Summoning Philosophy Fags

Should I read some more mythology and the Illiad/Odyssey before continuing with Plato? I learned about most of that shit in HS and read an abridged version of the Illiad/Odyssey already. I read Apology today already and it made sense to me. The only thing I missed so far was Socrates made some reference to a play that I never heard of. Besides that he made some reference to Homer which made sense. Am I going to struggle through the rest of Plato/Aristotle if I just skip the mythology review, or will my plebeian knowledge be enough if I supplement with lectures on the readings?

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You don't need to.

The play Socrates was refering to was The Clouds by Aristophanes which he considers to be one of those older accusers of his. In The Clouds there is a philosopher named Socrates who is always teaching atheism and has almost no patience. Obviously related to the older accusers in the Apology.

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You'll be fine. You don't really lose the philosophical content, although you lose a bit of the literary content. Most translated versions of Aristotle and Plato are footnoted anyway, and Aristotle doesn't reference poetry and plays all that much outside of On Poetics. Aristotle does refer to other philosophical works and philosophers with some frequency, but those works are mostly lost, save Plato's.

The Clouds is a must-read tbh. Aristophanes and Socrates were mates. Read the Symposium to find this out. Aristophanes actually understands Socrates really well and The Clouds was like a friendly trolling, but actually was more like a warning to Socrates to watch your shit. You're missing the point if you don't know that. The reason Plato mentions himself in the Apology is that he really wants to emphasize that even though he wrote it, the Apology is not Plato's account of Socrates' trial.

Read Pythagoras, forget about the plays.

I don't think they were particularly close. They knew of each other, but that's about as much as one can say. Plato does put them together in Symposium, but he also puts Socrates, Parmenides, and Zeno together in Parmenides (a dialogue probably written only a bit later), yet it's unlikely they ever met.

You should have an understanding of how the Greeks saw the Gods which is exemplified in the myths and Homer.
Apart from that, I'd rather read some stuff on the Presocratics (secondory sources). But the Iliad/odyssey are obviously relevant for their literary quality alone, and one should read them anyway. Look up the different qualities of the translations if you do come around to read it, there are prose and verse translations so you should be conscious about which one you are picking.

Also

nice hack you are reading there comrade

Considered this, was thinking of picking up The First Philosophers, couldn't find an audiobook though so I'll have to get to that when I have some time to sit down and read.

Top kek, in fact he does the exact opposite.

AN apology in that context is meant to be their version of a defence plea, its not meant to be an actual apology.

I am currently immobilized by rage

Mythological Bullshit.

Take the brown pill,be sure to buy a Kantian and Hegelian dictionary,also try to read Aristotle prior to Hegel.

lol ok guy

I'm planning on reading Hegel, but I sure as hell ain't following your shitty, vaguely ordered reading list.

Except for Aristotle of-course.

Okay do you have a better one?

Plato quotes Homer, Hesiod, other poets, tragedies and comedies like people living in the American South would cite the occasional Bible verse in their regular speech, even those who don't believe in God.

Because they are words that carry authority and sound cool - memes by any other name.

You do not need to read those things to understand him because, as you will see when you read the Republic and Timaeus, he wants to actually reform theology so that divinity is good and there is no father/son conflict among the Olympians and their origins.

If killing your father is one of the worst crimes you can commit in Ancient Greece, why would Ancient Greeks worship a Zeus that does commit parricide?

Plato notices this dissonance between the traditional mythological heritage in the works of poetry, and the dominant ideology in the laws of the Greeks.

Here you can see that theology (a word invented by Plato) is determined by politics, right at the beginnings of Western philosophy.

I'm really not sure what you're on about

Anyways

Descartes>Spinoza>Leibniz>Locke>Berkeley>Hume>Kant>Fichte>Schelling>Hegel

is the order I'm going in after greeks

Sorry, I meant Cronus, not Zeus, I mixed them up.

Into the trash it goes.

All you need is Hume,Kant,Quine, Sellars,Russell and Wittgenstein

God your anglo-american book covers are ugly/

You don't have to read fiction to *understand* philosophy, but I think you need it to at least *appreciate* it.

Why NOT read classics like the Iliad?
It's true that Socrates references Homer a bit in Plato's works, but it's not that often or necessary, so you don't have to, but WHY NOT???

The mythology is so interesting! The Oedipus trilogy is the greatest in Greek lit. Read it. Read it. Read it. It's impressive.

You fool! You cannot understand what you are reading. Also


I give your list a 6/10

Wittgenstein would disagree with you.

Actually the more I look at it the more I realise that it's a really bad list, but I still give a 3/10 for the attempt.

Don't listen to this pleb


You can follow this list created by someone on /lit/

docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/pub

Breddy good list IMO

this isnt a philosophy board faggot

You sure seem to know a lot about philosophy, I thought political philosophy was a thing and therefore related to this board, but hey, you seem confident.

Tell me, what is philosophy?

Wow, now I know for sure I should ignore your advice.


Oh I agree that it's interesting, like I said I've been exposed to it before. I just don't have a lot of time to read these days so I want to put it on the back burner for now.


Thanks for the chart. The doc you linked is actually where I extracted my reading list from.

"A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing."

- Ambrose Bierce, 'The Devil's Dictionary'

The chart is obviously bullshit, I know that it comes from American academia, only they are obsessed with categorizing everything with neat *isms and they always do it in a catastrophic way. It's like their liberalism vs. conservatism perception of politics. You learn far more by looking at Wikipedia's "influences" / "influenced" list, which is still way too simplistic and incomplete.

You should learn early to have mistrust in secondary sources, especially charts like that. Read authors themselves as much as you can, and take everything else with a huge bowl of salt, it should never be the substitution. Academics banalize everything they touch, they have to to write those referenced articles and teach those classes. It's become a competitive market.

If you're a self-learner then just start with whichever authors you find the most interesting. It will be hard and confusing at first, and at certain points you will likely have to explore the author's influences and historical context, but you will learn more and more along the way. The next author will probably be an easier read, while certain authors will always remain hard to get into. But don't get stuck with just reading one author, as it makes you prematurely dismiss everything else.

I wasn't really planning on following that chart anyways, I just found it interesting. I already have an ordered reading list.

While everything on this list is worthwhile if you care, I had nothing to do with its making or arranging. I don't think stuff like this or this is helpful for newbies.

←pic related is my suggestion for catching up to modern philosophy if you give a fuck about the Greeks to Descartes. Catholic theologian blah blah blah, it's still really good. He has a ton on the Scholastics, you can just skip all those volumes.

Once you get to the moderns, you can just read the moderns themselves, they're not that fucking hard.

I read The Republic and Phaedo without trouble. I loved Greek Mythology as a kid so I feel that it helped me through the text without reading Homer. That being said, I read a book called "The Passion of The Western Mind" which I recommend as a lucid history of western thought. I start on The Metaphysics a few days ago.


This. Most of the references to Homer in The Republic in the sections on art in his ideal state were pointing out contradictions between morals that were supposedly derived from the gods and the actions of the gods as seen in mythology.

Hmm, not bad. Is it really comprehensive though? It's pretty cheap on Amazon, might order it regardless of whether I read the primary sources actually.

Oh also, won't I need up to vol. 3 in order to get to Descartes? I mean, I was already intent on skipping medieval and Renaissance, but now I wonder.

It's the best history of philosophy set I'm aware of, mainly aimed at grad students. Nothing is as expansive and detailed.

Or, you can read "The Passion of the Western Mind" instead, it was used in universities as well. It also deals with modern philosophers and post-modernism, and gives a great background for understanding primary text. I mean if you really wanna read A.W.'s recommendation then go ahead, but don't discount Passion either.

Hmm, I think I'll check it out. I'm a little worried though some of the reviews say he doesn't translate the Greek, so I'm reviewing the Greek alphabet rn. Is there anything else he doesn't translate?

You can figure it out from context.