/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6954723]

How do I become I proper intellectual if I can't afford uni? All the "auto-didacts" I know are pseudo-intellectual scum. Without feedback and guidance, how do I know if I am on the path to true knowledge?

[Anonymous No.6954725]

Quit being a bitch and study

[Anonymous No.6954726]

>>6954723
Start with the Greeks.

[Anonymous No.6954738]

>>6954726
How do I know if I understand the Greeks? I've read Plato, but how do I know if I'm getting everything I can from reading him?

[Anonymous No.6954912]

>>6954738
How are you not understanding his advice? Just start with the fucking Greeks and everything will be shown.

[Anonymous No.6954920]

>>6954738
What? Do you think doing a course on philosophy or classics will give you some sort of objective knowledge of what Plato thought? Why do you need a proffesor's validation so much? Just read loads of secondary material and study alot fuckin hel mate

[Anonymous No.6954932]

>>6954723
Don't worry about it. Why do you want to become a "proper intellectual" anyways? Do you need that title? Sounds like you've got some insecurity issues to work on friend.

[Anonymous No.6956498]

>tfw a legit autodidact

[Anonymous No.6956512]

>>6954723
>All the "auto-didacts" I know are pseudo-intellectual scum
Explain. And what is a real intellectual to you?

[Anonymous No.6956521]

>>6954723
Just keep in the back of your mind at all times that you're a dumb, ugly, disgusting, sinful piece of shit and that you deserve nothing but a load of buckshot through the teeth.

[Anonymous No.6956524]

all the "auto-didacts" I know are pseudo-intellectual scum........................true knowledge?

[Anonymous No.6956525]

>>6954738
force yourself to write a 1000 word essay with secondary sources on the themes of the book every time you finish reading the book. Use the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism to help with this.

[Anonymous No.6956534]

>>6954723
>All the "auto-didacts" I know are pseudo-intellectual scum

I'm sorry to hear that, but there are a lot of intelligent people out there who have taught themselves just about everything they know.

[Anonymous No.6956537]

>>6956512
Someone with a degree. You simply can't know anything without the paper to prove it.

[Anonymous No.6956542]

>>6956537
you've been spooked, friendo. contemporary academia is a goddamn scam

[Anonymous No.6956546]

>>6956498
what does tfw mean

[Anonymous No.6956548]

>>6956542
>said the autodidact
Atleast I know what I think is correct, I have professors to validate it.

[Anonymous No.6956553]

>>6956537
Go away dad.

[Anonymous No.6956555]

DID THE MAN WHO INVENTED COLLEGE GO TO COLLEGE?

[Anonymous No.6956556]

>>6956537
That sure is an interesting epistemology you've got there

[Anonymous No.6956557]

>>6956537

[Anonymous No.6956562]

>>6956555
the man who invented college had 5 ph.ds

[Anonymous No.6956563]

>>6956548
I was a student, but found the whole experience so sickening that I had to quit and start delivering pizzas instead.

[Anonymous No.6956567]

>>6956562
5 penis heads and dicks

[Anonymous No.6956572]

>>6954723
Why not to move to middle/middle-eastern Europe? It'll be times cheaper and the conditions are not that wrong.

[Anonymous No.6956573]

>>6956563
dang, can u hook me up at pizza hut plz

[Anonymous No.6956582]

can someone please get me to cut my nails. they're soooooo long

[Anonymous No.6956590]

>>6956567
how did you know

>>6954723
it's mostly about intelligence-related soft skills, not the factual knowledge per se. in most parts of europe you can just attend lectures. the obvious solution would be just to watch shit on yt but you still don't get the metacommunication that much which is still surprisingly important

[Anonymous No.6956602]

>>6956590
plus it's not just about knowing the right things, it's learning how to filter information, keep on trajectory with learning, being in, recognizing trends, learning mental/cultural/social flexibility, humor, metacognition, all that jazz. if you're a first gen 'intellectual', good luck, you'll be recognized immediately

[Anonymous No.6956613]

>>6956602
but you have to start somewhere, and even being a self-made second-rate intellectual is a lot better than staying blue collar I guess. back to your original question, you don't really need feedback after a while though so it's not entirely hopeless

[Anonymous No.6956627]

>>6956613
or OP you could have asked "How do I become proper cool etc" and the same principles apply

[Anonymous No.6956641]

>>6954932
This

[Anonymous No.6956679]

>>6956641
/lit/ is always there to help

[Anonymous No.6956707]

>>6954723
No actual intellectuals call themselves intellectuals. You'll never be an intellectual if you're trying to be one.

[Anonymous No.6956737]

>>6956707
yes OP watch out and if you write the word "I'm an intellectual" on a piece of paper and ask an actual intellectual to read what he sees he will certainly disappear into non-existence

[Anonymous No.6956743]

>>6956573
>>6956563
same, unless you work at Domino's, cause that shit is low key garbage

[Anonymous No.6956751]

>>6954723
Sounds like you're american worrying about whos right or wrong
Unless you're in this to make cash.

Fine a subject you like and spend any free time on studying it. Learn and understand it then execute It.

worry less about the spooks

[Anonymous No.6956766]

>>6956548
You have comma splices to refute it.

[Anonymous No.6956778]

There is no such thing except maybe a public intellectual, but who would want that?

>>6956563
This tbh.

[Anonymous No.6957241]

>>6956707
You are confusing the word intellectual with the word "cool"

[Anonymous No.6957828]

>All the "auto-didacts" I know are pseudo-intellectual scum.
Mostly that is my experience as well, but that doesn't mean that it has to be like that. Here's what you do:

>Read.
>Read more.
>Remember that you have not 'figured it all out'.
>Repeat.

More specifically, if you want a quick intro to the history of philosophy, my advice would be to read Sophie's World, and then look up the philosophers on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/)) as you go. Then, for more depth, the absolute minimum works to read are:
>Meditations on First Philosophy - Descartes
>Prolegomena - Kant (in this work, he essentially just explains his larger work Critique of Pure Reason)
>Tractatus Logico Philosophicus - Wittgenstein
The third of the above might be contended by others in this thread as being an obligatory, but I know they will not disagree that it is a major work.
Some other stuff, like Hegel, Heidegger or the Greeks (including both the pre-Socratics and the later ones) will probably be easier to get a grip of from secondary literature (go to your local library, or go to Stanford).

If it's society in general you're into, I'd recommend starting with 1984 by Orwell, and Brave New World by Huxley. If you want, Huxley also published another work called Brave New World Revisited, where he explains and compares the two works to each other (but take it easy with that book, some parts of it are rather just early Cold War paranoia).
If you're into the more philosophical aspects of modern society, I'd recommend Contemporary Political Philosophy by Will Kymlicka.

Other than that, pick up on reading your local intellectual newspaper - preferably the only weekly ones (as they have a tendency to put out more "news for the sake of news").

[Anonymous No.6958417]

>>6954723
You don't.

[Anonymous No.6958423]

>>6957828
That picture makes me hope you suffer.

[Anonymous No.6958460]

>>6958423
1773 characters written, and you reply with a comment to the picture that has been posted >9000 times before.
Thank you for being on this board.

[Anonymous No.6958474]

>>6958423
but its fun

>>6957828
isn't there a zizek version?

[Anonymous No.6959321]

>>6956512
Most of the people I know who consider themselves "auto didacts" are the type to read Malcolm Gladwell books and think that they're up to date on world events because they listen to NPR sometimes. It's like people who think they're nerds because they play pokemon or that they're into "classical music" when they listen to a Beethoven best-of compilation. I see can see other people's failings clearly, how do I know which ones of mine I am outright blind too? Pseudo intellectualism just seems worse than outright anti intellectualism.

[Anonymous No.6959345]

>>6954723
>be an autodidact
>be pseudo intellectual scum
>no one yet has me figured out

[Anonymous No.6959353]

>>6954723
If you can't earn a scholarship to any university then you almost certainly aren't cut out to be an intellectual in the first place, or even the kind of person who really benefits from university. Know your place, peasant.

[Anonymous No.6959358]

>>6959353
I had a full scholarship, my abusive crazy mother fucked it up and so now I'm going to some secondary school that barely cuts at as a university.

[Anonymous No.6960190]

>>6957828
You can tell that this post was written by a pseudo-intellectual because he didn't recommend Copleston as the starting point for philosophical reading.

[Anonymous No.6960311]

>6960190
>Remember that you have not 'figured it all out'.

[Anonymous No.6960373]

>>6960311
That was the last piece of the puzzle I needed thanks, now if I could only be humble about my patrician upbringing I would be perfect.

[Anonymous No.6960402]

>>6957828
>all these white male philosophers
>no blacks or women
Back to /pol/, buddy