Is Plato's Republic really a good way to get into philosophy or is it a suboptimal meme that sorta works like Starting Strength?
Is Plato's Republic really a good way to get into philosophy or is it a suboptimal meme that sorta works like Starting Strength?
I'd read one of his shorter dialogues first, to familiarize yourself with his mode of back-and-forth debate
>I'd read one of his shorter dialogues first
Definitely agreed on this. The Republic is one of the more famous ones because it's long and meaty, so it's honestly going to be one of the more difficult ones to follow all the way through while understanding the nuances of it. Otherwise Plato is one of the ideal starting points, as he takes pains to make the arguments made by the various dialogue characters as clear as he can while making minimal assumptions about things.
You may want to study Euclidian geometry and Greek poetry/drama to really get the references being made, but for the sake of simply introducing yourself to philosophy this is entirely optional and most things should be clear in context.
plato is great but it exists in a time before paul brought the direct revelation of christ to the greeks. plato still makes a lot of good arguments, as much as good arguments can be made from mans faulty logic. it's worth a read. modern philosophy is only worth reading in the sense that it gives you perspective on where all the bad ideas are coming from.
What does The Bible provide to contradict any argument made in The Republic? Not doubting you, I read half of the Republic years back and plan to get back to it someday but genuinely curious because I don't recall anything standing out
It's written really well, having characters exist for the sake of advancing an argument is genius. I can't really Kant, for example. He writes like a chemist. Plato packages his arguments far better than just about anyone in history, which makes them dangerously easy to fall in with
Plato's Soteriology is wrong. That's not surprising though. The Republic used logic to reason about the supernatural, which while not worthless has less value that divine inspiration.
It must be extremely boring to be you.
you have it backwards, brother.
Plato is responsible for extreme influence on biblical thought.
It picks up more and more as you go on and is quite enjoyable. But it's best with a teacher and a group as it's also very long. There is no universal starting point when getting into philosophy. You should tailor it to the student's interests.
Start with the pre-Socratics.
This. In particular the Eleatics, it'll save you from a lot of problems with later metaphysics (Plato and others).
It's really shit compared to most of Plato's other writings tbqh. If The Republic was your first foray into Plato you'd probably find his presentation with Socrates weird and annoying and hard to follow.
homie looks like he's in a rap battle, he's even got the durag on
You can skip to Aristotle and know all of Plato’s arguments, definitions and refutations to his metaphyics, politics, and ethics.
Wait, is Trump a tyrant or an oligarch?
Time waits for no one.
Oligarchy (Anglo-American rule post Civil War) ended in the 60s. Now we've a bunch of Democratic demagogues.
He's a deep state asset.
In terms of his personality, he'd be the tyrannical man—someone ruled over by their appetites and passions. The part about the tyrannical man preferring flattery to good advice because he is led by his passions rather than his reason seems particularly apt.
His base would appear to be similar. I mean, it seems like immigration is their main issue and the guy led a 13 year high in illegal crossings and failed to even get one single vote held on immigration despite having the House, Senate, and Court. Not even something token like making is easier to deport rapists—nothing. And I agree reducing immigration is important, which is why it was odd how the base simply didn't care about the failure to lead or perform. So long as the rhetoric and appeal to emotion was going, outcomes seemed irrelevant; instead all we saw is another Reagan-style neolib supply side focused tax cut (which led to borrowing tripling even before Covid, and the debt was supposed to be a big issue too, he pledged to eliminate the deficit and ended up going a trillion in the red during an economic expansion).
What about “on the nature of things”
>Is Plato's Republic really a good way to get into philosophy
Read it for the sake of reading it.
It's a beautiful work.
It is an excellent way to into philosophy.
Reading Tarnas' Passion of the Western Mind right now and I consider it a splendid introduction to philosophy.
As long as you are reading the works themselves and they aren’t too difficult, it’s fine. Just read critically and you will be better off than reading some history of this or that book. There are shorter dialogues than The Republic, but book 1 is a good start if you reread it a couple times.
It's good in the sense of laying out the Socratic dialogue and why it's so effective, particularly in the argument with Thrasymachus.
The actual Republic that Plato through Socrates as mouthpiece is also interesting, as it's important to remember that the Republic is a thought experiment to determine what Justice is.
On a practical level, Plato is also prescient as to how polities degenerate through the five regimes from aristocracy to tyranny.
TLDR; It's definitely a good gateway into philosophy.