So for a while now, I've had the goal of starting to read ancient philosophy and working my way up to modern philosophy.
I have recently purchased The Metaphysics, The Nicomachean Ethics, Politics by Aristotle and The Republic.
For someone with no background at all in ancient philosophy, in which order do you think I should read these books in?
Start with the presocratics.
I have quality recommendations for anyone who wants to study the presocratics in earnest
plz I just want recommendations for which book is the easiest T_T
Classic.
I second this.
I'm looking for unabridged editions. Some commentary is fine, but please no summaries; primary source material is best.
Presocratics is a joke meme ignore
There's no logical order for those four books, they don't even cover the same topics. Just look up when they were written and read them in that order. Or read the first 20 pages of each and see which is most interesting to you.
It's more valuable to successful read a bunch of stuff that grabs your attention than to force yourself to read one boring thing and give up
I plan to read Zeller's "History of Greek Philosophy to the time of Socrates" just to get enough historical context to start Plato/Aristotle. IYO, am I missing out by not delving deeper, not reading the sources?
And before them, don't forget the cave drawings!
The Sophistic Movement
Ecce Homo
The Presocratic Philosophers by G.S. Kirk
The First Philosophers
Early Greek Philosophy
The Presocratic Philosophers by Jonathan Barnes
To the guy asking for source material: as far as I know, we only have fragmentary works of the presocratics. I wouldn't dismiss the commentary either; it offers necessary context.
It is one thing to understand that Thales made the claim that 'everything is water,' it is another thing entirely to comprehend why he made such a remark, not to mention the metaphysical implications it would have for all future philosophy.
Good luck to all of you
so what does thales think of dfw
What's the fucking point of reading presocratic primary sources? It's cause you think "older = deeper"?
This is a meme I'll never understand, if we put together all we got from Thales to Anaxagoras or Democritus, it would fit in ten pages (and tht's with al the second hand stuff we got from Diogenes and Aristotle).
The Republic is surely first.
But I would put some more Plato in it: at least Apology, Euthyphro and Phaedo (and Symposium if you want to have a great time).
Enjoy!
none of them look like faggots by themselves but they all look like faggots together especially aristotle
get the eudemian ethics instead.
republic, ethics, politics, metaphysics is the correct order to read those in.
Needs more Plato. Aristotle is a genius but his writing is dry. Plato is actually fun.
because plato is essentially a synthesis of most presocratic thought, and as you say there's hardly any extant writings so you can get a short book that covers every single one of them and read it in a day.
>because plato is essentially a synthesis of most presocratic thought,
Pfft that's a patently wrong statement. Recovering old ideas and putting them thorugh criticism is not "synthesizing". Hell there's even explici rejection of much of everything that came before him in the Phaedo (that's something for which we don't have precedent in greek thought, basically the manifesto of metaphysics as a discipline) Nothing which came before Plato stands against him,
But aside from that, you'll get nothing from presocratics without any secondary literature or critical interpretation, probably just wild misterpretations of your own.
Start with the Chinks
Read it in this order:
1. Republic
2. Metaphysics
3. Ethics
4. Politics
No prob, m8y
As someone who has actually read Aristotle's works, you will not understand any of Metaphysics without first reading the Organon and Physics. It's really the last work of his you should read. It is built upon and references all his major works.
Is this a good guide to /swtg/? Seems lacking but I don't know much about the matter.