single like or so explaining what had been done in the paragraph.
2. Repeat the above procedure until you have covered the entire thing (e.g. section or chapter). Make a brief statement as to what was done in the chapter, and then synthesize your pagagraph line notes into chunks (e.g. lines 1-5 define terminology, lines 6-8 present X)
3. Read your notes casually.
4. Amend your notes whilst casually reading the text once again.
5. Write a distilled version of your original notes out of marginal notes and turn those into an analytical table of contents.
6. Convert any important arguments into symbolic form to check for validity. (You can use the Wikipedia page for syllogisms to learn how to do this)

[Anonymous No.18531899]

Start reading anything you like that is not degenerate garbage.

There is no starting point you should be starting with. If you find philosophy too tedious at the moment, then keep the books on the side and buy something else. Go back to the books you did not enjoy in the future and try again. Just repeat the process of reading whatever the fuck seems interesting to you and pissing your money away on paperbacks (or torrent books).

As long as you don't read straight up trash then you are fine.

[Anonymous No.18531981]

>>18531877
Hopefully I can get the first step done at least

[Anonymous No.18532055]

>>18531981
Haha well I wish you good luck on your journey

[Anonymous No.18532075]

>>18531401
Are you the Muslim OP? When you're done reading Plato I'd love to see you make a thread on Platonic forms in the light of Islam. Adam (as) could've been a Platonist in the sense that he learned the names of all forms. Also make sure your aqidah is intact because you can get hypnotized by philosophy really easily if you're impressionable.

[Anonymous No.18532097]

My advice is don't start with classical literature like Dostoevsky. This will sound pleb but I don't care, most young men are not going to enjoy reading Flaubert at first. You have to develop your horizons a little and learn the basics of reading for pleasure. The biggest mistake people make in starting to read is viewing "literature" as synonymous with modernist and realist literature from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that primarily focuses on social commentary. You are not going to fucking enjoy Proust if you are a 19 year old just starting to read.

Read easy shit, read lots of it, read things that interest you right off the bat. Read classics of scifi and fantasy, things that you really enjoy reading and you can tell you're going to like right off the bat. If you do read approved classics, at least read fun ones like Ivanhoe or T.H. White or easy ones like 1984 and Notes from Underground instead of trying right away to read chronologically through Jane Austen because she's a classic and you're supposed to be patrician.

Hell, give yourself license to read total schlock for a while. I knew a guy who read PKD for a whole summer and it changed his life. For me it was Heinlein.

Of course if you already know you like Flaubert, Proust, and Austen then knock yourself out.

Philosophy is a bit harder, try starting with this
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw4-Fp0S2dJbBtytnCcVUXCaVZOvsPs00

[Anonymous No.18532110]

>>18532097
Also I highly recommend getting into short stories. That is a secret road to becoming patrician. You could even try listening to weird fiction/cosmic horror audiobooks on youtube HorrorBabble, or if you like ghost stories, try Bitesized Audio Classics.

The latter also has some great readings of Sherlock.

[Anonymous No.18532120]

>>18531401
>I really wanted to get into Plato, so I'm probably going to give it a read
Try reading the Meno first, then some mixture of Euthyphro, Crito, and Phaedo for interesting classic dilemmas in Plato while also being reasonably bite sized.

[Anonymous No.18532134]

>>18531679
this is the first good answer in this whole thread

[Anonymous No.18532139]

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWJHjBEep32d5ui_-JHU2egZJkamY3AZk

[Anonymous No.18532247]

>>18532097
>don't start with classical literature like Dostoevsky.
Wat? Dostoevsky's "Demons" are the main reason I stopped considering classical literature a shit.

[Anonymous No.18532255]

>>18530082
That might be the case, but Capital is not philosophy, it is political economy at best

[Anonymous No.18532276]

>>18532255
>Capital is not philosophy, it is political economy at best
At some point, you'll stop differentiating between imposed boundaries.

[Anonymous No.18532638]

>>18532120
Thanks, will do

[Anonymous No.18532645]

>>18532097
Cool, I really do want to get into novels and enjoy reading for fun. Thanks

[Anonymous No.18533322]

>>18529257
>dead white male
>white

[Anonymous No.18534914]

>>18530189
i read plato at 40 pages an hour, 1750 pages total
aristotle at 25 pages an hour, 2500 pages total

[Anonymous No.18535009]

>>18534914
>reads plato faster than aristotle
disgusting. you should be spending at least 20 minutes on each sentence

[Anonymous No.18535156]

Is there any way for me to make reading philosophy books more enjoyable? I like thinking about the themes and ideas presented but generally it feels like books are full of flowery language and I'm reading sentences where I have no idea what they're trying to convey.

[Anonymous No.18535187]

>>18531401
KEK are you unironically going to let an anon telling you what you shouldn't be doing?

>>18535156
Get a 'pop philosophy' book. Definitely better than reading 4chan threads. There are plenty of those that pick a random common there and put some philosophers into context. But some of the language is mandatory if you feel like getting more than just the surface. It is like that with anything, imagine physics without any jargon, biology, chemistry or anything else really.

[Anonymous No.18535196]

>>18535156
Read the intros, sometimes they'll give you a qrd of what to generally think of when Socrates says "I agree"

[Anonymous No.18535213]

>>18529257
>dead white male
>dead

>>18529260
...What if you're 21?

[Anonymous No.18535519]

>>18535187
>>18535196
Thanks, I might decide to read more beginner friendly books if it has to come to that, but I was more wondering if there were any tips or techniques to allow me to stomach the older stuff better.

[Anonymous No.18535763]

>>18529843
22 and of these ive only read the republic. Is it over for me

[Anonymous No.18535774]

>>18535213
No, I started learning Philosophy at age 28, anon. Finished reading my first philosophy textbook at 30.

[Anonymous No.18535779]

>>18535763 I forgot to quote you too.
>>18535774

[Anonymous No.18535780]

>>18533322
Retarded

[Anonymous No.18535784]

>>18529551
Sounds like this is more something to do with your father. Why don’t we start there and trace back our steps?

[Anonymous No.18535790]

>>18535784
Nah, it does make a lot of sense, anon. People keep fighting over stupid shit and they are 'absolutely right' about things that you can't be sure. They wouldn't do that if radical perspectivism wasn't true.

[Anonymous No.18535792]

>>18535790
Not even using true in the regular sense of it. More like it just works, so be it until I find something better.

[Anonymous No.18536996]

Read the starter pack anon

[Anonymous No.18537125]

>>18536996
Is American Psycho not good? I've had a couple anons recommend that to me

[Anonymous No.18537131]

>>18537125
I think he's just crossing off what he's read. And yeah, it's really good but it's dark and gruesome.

[Anonymous No.18537274]

>>18537125
Like the other anon said I'm crossing it off as I read it. I finished American psycho last night and watched the movie this morning. I really liked it and can write a more in depth review of it later if you want.

[Anonymous No.18537309]

>>18537274
>>18537131
Awesome, I loved the movie, so I'm probably going to read that and a few other novels before I move on to philosophy

[Anonymous No.18537478]

>>18537309
I would recommend reading the entire starter pack I posted. There hasn't yet been a book I've regretted reading. Even if I've read some of them before I've re read them within the past six months.

[Anonymous No.18537714]

>>18529251
>read existentialist works

[Anonymous No.18539144]

>>18537714
Fuck off troll