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/lit/ - Literature

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17807969 No.17807969 [Reply] [Original]

>tried to read philosophy for the first time
>I can't understand anything
I'm not talking about the references, but the language, structure, and ideas themselves. How do I make myself less of a brainlet so I can understand these texts?

>> No.17807998

>>17807969
Literally start with Plato. He’s written in such a way even fucking idiots can understand.
>is a rectangle a square?
>yes Socrates!
>so then a rectangle has the essence of a square?
>yes Socrates!
>but a square is not a rectangle?
>of course not Socrates!

>> No.17808000

>>17807969
Slow down, there's no need to rush. Stop trying to breeze through it like a novel. Treat each idea like a math problem instead of part of a story, you have to work it out in your head. Take notes and put the philosopher's ideas into your own words. Do this until you can start to read more easily, or just keep doing it indefinitely like I do.

Also what the fuck are you reading? You should start with the Greeks.

>> No.17808038

>>17808000
I tried reading something by Kierkegaard

>> No.17808076

>>17807969
Treat it as a parallel to religion with commensurate goals. Do Plato/Plotinus & pre-Socratics (very short). Check out Copelston’s history for a comprehensive overview. Pick a thinker/period/natuoon/school or two and dig in thoroughly — branching out from there is then much easier

>> No.17808121

>>17808038
see
>>17807998

Plato is where you should start, and you will enjoy it much more.

>> No.17808277

>>17807998
How the fuck was Plato so immensely based? Wrote for brainlets, wrote for midwits, wrote for topwits, wrote for the greatest minds in history. Maybe the midwits is arguable cause they always get filtered, but holy shit did ancient Greece give us more geniuses than all other civilisations combined

>> No.17808607

Start with presocratics and the chinese if you want to be based

>> No.17808614

a

>> No.17808653

>>17807969
Unironically start with secondary literature. Reading Think by Simon Blackburn would be a good starting point, for example, though there are plenty of other great starting points. Like this is probably going to get me some shit, but the Crash Course YouTube series, while flawed, is a good way to familiarize yourself to the kinds of discussions that go on. Then, when you get a sense of what philosophy is about and which fields/thinkers interest you, dive into the primary literature.

>> No.17809055

>>17807969
Start with a little and easy history of philosophy

Like https://www.amazon.com/Story-Thought-Essential-History-Philosophy/dp/0789444550/ref=mp_s_a_1_8?dchild=1&keywords=bryan+magee&qid=1616033813&sr=8-8

>> No.17809083

>>17808277
based

>> No.17809158

>>17807998
yeh, Plato was quite the meme. Spends 5 pages explaining an extremely simple concept a 2nd grader doesn't have trouble with

>> No.17809160

>>17808038
Wtf is wrong with you. Start with something more accesible

>> No.17809162

>>17808038
fear and tremblin'? that was my first philosophy too

>> No.17809166

>>17807969
visualize the though process in your mind. Geometry, that’s all it is anyways.

>> No.17809266

>>17807969
It's okay to read very fucking slowly. Like one sentence per minute and think about it for a long time, and reread the same paragraph a dozen times if you need to. There's literally NOTHING wrong with taking as much time as you need to thoroughly understand a text. Remember that reading without comprehension is even worse than not reading at all.

>> No.17809520

>>17807969
start with wittgenstein lmao

>> No.17809538

>>17807969
Why waste your time?

>> No.17809551

>>17808038
kierkegaard is probably the absolute worst philosopher to start with, maybe only beatable by hegel

Unironically do not start with philosophy. read philosophical-novels like shit by camoo, or if you're more analytically-minded, check out "the pig that wants to be eaten and 99 other thot experiments", there's a pdf of it on libgen

>> No.17809570

>>17808038
shouldve started with the greeks

>> No.17809571

>>17809266
>>>17807969 (OP)
>Remember that reading without comprehension is even worse than not reading at all.

THIS!

>> No.17809604

If you have to read philosophy you are already a lost cause. That is not to say that there are not truths to be found in other men's work, but rather that you lack the intelligence to philosophize.

>> No.17809629

Bump

>> No.17810226
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