/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20812178]

If while reading a philosophy/sociology book, you realize that you had already thought of the same ideas as the author, even before having any contact with his work, does this mean that you are intelligent or that the author is a midwit?

[Anonymous No.20812199]

>>20812178
It means you were too unlucky to be the first one to go and put that idea into paper.
But it is very, very likely that multiple people in history already thought that same thing waaaay before the philosopher that wrote the book thought about it.

[Anonymous No.20812210]

>>20812178
It means that sociologists are hacks that take things everyone knows and dress them in useless jargon.

[Anonymous No.20812229]

>>20812178
"Having the idea" doesn't mean anything. The merit in these books is in their proofs and arguments. One could have many ideas but proving them and exploring them in depth is another thing. Besides, many of these ideas have found their way into popular culture and you might be vaguely aware of them just through cultural osmosis.

[Anonymous No.20812334]

>>20812210
Having a thought is not the same as distilling, formalizing and communicating it.

[Anonymous No.20812379]

>>20812178
it just means you should have started with plato because he touches on this

[Anonymous No.20812408]

>>20812229
This is a board filled with "idea guys".

[Anonymous No.20812505]

>>20812334
This is the essence of a lot of philosophical writing and the reason people often mistakenly label it as “aggrandizing truisms.” Many of what thinkers consider the most fundamental truths, are the most basic concepts to think about, but need careful illuminating using unambiguous language and argumentative structure.

[Anonymous No.20812559]

You are intelligent.
Integration didn't exist until Lebesgue formalized it.

[Anonymous No.20812570]

I have never read a philosophy book that had any ideas that I hadn't thought about before. I once tried to read Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons and literally everything there was plagiarized from my brain.

One exception is Nietzche's Antichrist.

[Anonymous No.20812663]

>>20812570
You should read Hegel then

[Anonymous No.20812692]

>>20812663
I already have. Those were ideas I had as an infantile and quickly grew out of them.

[Anonymous No.20813365]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20813392]

>>20812379
Thats not the point of the Meno anon

[Anonymous No.20814751]

>>20812178
Hate that bald bottom faggot like you wouldn't believe

[Anonymous No.20814765]

>>20812178
>does this mean that you are intelligent or that the author is a midwit?
I usually assume the latter. It's not that I'm not intelligent, it's just that any thought that can be conceived and without much contemplation is not worth very much on its own. But underlying intelligence can be the ability to present and elucidate, and create a strong basis for considering the thought to be valid.

[Anonymous No.20814768]

>>20814765
>can be conceived
Can be conceived casually*

[Anonymous No.20814771]

>>20812408
Every “board” is. These places are like catnip to the idea guy brain. It has to do with the entire concept of a board in the first place.

[Anonymous No.20814950]

On the contrary, seek out writers that have the same ideas as you and compare how they work through them. You'll get much more out of it than letting yourself be bamboozled by things that are completely alien to you, and you won't have this experience of forgetting 90% of the book afterwards.

[Anonymous No.20815397]

>>20812178
Bro if you studied pure math then this is pure fucking clear. You think as a undergrad, so if one think oneself can solve this problem much efficient way and did the proof, then you see some person in 150 years ago did exact same, also learned that person lived a terrible life with no attention.
It is pretty much the same. Even Plato's Meno cover this up. It is laughable somehow you picked image of Fuko out of all philosopher. Fuko's idea is familiar because EVERY FUCKING 70s and 80s intellectual stabs his brain by Fuko's book. TV and film screenwriters also followed the intellectuals and did the exact same thing. That's why Foucault's thoughts seem so natural and obvious right now.

[Anonymous No.20815637]

>>20812178
No, it just means that philosophy is easy.
Undergrad students in philosophy class regularly anticipate arguments and objections before they actually come up in the assigned reading. Meanwhile this almost never happens in STEM classes because the ideas are much harder to come up with yourself.
I say this as someone who loves philosophy and thinks it’s very worthwhile. But I can’t deny that it is easy in a certain sense.

[Anonymous No.20815728]

>>20815637
stem is taught differently than phil, usually by worse teachers, to students who are largely doing it for the money and don't care. Also, anticipating things is even easier in stem

>be me
>begin learning trig because my formal math education ended with quadratic equations
>oh cool, we can use certain ratios to find the sides from the angles...
> I wonder if the same is also true for finding angles from the sides
>cool, inverted sine
>i wonder what relation this has to circles?

[Anonymous No.20816053]

>>20812178
I came to the conclusion of Plato's tripartite soul before starting reading western philosophy. I am not intelligent just aware of obvious things. Philosophy is about stating obvious things u dummy

[Anonymous No.20816334]

>>20816053
Shame that the tripartite soul is blatantly contradictory and incorrect.

[Anonymous No.20816369]

>>20816334
Shame u didnt get even such a simple premise. Maybe u oughta stick to ur social studies.

Unless ofc u can explain why u think its incorrect and blatantly contradictory. If so I'll proclaim (You) to be the better man

[Anonymous No.20816397]

>>20812692
Now everyone knows you’re retarded.

[Anonymous No.20816440]

>>20812229
>proving them and exploring them in depth is another thing
And applying them usefully is yet another thing.
There are always new ideas or platforms and all you have to do to for example make money is use the stuff you've been handed on a platter by the previous efforts. Instead of actually doing things almost everyone wants to just keep thinking, me included. Doing things is dangerous.

[Anonymous No.20816469]

>>20816369
Simply, each of three parts of the soul are described as capable of rebelling against the others, and this is defined as unjust. There's a few issues here.
1. Rationality rebelling against appetite, for example, is not compatible with any formulation of Plato's idea of the unjust. If the rational were to do things against its own interest, this would be irrational, and therefore not something the rational part of the soul is capable of, since these rebellions of the soul as described are "overstepping" by having too much of their attribute. Too much rationality, too much spiritedness, too much appetite, but the ffirst is simply not possible.
2. Plato only describes parts of the soul rebelling against eachother, and leaves this concept incomplete. For example, the desire to get a beer from the fridge is appetitive, but the desire to continue watching television instead is also appetitive, therefore this part of the soul manages to contradict itself despite being a single unit. Unless Plato wishes to formulate a segment of the soul that applies to every kind of appetite individually, but this appears distinctly unplatonic.

This isn't an exhaustive list of its issues, I'm mainly critiquing it based on its approach to sense impressions and the soul in conflict with itself. I'm more of a stoic in regards to rationality vs appetite.

[Anonymous No.20816540]

>>20812570
A lot of philosophers write for people who already understand. But the thing is, if you aren't primed to hear it, you won't be able to recognize it. So how do you know if you've never encountered an unfamiliar idea when they could be lurking within the text, just unable to be dislodged by your (unknown) philosophical weakness?

[Anonymous No.20816657]

>>20816469
Hmmm. I gotta admit it has been years since I read the Republic and my own idea has slowly been refined by others writers. But I fail to see the contradictions in your post

>1. Rationality rebelling against appetite
Compare Galatians 5:17
>“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”
A man is the combination of his body and mind, the mind is divided into two: the irrational (ego, spirit, ambition etc.) and the rational (wisdom, truth). The appetite is your bodily needs, but without reason to temper it, it leads to gluttony, lust and sloth. The rational part is always rational and the appetite part always desires pleasure. Hence they quarrel constantly.

>2. Plato only describes parts of the soul rebelling against eachother, and leaves this concept incomplete.
Again it's been awhile, since I read him, but lack of elucidation of certain aspects of a theory, shouldn't be grounds for dismissal. I would wager he would argue that the appetitive soul experiences many urges concurrently and goes for the one that would offer the most satisfaction. Like if you're thirsty on a hot summer day, the desire to get a cool drink would outweigh watching tv commercials. No conflict would arise in that scenario.

In any case, i'm a just a blind man grasping around in the darkness for fun. I may not be able to proclaim (You) to be superior in insight, but I have valued your input my brother anon.

[Anonymous No.20816679]

>>20812199
This. Also, a single thought needs backing up, in Foucault for example he presents a thought and backs it up with a shit ton of research. So even if you have the same thought, the next question is, have or will you do the work?

[Anonymous No.20817161]

>>20815728
>math education ended with quadratic equations
what
>anticipating things is even easier in stem
Ok, anticipate this
In a solution of R-C=O-CH3, what happens?
No googling

[Anonymous No.20817259]

>>20812178
Oh, look. Another human has read first few paragraphs of "In Search for Lost Time" and for the first time in his life realised that he isnt the protagonist in the Truman Show tv series.

[Anonymous No.20817300]

>>20812178
>"and therefore I give no sources, because it is indifferent to me whether what I have thought has already been thought before me by another."

[Anonymous No.20817324]

>>20817300

[Anonymous No.20817338]

>>20812178
I dont know what I am and I had several matching ideas but I don’t think I could have articulated them properly or as good.

[Anonymous No.20817622]

>>20817324
there are more complete versions of this meme
I probably have them saved somewhere between cute nude girls, but I have to work tomorrow