/philosophy/

Read Hobbes then Locke then Smith then Marx (in that order.) Once you have you done that you are ready for Lenin.

Start with the Greeks as usual

Don't do this. Greek political philosophy is basically proto-fascist. Aristotle's "Politics" is pretty good though.

Why? is old philosophy useless or something?

There is more to Plato than fascist larping, and you need a good understanding of him before you get into Kant and Hegel, assuming OP is really interested in learning this is the way to go, if not just pick up Stirner and call it a day

Absolutely retarded post, as expected from a tankie

Why would you ever do this? I read the Phenomenology of Spirit and it only made sense after fucking reading Marx.

Yes man why read Hegel when you have Marx, hell why even read Marx when there is pic related.
OP is asking about philosophy and you're giving him whatever suits your meme ideology such as Lenin, why no let him decide for himself after he reads everything.

Holy fuck this board

STEMfriend? I suggest you start with theoretical philosophy, perhaps even specifically analytical philosophy. It helps to first build some resistance and tolerance to the usual obscurantism of the continentals.

t.Russell
Pls leave

I would normally agree with you. However why waste time synthesizing classical philosophers and idealists when Marx and his intellectual descendants have been doing that for over 100 years now? I don't see why anyone should bother with non-modern political theory unless they are some kind of academic or something.

say dasein one more time jerry
i double dare you

You can work backwards and it doesn't matter. If you actually read any contemporary philosophers you will find yourself going back to Plato and the rest in a jiffy.

Jesus fucking christ, you think every descendant of Marx is only referencing the man alone? good luck understanding what D&G are saying without an understanding of Nietzsche, or Zizek without Hegel, or Heidegger without a background of classical philosophy, if you honestly think the entirety of continental philosophy is just referencing Marx you probably need to pick up a book more than OP

Is Zizek even a materialist?

Ignore all of the reading lists like
The people that make and post those sort of shitty lists have never actually 'Started with the Greeks' themselves.
If they had, they would know that the majority of items on those lists are utterly superfluous.
One does not need to read all surviving examples of Hellenic philosophy to understand Hellenic philosophy.
Just as one does not need to memorize a dictionary to speak English.

My 'fat free' list of Hellenic philosophy is as follows:

Iliad -> Odyssey -> Pre-Socratics (Pythagoreanism and Atomism are the only really important schools) -> Plato + Letters and Apocrypha (Buy 'Plato: Complete Works' by John M Cooper, read everything but pay special attention to both the seventh letter and the included works that were not written by Plato himself) -> Aristotle (Super overrated, just read 'Metaphysics' and 'Politics') -> Stoicism ('Letters from a Stoic', 'Meditations' and 'Enchiridion') -> Neo-Platonism aka, the peak of Hellenic philosophy ('The Enneads' and 'Aids to the Study of the Intelligibles').

I would also recommend reading a few supplementary books regarding Zoroastrianism and Theravada Buddhism before you dip your toes into Neo-Platonism.
'The Essential Plotinus' by Elmer O'Brien and 'Plotinus or the simplicity of vision' by Pierre Hadot are also some helpful supplementary books regarding Neo-Platonism that I highly recommend.

This is the sort of post I would expect to see on r/Socialism.
The only thing it is missing is a claim of Plato being 'worthless' and 'problematic' because he was a 'old white guy'.

docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/pub

not an argument
Not even remotely the same claim. Saying someone's ideas are fascistic or proto-fascist is precisely the opposite claim from the "old white guy" claim because it has nothing to do with the person's identity in question. This is why everyone thinks you're a retard.

This is pretty much the go to list compiled from /lit/ back when it was actually good, OP. I'd recommend it

Daily reminder that for every "greek" citizen there were about 20-30 slaves. Also women weren't allowed to do anything. Their philosophy only seems enlightened in a historical vacuum.

libgen.io/book/index.php?md5=418934B6243C5928DDB07F0EEA55192D
For you :^)

Would he write a book on dialectical materialism if he wasn't? He even defends Stalinist diamat to an extent.

I was comparing the vapidity and irrelevancy of the claim that Plato was somehow a 'Proto-Fascist' with the similar such drek one would find on some sjw subreddit.

It is a comparison of the similar absurdity.
Calling the father of western thought a 'Proto-Fascist' is the sort of anti-intellectualism that embodies the worst of both the far left and right.
Worse yet, even if Plato was actually a Fascist (he wasn't), it would be utterly irrelevant to the vast majority of his corpus.

Please do remember your own political position before you try and make an argument from popularity.

So what?
The Greeks could have been the most horrid people in history, but that would not change the importance of their philosophical contributions.
Marx was a pretty shitty person too, that does not mean that all of his works are somehow tainted.

That is utterly painful.
While I'm not one to endorse book burnings, I would make an exception for shit like that.

What is bad about the book? Did you even read it?

Just read the description, friend.

I don't know how anyone could read that and not immediately be overtaken with disgust.
As I said, such post-modern rubbish belongs only in an incinerator.

Epic meme Holla Forumsro, you sure BTFO the old man.

I have never claimed to be a Platonist.
I happen to be a Positivist, I simply admire Plato.

Again, read the summery.
I fail to see how one could read that and not see that this text is clearly a post-modern work designed to attack Platonism because it makes liberals uncomfortable.

So, are you Onru, Iratu, Munru, or Nanku? Which robot built from the flesh of an alien elder god are you?

for total noobs read goodreads.com/book/show/23258.The_Story_Of_Thought
if your on in 6 hours ill post the pdf

op is trying to get an idea of the shape of western philosophy not a reading list for your occult group.

popsci get the bullet too

Yes.
And as such I provided him a reading list that takes him from ~6th century BCE right up to the 5th century CE.
After completing my reading list, the op would have a good grounding in Neo-Platonism and its prerequisites, allowing him to move onto Augustine.
As knowledge of Neo-Platonism is a prerequisite for understanding Augustine and Augustine is needed to get into enlightenment philosophy; I fail to see the problem.

I provided a clear reading list that covers ~1000 years of western philosophy.
It is ridiculous as it is, that you would associate the thinkers that formed the foundation for western thought with occult rubbish.
Doubly so that you would accuse an admitted Positivist of being involved in such silly things.

It doesn't attack Platonism you absolute retard. The writer himself is a Platonist. You are really a cancerous pretender.

OP, a fair warning. "Start with the greeks" is a /lit/ meme and it's meant to trap you in endless trivial bullshit.

The summery makes it quite clear that it does.
Even ignoring that, I will not subject myself to reading through an inherently inferior 'modern' version of Republic.
The only reworked version of Republic that I'm interested in is the Gnostic version and we currently only had fragments of that.

Oh yes.
And that is why he populated his bastardization with characters that 'argue and stand up' to Socrates?
If he is a Platonist, r/FULLCOMMUNISM is populated with Marxists.

Of-course.
My refusal to subject myself to some post-modernist sludge makes me a 'pretender'.
Woe is me for not reading my mandated literature.

Your accusations have no bearing on the text. At least read the preface and introduction before you shitpost.

Well, this is an irritating thread. One of the advantages on a board that doesn't force you to use a name or even a pseudonym is that you don't have to care much about your social standing, so I don't get what all is this me-smart-you-stupid posturing is going to accomplish. No hot chick is going to shag any of you guys over the internet because of what you say ITT. So, you might as well make comments about the works you have found interesting and want to share. I got nothing.

Why is Badiou a platonist, because he is classified as such on Wikipedia? Because one or two guys called him that? According to the Wikipedia entry, he is also influenced by Marxism, so how much of a platonist can he be then?

"Rather than producing yet another critical commentary, he has instead worked closely on the original Greek and, through spectacular changes, adapted it to our times." I'm sorry, this looks like a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that the book is horseshit. I can also show you some astonishing revelation about how Hitler was a wonderful peace-loving guy if you allow me the freedom to apply some spectacular changes to the historical records.

Avoid getting into modern philosophy (Lacan & consorts) without a solid background and a very critical eye, it's very pompous.

It was written by academics for academics and is very, very hard to read and sometimes devolves into complete nonsense, especially when they bring science into it
It has its value, but you should absolutely take it with a huge grain of salt.

I can recommend you "Groundwork on the Metaphysics of Morals", by Kant, it's pretty small (~300 pages), the first 200 pages are very easy to read and understand, and it gives you a nice view of his philosophy.
Don't hesitate to check on wikipedia or on your book's footnotes if something is obscure.

It accomplishes nothing and is another facet of "board culture" that needs to go

He admits to being one. It is just that his interpretation of it is not an usual one. Read the preface and introduction if you want to know a bit what he does in the book, rather than guiding yourself by what libgen says. Like this.

Because you're telling this person not to read Heraclitus, Parmenides or much Aristotle and to read about Theravada Buddhism instead. That's extremely new age. You can't read any medieval philosophy without a solid grounding in Aristotle.
I don't go look for posts you make under your name or care about them. If I wanted to talk to people about their intellectual identity i'd be on a bbs.

One problem I've had is that I don't want to start with Greek philosophy, it's so dry and boring to me, unless I've checked out the wrong stuff years ago. And reading the original texts is hard, full of terminology I don't understand and sentences I just don't get after re-reading them. They're dense, every sentence means something important.

Mostly I wanted to get into Hegel and continental phil in general (I hate STEMfriends despite being one), but I haven't found a very suitable route for that as of yet.

My girlfriend is a Greek too. I wonder if they were always so insufferable.

i don't care about you or what you do for a living or where you spent time at school, your self importance is grotesque
plato.stanford.edu faggot

It's an unorthodox approach, but it's not like Buddhism doesn't have insights or is philosophically useless. There needn't be a focus on Western philosophy (however OP did ask specifically about that). I'd take it more of a "this is interesting" to read Buddhism, not necessarily for a grounding in Western phil.

The only Pre-Socratic schools that have much importance on later philosophy are Pythagoreanism and Atomism.
Reading small, fragmentary works on irrelevant schools of ancient Greek thought does not help one gain a better understanding of western philosophy.
It is a waste of time, empty intellectualism.

I recommended his two works that have much relevance to later western philosophy.

As a supplementary aid to help in understanding Neo-Platonism.
Neo-Platonism is a melting-pot philosophy that has a number of influences.
As Theravada Buddhism is one of those influences, I fail to see how that makes my recommendation anything other then directly relevant and informative.

Yes.
A grounding in 'Metaphysics' and 'Politics'.
The vast majority of the surviving Aristotelian corpus is simply not relevant to later philosophy.

You could not be bothered to look literally two posts above this: ?
Wow.
I bet you are a wonderful contributor to this board.

I thought this at first to.
I recommend that you buy 'Plato: Complete Works' by John M Cooper.
The introductions to each work really does help alot and the translations are great.
Start with 'Euthyphro', there really is a charming wit to how Socrates talks in it.
It's what hooked me.

Analytic > Continental.

I disagree.
At-least in regards to select schools of Hellenic philosophy.

Stoicism emerged as a Greek interpretation of the Buddhist ideas that were entering the Hellenic world via the Greco-Indian kingdom.
By the time of Neo-Platonism, Buddhist missionaries were literally active in the eastern Mediterranean and were one of the influences on the formation of Neo-Platonism.

Western - Eastern interchange via Buddhism should not be a shocking or new concept to anyone; Japanese Buddhist temples to this day still have a local derivative of Heracles as guardian statues.

Buddhism is great, I just object to the attention seeking name shit and answering an easy newbie question with a novel about his personal beliefs on the matter. All of the infographics are better than any of longwinded advice posts in the thread.

no, I can't be bothered to have any interest in *you personally*. You should write your thoughts down on a blog called 'musings of an inveterate truth seeker' or some shit.

To truly understand philosophy you need to start with the pre-homo sapiens tbh. It's important to start from the start.

don't start with the greeks

Hyperbole
False
They could have kicked puppies and eaten babies and it wouldn't matter. What matters is the text.
Also read Bookchin

I recommend:

The Republic by Plato
The Symposium by Plato
The Politics by Aristotle
The Metaphysics by Aristotle
The Categories by Aristotle
Meditations on First Philosophy by Descartes
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by Hume
Critique of Pure Reason by Kant
Critique of Practical Reason by Kant
Critique of Judgement by Kant
Hegel - get an introductory text and read through it before reading these, you need a complete overview of his system to understand each part of it.
The Philosophy of History,
The History of Philosophy,
The Phenomenology of the Spirit,
The Science of Logic