No threads about literature on the front page except the genre containment thread

>no threads about literature on the front page except the genre containment thread
wew lads

What are you currently reading / Your age

get bombed bookkike

Answer the question, user.

Aristotle's Metaphysics, 25

Here's the first thing that stuck out to me in the first book:

>...for the wise man must not be ordered but must order, and he must not obey another, but the less wise must obey him.

Importantly, he doesn't say this as an ethical prescription. He's describing the common conception of wisdom and what it means to be wise, and uses this assertion to advance the argument that true wisdom is concerned with knowledge for its own sake, and not knowledge for some practical application.

I think this is a rather strange holdover from Plato's enlightened autocrat. Why should wisdom necessarily have the power to command others, especially when said wisdom isn't actually of any utility?

>>...for the wise man must not be ordered but must order, and he must not obey another, but the less wise must obey him.

Is this implying autonomy = wisdom, or is this a Malthusian "superiors know better than subservients" perspective?

The Bible / 19

a bunch of books about immigration for a research assignment

>complains about lack of literature threads
>post a non literature thread

Really cool

IT'S ALL RELIGION THREADS
MODS MODS LAMA SABACHTHANI

Old Man and the Sea.

It's... okay.

I definitely don't think it's the latter.

I'm honestly not sure entirely what to make of it. I can understand a certain kind of argument that might go, "True pursuit of knowledge must be concerned entirely with knowledge itself, and not accomplishing some other goal, because otherwise you may be satisfied with something not quite true that accomplishes your secondary goal." And this argument is fairly well grounded--we teach Newtonian mechanics in high school because those results are virtually indistinguishable from the truth in most human contexts, despite the fact that we know they're inconsistent with our deeper investigations.

The trouble is that I don't think this is exactly what he's saying, or at least all that he says. He's not just asserting the autonomy of the wise, as you suggest, but goes on to say that the less wise must obey the wise--by definition. It seems totally unjustified.

It's worth mentioning that he was describing the common conception of wisdom, and perhaps doesn't believe all the particulars of what he's describing, but he certainly doesn't correct this conception if he disagrees with it.

Finished Blood Meridian couple hours ago. 23. Any suggestions for what I'd read next? My library is pretty small so perhaps nothing too obscure.

Are you sure it's not the latter? Aristotle's main gripe was reconciling Roman civilisation with Christian theology right? Roman society was deeply hierachal and used ritual to underline how much more important and virtuous those high born were.

War and Peace

>Aristotle's main gripe was reconciling Roman civilisation with Christian theology right?

Um... Aristotle was an Athenian who wrote his works hundreds of years before Christianity existed.

I misread Aristotle as Augustine, my mistake. Too much arguing about Theology on this board.

Hey guys I'm a screenwriter and I'm worried some people might see me as a hack because I consciously put multiple layers of symbolism in fiction and build a narrative around it. This is even more prescient because the medium is film, not novels. Does anybody else know this feel

Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals.
19
It's really hard but I think I understand most of it. I'm reading it really slowly tho, I'm thinking of reading an "easier" book while I'm reading it but I'm afraid I get confused or even slower.

As long as the narrative is strong enough in itself, I'm not sure that's a problem. I'm a filmfag who wants to be a director one day, so good luck with that m8

Understandable, but your first clue should have been that I was actually posting about a book I was reading. The Christ Wars in this shithole have a noticeably different flavor.

Ironically I am currently reading a religious work. Specifically, I am currently reading Pope Benedict's "Jesus of Nazareth" book series. I'm on the second book now. It's actually really delightful. Perhaps the biggest strength of the work is the way Benedict constantly connects the New Testament to the Old Testament. He does a very convincing job showing how the New Testament flows from, and grows out of, the Old. Which of course meshes with Jesus' own line about how he came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it. It really is interesting from a scholarly and philosophical perspective.

The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt / 21

Want to brush up on my Ancient Egyptian history a bit before reading the book of the dead and a few other bits of Egyptian writing.