I don’t want to be a pseud or some pretentious gay. I just don’t want to waste my time watching YouTube and TikTok prostitutes. What did the writers of the past read to become so good at their craft? Who or what inspired and informed their works? I want to learn
Bare minimum, at least as it pertains to the western canon
>bare minimum
Literally nobody does this.
Realistic reading you could do in a year or two (* is required):
Homer - Iliad*
Homer - Odyssey*
Greek Tragedies
Plato - Republic*
Plato - Apology*
Plato - Crito and Phaedo
Plato - Symposium
Aristotle - Physics
Aristotle - Metaphysics
Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics*
Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
Seneca - Letters from a Stoic
Virgil - Aeneid
Dante - Divine Comedy (all 3 parts)*
>Skip the scholastics and Christian pseud nonsence.
Descartes - Meditations on First Philosophy*
Spinoza - Ethics
Leibniz - Monadology
Berkeley - Three Dialogues
Hume - Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding OR Treatise*
Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason** (this will take a significant amount of time)
Goethe - Collected Works but especially Faust*
Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit*
Schopenhauer - World as Will and Representation*
Nietzsche - Everything he ever wrote*
This will put you leagues above almost everyone you know, despite it not being impressive to the average IQfytard.
I don’t think Marcus Aurelius or Seneca are necessary.
They aren’t, which is why I didn’t include the *
Are the two by Homer actually worth it? I remember reading it in high school and being bored out of my mind. Is it something that requires a more mature mind to appreciate? Keep in mind that during high school I only watched Filthyfrank and thought that Hitler/edgy stuff was unironically the shit
They are worth it if you want to be well-read, as every single Greek philosopher and poet, especially Plato, is going to constantly reference Homer. There is no point in deluding yourself into enjoying it if you find it boring, and it doesn’t make you stupid if you don’t enjoy certain “classics”, but I would at least slog through and note the key point being made. It is rewarding to read Nietzsche and catch an obscure reference towards Homer and feel in on what he is saying.
Read the Lattimore translations
>Skip the scholastics and Christian pseud nonsence.
Why?
>Nietzsche - Everything he ever wrote*
I wish I was him
>Skip the scholastics and Christian pseud nonsense.
Pseuds do that.
Why does it need to be read?
The beginning of the Rennaisance (des Cartes onwards) is when philosophy becomes pointless, sophomoric, trash pseudo-intellectuality. Everything anyone could need from philosophy starts with the Presocraticss and ends with the Scholastics. This includes everything in between, like the Stoics and Kalam (mediaeval Islamic) philosophy.
Given the western cut and paste of ideas from Buddhism and Zen as cognitive-behavioral therapy, it's probably a good idea to add some of those sources to your list. These ideas have a distinct utility that isn't clearly articulated in any western philosophy.
Instant Zen, The Gateless Gate, and the Diamond Sutra are probably the highest bang for the buck.
Other than that, your list is high quality.
What if I want to be well read in novels but not well read in philosophy?
Novels do not follow a linear train of thought since they aren’t in a “discussion” with one another like the philosophers were. You can just pick something that sounds like you will like it and then read it.
You need both to be “well read”
Right, but it feels that to be "well read" the 90% of your readings must be schizos from 2000 years ago
Well, there are novels in the list of
shouldn't there be a list of that but without the philosophers? Maybe I should just save that list and search one by one the authors to see if their works are philosophy or not.
>Right, but it feels that to be "well read" the 90% of your readings must be schizos from 2000 years ago
Nah
Most of the "well-read" books are written in the 18th and 19th century where the novel really came into its phase. But those authors have read all the schizos from 2000 years ago and in the case of the Bible it shows a lot in their work. Honestly you need the Bible, especially for the rebbelious authors of the 19th century.
The bible also absolutely rules, specifically the old testiment. New testiment is rather boring
I advise you to read anything that would require from you an occasional use of vocabulary. Like Ligotti.
the greeks -> the romans -> the christians -> the french -> the germans -> the english
there
Pick a lane that interests you. Don't JUST read X because you're supposed to (although there are some works that anyone probably should), but pick an interest like, interwar 20th century American novels, or Russian short stories, or the Romantic poets, or le Greek tragedy, a period and style you find interesting, and work your way out from there.
Literally pick any topic you like, go to libgen, get to the scientific articles section, search the topic you are looking for, download the article with the most captivating name and read it.
One article per day takes the doctor away.
This is how you become "well-read", not making (not so) pop references all the day long. Unless you wanna sound like a Hollywood-tier nerd. Then listen to other anons.
If you are so concerned about your aesthetic then maybe you should learn how to dress yourself and use fragrance.
Did you even read op?
There are aesthetic authors like Kawabata, although he's Japanese.
Are you going to read just to think you are smart as a result and brag about it or read to become a better person, if it's the former then don't bother, even children can read.
The major books of the bible
Bhagavad gita
Oddessey
Iliad
Beowulf
The main plays of Shakespeare
Herodutus Histories
Faust
Dantes Inferno
>Dantes Inferno
PLEASE don't fall for the meme of only reading the inferno. It's completely pointless to read it without Purgatory and Paradise. It's truly sad how many people ruin the Comedy for themselves by stopping after Inferno. On its own it's not even that good, but as an element within the whole it's brilliant.
Start with Plato and end with Proust.
>what
You must read well to become well read. Thinking the same things that ‘smart people’ think does not make you a smart person. Try leveraging your own perspective.
1984
Animal Farm
Brave New World
Lord Of The Flies
The Poetic Edda
The Prose Edda
Epic of Gilgamesh
Iliad and Odyssey
Antigone
Symposium
Tao Te Ching
Bhagvadad Gita
Plutarchs Lives
Meditations
The Dhammapada
Genesis, Ecclesiastes, Job
The Rubaiyat
Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear
Candide
Moby Dick
Kafka Stories
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Borges Stories
Alice Munro Stories
There you go OP, you are now better read than 99% of humanity
shut up closet homsexual. your gonna die out.