Plato's works

[Anonymous No.19608265]

So, which is the ultimate collection of his works with the best translation? Where can I acquire it?

[Anonymous No.19608383]

>>19608265
I have a 5000 pages "collected works of plato". Would not recommend it.

Start with "The Republic", audiobook is free on youtube, and then move on a book of his that covers a philosophical topic you are actually interested in.

[Anonymous No.19608388]

>>19608265
The Cooper Complete Plato is the standard complete collection. It's really your only good option. It's gotten pretty expensive, but you can find a free PDF online if you don't need a physical copy.

[Anonymous No.19608461]

>>19608265
It takes 5-8 months to get to a level in Ancient Greek where you can start reading Plato with supplementary materials. There is no excuse.
Or take the cuck route: >>19608388
However Cooper isn't your best option especially if you're ESL. I won't go into the problems with the translations because it seems to make a small group of adamant Cooper fanboys here seethe like nothing else. I recommend the Hamilton edition and you can probably find it for cheaper too.

[Anonymous No.19608580]

>>19608461
The Hamilton edition is underrated to be sure. It's gotten harder to find in recent years though.

[Anonymous No.19608940]

>>19608461
I REALLY doubt 8 months would be enough time to learn greek from scratch up to the point when I can really fuckin Plato. I'm no genius, bro, although I'd really like to be able to read that shit

[Anonymous No.19609060]

>>19608940
Depends how much time you can spend on it. With 9-14 hours a week you can work your way trough a textbook, learn the essential grammar of Greek prose and pick up a lot of vocabulary along the way in about 5 months. The next step you should do is work your way through Xenophon's Anabasis. There won't be any new grammar there and you should have a fair bit of the vocab already under your belt. If you don't care about the lesser pupils of Socrates and want to jump straight into Plato that's fine too and many people have done so. With the help of Geoffrey Steadman's materials and maybe a Loeb it should be a fairly straightforward voyage.
Greek is not as hard as people say. Oh well, free pseudpoints for those who have made the effort.

[Anonymous No.19609242]

>>19608940
It's more feasible than you think, the freshmen of the St. John's College great books program translate Plato's Meno by the end of the year. You'd need a lexicon obviously, but if you get a grammar textbook and devote at least an hour every day to it you can easily get to that point in months.

[Anonymous No.19609300]

>>19608461
>>19608580
I'd really like some information on the quality of the trsnslations as I want to buy Cooper's edition one of these days. Afaik he also has a lot of spurious dialogues.

[Anonymous No.19609377]

>>19609300
Don't want to shit too much on Cooper. I think he is a solid academic and editor. His introduction to the collection is excellent and probably the best thing about the book. My main problem with the translations is the language itself. It's very modern and some of the idioms used would be outright impossible to come out of someones mouth living in the 400 BC. The translations lack soul and betray Plato's poetic capabilities (this becomes noticeable in dialogues concerting poetry or including poets as speakers). Many Anglos have forgotten this because all they read is Cooper.

[Anonymous No.19609460]

>>19609377
Thanks anon. This is a bit disheartening. I'm interested in philosophy but I'd also like to get some literary pleasure out of Plato.
>Anglos
You don't happen to speak German, do you?

[Anonymous No.19609497]

>>19609460
>You don't happen to speak German, do you?
Unfortunately no. That will change in the future but right now I'm too busy with Greek and dipping my toes into Latin. There has been so much authoritative work about classics written in German that it would almost have been useless to learn Greek if I didn't follow up on it with German.

[Anonymous No.19609535]

>>19609497
Gottgeschwindigkeit. Meinen Segen hast du, mein Sohn.

[Anonymous No.19609584]

>>19609535
Danke mein Freund

[Anonymous No.19609616]

Speaking of German....
Posting rare Platos:

>Curiously, the dialogues within are English translations of Schleiermacher's venerable German translations.

[Anonymous No.19609690]

>>19609300
I wouldn't say he has "a lot" of spurious dialogues, there's maybe 5 that everyone both from antiquity and today uniformly agree aren't by Plato and probably had a source in the Academy. The other so-called contested dialogues (Rival Lovers, Cleitophon, Theages, etc) are all worth reading and are sometimes greater fun than some longer dialogues (like Theages, which seems to be taking on Aristophanes' Clouds).

The translations aren't the worst I've seen of Plato, but they also aren't the best. They're not useful if you want to study in depth without having to constantly consult the Greek, but they're good for just familiarizing yourself with the dialogues. Basically, there's a sacrifice in catching wordplay or how an important term might appear in other contexts in the same dialogue, but for the most part it's honestly fine.

[Anonymous No.19610018]

>>19608265
I personally have pic related.

[Anonymous No.19610545]

>>19609060
>>19609242
What would you guys recommend? I saw ppl on /lit/ recommending Athenaze for that matter

[Anonymous No.19610590]

>>19610545
Athenaze is not a bad way to get started. Other popular option (if you feel like spending a lot of money) is the Reading Greek series with lots of supplementary materials.
Check out the classical languages general where people get more in depth about the best resources.

[Anonymous No.19610724]

>>19610590
Will do, tyvm anon

[Anonymous No.19611409]

>>19610545
I used the Mollin & Williamson in college, which leads you up to translating all of the Meno. It doesn't have answers in the back, and I haven't run across any answer keys, so if you're uncertain, it's not super helpful, but the explanations and order of topics seem to help jump in to straight away translating easier real Greek excerpts.

I haven't sat down with in it in any focused way, but I do like using Athenaze as a refresher.

[Anonymous No.19612722]

bump

[Anonymous No.19612778]

>Anglos will never be able to enjoy the superior Witwicki translation
Shame

[Anonymous No.19612909]

>Start with The Republic
is no one gonna call out that first reply?

[Anonymous No.19613228]

>>19608383
>>19612909
I've seen folk recommending to actually start with the Apology

[Anonymous No.19614529]

bump