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/lit/ - Literature

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7916836 No.7916836 [Reply] [Original]

I read The Republic and now I'm going to read the dialogues, is there any order I should follow?

>> No.7916845
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>> No.7916848
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>> No.7916855

>>7916845
>>7916848
Thanks a lot, is there something similar for Aristotle?

>> No.7916867
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>>7916855

>> No.7916877

Timaeus and Euthyphro are the my favorites so far. Phaedo's musing on the soul was interesting but mostly superseded by the modern notion of cognition.

>> No.7916878

>>7916867
That's fucking retarded. Aristotle is not hard to read or understand.

>> No.7916894

>>7916878
I recently read the Nicomachean Ethics. I agree that he's not as hard to understand as that image makes him out to be, and you can very easily stick only to reading primary sources.

However, everything but his discussion of friendship was extremely dry. That I must admit.

>> No.7916979

>>7916855
Dubs.

For Aristotle I'm reading in this order:
Nicomachian Ethics
Rhetoric
Politics
Metaphysics
On the Soul

I wanna fit economics and poetics in at some point too, but these are the big ones.

The subject matter in the Ethics is categorized so you can kind of skip around it to make it more interesting. I read chapters 1-4, then 6-7, then 10, then 5, and finally 8-9.

>> No.7916986

>>7916836
The death of Socrates stuff, then the Meno, then the Phaedrus and Symposium. If you really like Plato, the later dialogues are fantastic (Laws, Statesman)

>> No.7917000

>>7916979
Nothing should come between Nicomachean Ethics and Politics. Politics is the sequel and picks up directly where NE ends.

>> No.7917128
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Do you agree /lit/?

>> No.7917140

>>7917000
Was going to use the rhetoric as a break, but thanks for the heads up

>> No.7917197

>>7917128
Don't let the fancy language seduce you anon, Plato a proto-totalitarian: from Plato to NATO bruh.

>> No.7917259

>>7916986
This is a good intro, but don't stop there.

Some of his most insightful and least known are:
Parmenides
Timaeus
Philebus
Theaetetus
Statesman

>> No.7917495

>>7916979
No no no no no.

Awful order.

Read the traditional order or don't read him at all.

>> No.7917513

>Start with the Apology; it's the key to the rest of the dialogues, and almost all of them make some reference to some aspect of the Apology. Keep in mind that it's a work of philosophy, and not a historic account, and you'll be good to go.

After that, it's really up to you, since there a couple of ways to order those dialogues:

1) By *seeming* difficulty: Apology, Euthyphro, Crito, the Symposium, Phaedo, Republic, Parmenides. This is helpful if you're really just looking to dip into Plato to see what's there.

2) "Developmental" order: (roughly the same order as above). This might be an indication of what order the dialogues were written, though there's really no good way to say whether Plato's thought really actually develops according to the three basic periods some scholars say his basic approaches would fit within; Republic and Phaedo both have different accounts of the soul but are both "Middle" period dialogues; no dialogue contains exactly the same views concerning the Forms, regardless of period; Socrates almost always uses question-and-answer modes at some point or another, regardless of whether one is to take him as Plato's strict mouthpiece.

3) "Dramatic" dating: Parmenides, Republic, Symposium, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo. This approach would be the most rewarding for a philosophy student who's already read these dialogues before, and wants to see how Plato wants to present Socrates as a whole to us. Very hard to read in this order, but one gets to see relations that would otherwise be missed.
Some other dialogues that might go well with those would be:
Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman (all of which relate to Parmenides and the four dialogues that take place around Socrates' trial and execution).

Gorgias and Phaedrus: Both deal with rhetoric, but the Gorgias is connected to the Republic by the concern with Justice, and the Phaedrus to the Symposium by the concern with Love.

Cratylus: Relates to the Euthyphro and the dialogues at the end of Socrates' life in general. It's about language, and it's one of Plato's funniest dialogues.

Maybe Timaeus as well, which alludes to the Republic. Other than that, the rest are great from a certain philosophic perspective, but maybe not so essential to someone who'd just like familiarity.

>> No.7917520

>>7917495
It's all good m8; Plato in a less than optimal order is still better than no Plato.

Which one is the traditional order to you? The early middle late or the four parters one?

>> No.7918210

What are the most important dialogues to read before the Republic?

>> No.7918214

Lol @ sperging out about "orders."
Last 2000 years of Western thought has been built around Plato. You're suffused in Plato. If you can't figure him out without reading him in a prescribed "order" then you're too autistic for literature.

>> No.7919487

>>7916867
"Use secondary materials like Sparknotes, Wikipedia, and Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy"

this is a joke right

>> No.7919488

>>7917513
holy shit did you copypasta one of my old posts answering this holy shit I've made the big time boys

>> No.7919495

>>7919488
Omedetations for that and for the dubs, pastabro.

>> No.7919807

>>7919487
Absolutely not, at least for Stanford. Do you really think that a person who is brand new to philosophy (which should be the case if they are reading Plato) is equipped to pull every strand of meaning out of primary source texts?

Plato and Aristotle are relatively easy reading, to be sure, but there is no reason to not take advantage of the age of the internet to get other perspectives on readings. It's not like you're playing a video game and reading a strategy guide is cheating.

>> No.7920191

>>7919807
I'm fine with secondary lit, more than fine even, but Christ, Sparknotes? Wikipedia? Those don't by any means equip a reader to "pull every strand of meaning out of primary source texts". Those are jokes.

>> No.7920196

>>7920191
Also, why shouldn't a student of those texts struggle with them for their first reading? If they don't like it, then philosophy (or at least that of Plato and Aristotle) isn't for them, and they can move on to some area more appropriate for them.

>> No.7921107

A .rar with a bunch of Republic commentaries, essays, resources, etc.

https://mega.nz/#!KU5lDJoA!Ol1zX1V-I5fhAQ4F5dAALmhgYcqMmZq3q_4A230akgA

>> No.7921533

>>7921107
thanks a bunch anon, that's a really great collection.

if that's what you have for the republic, what do you have for the other dialogues?

>> No.7921538

>>7921533
Cheers!

A lot. I have a couple of collections of ancient and more modern commentaries, either on specific dialogues, or devoted to several. There's some overlap with some of the Republic commentaries also appearing in these, if you don't mind.
(Ancient and early modern commentaries)
https://mega.nz/#!bBAknYga!xAxS9-oBKdFOEDWjvGvEx-orU7n28BqZCS73fuvEjQc

(Modern commentaries)
https://mega.nz/#!KQBDAA6C!wlk-zU-QPvio0kCyjqmQqCz3u_-fxQK36X4IKSpl9fQ

>> No.7921977

>>7921538
Nice.