Will I become more intelligent after finishing this?
>>25458800No. You MUST read it twice at minimum before you can claim to have understood anything at all. I'm not larping, this is just a fact.
>>25458800Yes but you won't
>>25458800You will develop a sudden taste for homosexuality
>>25458800Probably.
Who cares nigga, if you like it then sure read more of it, you should thank the heavens that in this day and age you get to read and drop a book withou having to pay any cent
>>25458807This. You WILL get filtered the first time. You should also read the pre-Socratics beforehand.
>>25458800Don’t start with Plato, but with Aristotle.
>>25458800You will, but some of the messages and dialogues Plato is aiming at will go over your head simply because they're so retarded that you'll convince yourself you're missing something, when in reality you understand perfectly well, and Plato is just being obtuse. Other times, the problem is him relying on such loaded language that the crux of the argument is anyone's guess.
>>25458824>develop >sudden
>>25458889>some of the messages and dialogues Plato is aiming at will go over your head simply because they're so retarded that you'll convince yourself you're missing something, when in reality you understand perfectly wellExamples?>Other times, the problem is him relying on such loaded language that the crux of the argument is anyone's guess.Examples?
>>25458800Assuming you don't get filtered by it, absolutely.
>>25458800No because those translations suck
>>25458900>retardedCall me anti-intellectual or whatever, but the Allegory of the Cave is just a pretentious ego massage session on Plato's part. It's a decent way to illustrate the limitations of our flawed human perception, but it doesn't go much further than that, and the idea of Plato, of all people, acting as though he alone can see the true nature of reality is just as absurd.The Republic, writing-wise, is genuinely high quality. The message, though, is pretty dumb.>loaded languageParmenides and it can also go into the retarded category.Euthyphro and Gorgias are my favorites. Plato's dialogues are generally at their weakest when it's just Plato, through Socrates, talking at length about his own observations, with zero pushback from the other characters. I know it's a meme in philosophy to pedantically define every important term in an argument, but it's annoying when Plato's characters skip that step, because we're left with only a vague sense of what either of them is arguing about, or for.
>>25458898
>>25458902even gymbros say you gotta start somewherewhy you gotta be like that man?
>>25458807Serious question: what have you actually gained from reading plato? I mean what philosophical insights have you gathered?
>>25458924>EuthyphroWhat is the value of this dialogue? I read it and I don't see any unless you actually take polytheism seriously
>>25459130We’ll besides Polytheism it’s also supposed to get you to think of Good as a supernatural force of its own Ala the Forms theory rather than Good as an actual living man with opinions and “thought” like the God or Allah in Abrahamism or any form of divine command theory. Eurhyphro is relevant to theory of the Forms
>>25459130Tards will really read a text on metaphysics and wonder why the subject is going beyond physics. This is why putting Plato and Nietzsche together under the label of Philosophy is extremely misleading; the Greeks have nothing at all in common with kraut schizo ramblings.
>>25459128Opinions may differ, but, reading Plato is a lot more about seeing the foundations of how we got to where we are now. Most insights you would find in his work are already pre-installed in your mind as a westerner. So, actually reading him, will give you a much deeper understanding of what you may already know.Also, reading Plato is valuable for so many more reasons than reading just to find philosophical insights. The reading it twice thing is way more about how you just won't even get what he is actually saying without having done that.
>>25459128>still thinking in terms of gainngmi
>>25458924republic is all about how the utopian state should be build upon myths which convey philosophical truth, which is why it is full of myths like the cave, like the myth of ur, and even the timaeus and atlantis can be seen in this way.and parmenides is plato attacking his own philosophy by having a kid socrates be btfo. it also proves that plato's philsophy was never gospel, but just a search for truth, and according to people around him he later in his life basically rejected his own theory of forms.
>>25458924>The Republic, writing-wise, is genuinely high quality. The message, though, is pretty dumbYou didn't get the message.
>>25459151This. >>25459447This too.>>25459447And this.Half of this thread is filled with retards who missed the point of Plato & his dialogues while the other half is just ragebaiting and rightfully pointing out their retardation.
>>25458800Buying a complete works of someone is a bad idea, insofar as it means you don't know what the individual works are about or why you're reading them.
>>25459447what is the message then?
>>25459480Normally yes, but there are a few where everything they write is worthwhile and it makes sense to get a complete works. Shakespeare, Montaigne, and definitely Plato.
>>25458860>You should also read the pre-Socratics beforehandYou can also end there and move onto what the Chinamen of the era were doing instead of reading Gayto
>>25459447enlighten me sir
>>25458807true of any book that isn't garbage to be honest
>>25459480??? Is it illegal and/or impossible to ask around or google a sensible order in your country. Also there's exactly 0 "complete X" book in my library that doesn't have introductions, notes, and so on.
>>25459464damn we have so many renaissance men in here who refuse to let us in on their deep insight. Oh well, at least you've let us know that your post rightfully belongs in the former.
>>25458902kek
>>25458800read Parmenides, develop a full understanding of it and skip straight to Hegelmuh dialogues is the most evil shit to ever happen to literature, you can read this shit on the toilet or on your way to work, not in the solace of your home
Plátōn proved himself a notorious enemy of genius by barring poets from his ideal republic: I suppose because poetry at its most intense and memorable transcends logic that he dismissed it as 'madness'. Even today the dead hand of Plato compels students to think logically. He was worried by the logical crux that if we know the solution of a problem then there is no problem; whereas if we do not know the solution we do not know what to look for and therefore cannot expect to find it.
>>25459447I love how the assumption is, of course, that PLATO is the idiot and NOT the reader.And this guy was talking about Plato's ego. I'm actually giggling.
>>25458800Coming back to Plato after having reading neoplatonists, Christian theology, and various other flavors of western philosphy/esoteric texts has really opened my eyes to how much he influenced everyone after him. Starting with Plato is a good idea, but you shouldn't linger on him too long; instead periodically return to one of his dialogs and see what strikes you as new.
>>25459312The Republic actually has nothing to do with crafting a perfect civilization. It's an allegory for the perfect human constitution, and how best to achieve it.
>>25458800Maybe
>>25460876>The Republic actually has nothing to do with crafting a perfect civilizationI don't think that's entirely true. I agree that it's mostly allegorical for "the perfect human constitution," but what he thinks applies to the individual also applies to the polis, and I think he's earnestly examining both, and not using the polis *strictly* as allegory. I can't help but think that he's doing a bit of Lycurgus RP in a genuine way.
>>25460876I think saying "has nothing to do with..." puts it too strongly, it's still concerned with politics as politics and not just the soul, but it is true that the setting forth of the city-in-speech comes with the strong qualification that its actualization is both totally improbable and beside the point, where the latter points to what we have in our power (ordering our own souls justly) as a result of the former (having to be dissatisfied with how unlikely it would be to settle politics for all times).>>25458924The Cave goes further than just expressing the difference between perception of what things are and knowledge of the same. The Cave is "an image of our nature in its education and want (i.e., lack) of education" w/r/t the reigning opinions we're raised with in any community. The Cave = the city, any city, including the perfect city of the Republic, and the image is about the fundamental tension between the opinions that guide civic life and the kind of attitude necessary to philosophize, which requires freeing oneself from those opinions to see whether they have grounds in what truly is or are just inventions akin to the noble and medicinal lies. This is also why the Just is included among the shadows on the walls, not just perceptibles, and it's connected with Socrates' slightly earlier claim that the people who guide civic life are the biggest sophists. And it can't simply be Plato patting himself on the back for superior insight, because after this image he has Socrates claim to only have opinions about the Good, not knowledge, which seems to be an acknowledgement that if there are insights to be gained outside of the Cave, they may be very hard won and perhaps few.
>>25460941>it is true that the setting forth of the city-in-speech comes with the strong qualification that its actualization is both totally improbable and beside the pointThe majority of 'Republic' interpretations I see online interpret it entirely through the lens of politics, which is the worst means by which to interpret it. I just hate politics.
>>25460982I see both an overly partial view to politics (Popper, for instance) and an overly allegorical view as pretty common. But it seems to me like the best interpretation has to take both of these elements seriously, otherwise most of books 1-5 and 8-9 are unintelligible. Clearly the class hierarchy and the tripartite soul are likenesses, but I think one would be hard pressed to come to an allegorical likeness of the communism of women and children with the soul without it seeming to be a stretch.
>>25461103It's just an allegory for ascetic detachment and accepting of fate.
>>25461119Perhaps to a more common view of family, but I don't see how having a duty to reproduce is ascetic per se, nor do I see how fate deals with Socrates' observation that "it sometimes happens that a silver child will be born from a golden parent, a golden child from a silver parent, and similarly all the others from each other." That seems to leave quite a bit of room to chance.
>>25460160I think it's silly to take everything said as the full unopposed belief of the writer when the Greeks literally based half their culture and religion around deception such as the beggar at the feast and Odysseus and all the plotting of kings to rid themselves of opponents shewedly. In Plato's case I always assumed he was telling the reader to not let pretty words be the reason for why things are the way they are. Poets have always been liars and con men that play on our emotions. I think this was meant more tongue in cheek than college professors would have the students believe.
>>25460982this is so true, it's like the only people reading it these days are poly sci students trying to justify the hours they spent on homework reading
>>25461140>That seems to leave quite a bit of room to chance.Yes, yes it does
>>25461148Yes, and I think Plato even extends it to his own work, not to accept it just because it may appeal to something in us. A sign of that is that when he has Socrates discuss the styles of poetry, he abstracts away meter and rhythm to only focus on first person narrative (= mimesis), third person narrative, and an admixture of the two. Of course, the Republic itself is an example of the admixture (Plato mimics Socrates through first person narrative, and uses a combination of first and third person narrative for when other people are speaking). Ergo, it's poetry in the sense defined. And the other anon above is right to point to the frequent use of myths.
>>25460871>but you shouldn't linger on him too longWhy not?
.>>25460871how can you move on from plato? Philosophy is only capable of a positive, normative project. Everything else is sophistry.
>>25461342Nta, but two points. Re: Plato and a "positive, normative project," what about the midwifery of the aporetic Theaetetus? And do you think Aristotle wasn't after a "positive, normative project"?
Are the dialogues actually literary or is it dry shit like Aristotle
>>25462510its dry, but not as dry as aristotle
