Just ordered pic related. What are the essentials? What should I avoid?

nevermind, reading comprehension is terrible

I agree with this user's revised order. For anyone who is unsure how to begin Plato, this is the way.

This list+symposium

Avoid spoilers as much as possible.

It's a pretty easy reading i'm just a shitty reader

*fewer

>I could die fairly soon
Are you ill, dear user?

>I could die fairly soon
You and the rest of humanity, tardo

>could die soon
>wasting your time reading some autistic old pedophile
really?

This book spoils the dialogues in the introduction to each one

>I could die fairly soon.
I'm jealous

>buy complete works
>not gonna read the COMPLETE works
Just fuck off, faggot.

This is probably the only volume contains each of the essentials in one, otherwise I would be ordering several different volumes. That's too much of a hassle.

No, I just might be in some indeterminable trouble. I can smell it lurking around the corner.

As someone trying to get into Plato, what is the reasoning behind this order over another one? Is it just a matter of increasing complexity?

Read a dialogue a month.
Start from the start.

Oh so you don't have an illness?

What did you do to warrant this trouble?

>What are the essentials?
A primer.

The Teaching Company's Professor Michael Sugrue did a good series of lectures on Plato. And there's the Yale Open Courses as well. youtube.com/results?search_query=yale open courses plato

I don't think so. I've just started reading The Republic. It's the first philosophical text I've read and it's not difficult at all. Some passages require re-reading but that's only because of the language used, not because it has difficult to understand concepts.

To a degree it is about increasing complexity, however it is also to do with thematic and occasionally chronological pairing.
Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo are all part of the "trial and death of Socrates" and are in chronological order. Not only that, but Euthyphro is an excellent introduction to the form of a Socratic dialogue and the way which Plato argues. Apology is an excellent introduction to the character of Socrates and contextualizes what Socrates was doing in Athens at the time.
Meno is thematically linked to Phaedo as there is a section in Phaedo which mentions Socrates' theory of the immortality of the soul and how one gains/has knowledge which is explained in Meno.
The next block is Symposium (which i missed), Phaedrus, Gorgias, Protagoras. Symposium is on the topic of love and is a dialogue that doesn't really draw off any other dialogues. Phaedrus is half about love, half about rhetoric, which places it perfectly between Symposium (about love) and Gorgias (about rhetoric). It is also important for fleshing out somewhat Plato's theory of forms. Protagoras naturally follows Gorgias as Protagoras is a kind of "grand showdown" between Socrates and the sophists, and knowing Socrates' arguments against rhetoric informs some parts of Protagoras.
Our next block is Sophist, Parmenides, Theaetetus (or, as another user pointed out, it should be Theaetetus, Sophist, Parmenides). Theaetetus is linked with Sophist chronologically, and Sophist tackles Parmenides' argument about being and not being. Parmenides naturally follows after that. These are probably the hardest dialogues on the list.
Republic and laws are the last block. Republic is positioned this late as i consider it the culmination of Plato's other work. In many of his earlier dialogues Plato/Socrates is asking the nature of many ethical values such as Courage, Wisdom, Temperance, Justice, ect., but in most of the dialogues the answer is inconclusive, and it is rare for Socrates to explain what some virtue is, he rather picks apart other peoples attempts. Republic is when Plato finally steps forward and offers his own explanation of what virtue is, and how one ought to live. Republic draws on, or at least references, many positions Socrates has taken previously and uses them in his arguments. Republic also benefits from a good knowledge of Plato's epistemology and metaphysics. I can tell you from personal experience (i read the republic quite a while before i tackled the rest of his dialogues) that your reading of Republic will be far richer after having a solid grounding in Plato's other dialogues and positions. Laws naturally follows from Republic thematically. it also helps emphasize that Republic isn't (in my opinion) meant to be taken literally as Plato's "perfect society".

How the fuck could you forget the symposium? Best dialogue.

>no symposium
kill yourself