Reading "Apology" by Plato was an incredibly powerful experience for me. Is it even worth reading any more philosophy?

Reading "Apology" by Plato was an incredibly powerful experience for me. Is it even worth reading any more philosophy?

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What do you think?

Yes you euphoric moron.

Apology isn't even the best dialogue. My personal favorites are Euthyphro, Theatetus, Parmenides, Phaedo, Republic, and Timaeus. The Symposium gets a lot of attention as well but for different reasons.

I don't blame you it's very powerful.

Read 'em all. The read commentaries. Then become enlightened.

Also Crito, Gorgias and Sophist

No. Philosophy is a useless endeavor.
t. Wittgenstein

Surely he didn’t mean it wasn’t still worth reading though. Even he himself must have read all of Plato.

Honestly - and I don't write this to get (you)s - Plato and indeed all the Greeks are extremely simplistic and mostly superstitious works. The only reason they're held up as an institution is because the Romans (and later the British) wanted to feel like they were the inheritors and progenitors of something great beyond what the world had ever seen. Their impact is overstated in philosophy and even math and science. Euclid (of who's existence there is little proof) was rightly disowned by Bertrand Russel.

There is more knowledge, insight and wisdom in one chapter of Thus Spoke Zarasthura than there is in the combined works of the Greeks.

Completely unrelated but how did the word "apology" come to mean both a defense of something and the opposite of a defense?

Wittgenstein never said this, nor did he imply it. He only thought philosophy was suffering from misapplications of language.

APOLOGIZE

B-but start with the Greeks

>Hey students do something useful instead of studying philosophy

Wittgenstein's position was that philosophy wasn't something to be professionalized. It is a task that should be relegated to a few extremely smart people. A very arrogant position but one he vouched for. You're talking about someone who thought for a very significant amount of time that the only meaningful statements came from the natural sciences, and then proceeded to say that the natural sciences didn't make any sense to him.

Simplicity does not mean degeneracy, user. Plato in particular(Both his works, and his interpretations of Socrates) is a shining example of how to hold a conversation and seek truth in an argument. Not to "win" it, but to uncover the truth together with the opponent.
Also, people like Diogenes started the cynicism movement, and he in particular would probably urinate on you for disregarding simplicity.

>It is a task that should be relegated to a few extremely smart people.

This position was held by Plato.

>Euclid (of who's existence there is little proof) was rightly disowned by Bertrand Russel.

>Bertrand Russell wrote an article The Teaching of Euclid in which he was highly critical of the Euclid's axiomatic approach.

Then Russell got the BTFO of the millennia thanks to Gödel.

Plato and Wittgenstein are very similar in many ways.

How would you respond to me if I said the following list is the list of the only real philosophers to ever exist. Arguments encouraged:

1. Plato
2. Aristotle
3. Augustine
4. Aquinas
5. Descartes
6. Berkeley
7. Hume
8. Kant
9. Hegel
10. Schopenhauer
11. Nietzsche
12. Frege
13. Russell
14. Wittgenstein
15. Jung

*Not including Godel who I consider a pure mathematician even though his thoughts have vast philosophical implications. Include other various figures such as Newton, Einstein, JVN, etc... and even discount literary figures such as Coleridge, Goethe, etc...

the only philosopher on that list is Plato.

This is actually something I argued for in my Wittgenstein class. Plato was one of the few philosophers that Wittgenstein read extensively, interestingly enough, and I don't think Wittgenstein truly understood how similar he was to Plato in his reasonings considering that he once said his [Wittgenstein's] method could be summed up by saying it was the exact opposite of that of Socrates.

I'd take Russell off and add Parmenides. I'd take Jung off and add Proclus or Plotinus.

>Plato and Wittgenstein are very similar
Could you say more about this subject?

He's not really saying anything novel. Everyone is similar to Plato in some ways.

True, the man had his fingers in fucking everything somehow.

Here, I wrote this awhile back:

Interestingly, Plato often came in close proximity to these ideas, much closer than we might expect. Plato was one of the few philosophers that Wittgenstein made himself familiar with, and since this paper is largely inspired by Wittgenstein, we might be interested to touch on Plato as well, if only briefly. From Cratylus:

Socrates: See now what the rule-maker has in view in giving names. Look at it in the light of what has gone before. What has the carpenter in view when he makes a shuttle? Is it not something the nature of which is to weave?
Hermogenes: Certainly.
Socrates: Well, then, if the shuttle breaks while he making it, will he make another with his mind fixed on that which is broken, or on that form with reference to which he was making the one which he broke?
Hermogenes: On that form, in my opinion.
Socrates: Then we should very properly call that the absolute or real shuttle?
Hermogenes: Yes, I think so

Plato says here that what we call a ‘shuttle’ is really the form of a shuttle rather than any particular shuttle. The reference to a form calls to mind a supernal and abstract entity, but let us step away from that idea for a moment. Let us ask who it is that Plato says best understands the form of a shuttle, and by extension, the meaning of the word ‘shuttle’. It is the carpenter, who makes them. The person who knows the form of a shuttle is the person who is most familiar with the practice of making shuttles. It is the person who is most familiar with “the something the nature of which is to weave”. All throughout Plato we see this recurring idea that the people who truly understand things are those who are the best at using them, those who are experts in their practices and most familiar with the tools of their trade. Plato’s numerous craftsmen analogies prove just this point. The ship captain best understands what a ship is, the shoemaker best understands what a shoe is, and the philosopher-king best understands what a polis is. Taken this way, Plato’s forms and Wittgenstein's form of life are both understood in virtue of skills and human practices. And although Plato’s explicit position on meaning and truth is many removes away from Wittgenstein’s, it is remarkable that we can see germs of ordinary-language philosophy in his dialectic. It is a glimpse into another perspective from which we can understand how important human practices are to our concepts of meaning and understanding.

Hmmm this is worthy of a book and I'm sure a few have even been written about the comparison between the two. I would start by pointing out that the two have a very similar method, at least on the surface. W and P both essentially argue against themselves to elucidate a their point. The journey of reasoning for each is integral to their philosophy. Kant for example has his whole system laid out before us with the journey all but subtracted and gives us only the spelling out of what has been brewing in his brain for years. I imagine that P and W, while obviously only including the most pertinent and well thought out and polished steps of their reasoning, genuinely had those arguments with themselves. I would also say that the two are specifically interested in clarifying things that already appear to us as humans rather than being great inventors or on the frontiers of imaginative systems. To add, I would say that neither P or W are particularly after the "Truth" but rather wisdom, or clarification of thoughts.
That's very interesting that W said that. I wasn't aware he thought that about Plato. I see very similar methods occurring in both of their work. I would need to think about it longer, obviously, but I guess Wittgenstein would say that his method differs in that he drills inward while Plato pushed outward. I need to think about that though, very interesting.

here is talk if you're interested. Conant has his Wittgensteinian axe to grind but he is good

Whoops
youtube.com/watch?v=anyXexAJZxE

>No Euthydemus

>who's
*whose

Plato is terrible philosophy.

Great contribution, faggot.

>contribution is good
republicans, everybody

So are you going to tell us why Plato is shit or not?

Thanks!