Wow, thank you so much for posting this. I love the spirit of it, I support it, and I keep realizing I need to be reminded of it. I'm gonna make a note of this in my bookmark for The Republic, tysm!

You could start a reading group here — Fooloso4

Might as well be this one. — Wayfarer

Maybe that would better suit someone else. I've noticed I don't have the availability to keep up with the amount and depth of the comments that this forum generates! So I wouldn't like to take up the responsibility of a reading group here.

As to more informal and topical posts, yes! I might post one or two :)

Ooof it's very encouraging to know that annotating yields benefits even 5 decades later. I'll definitely try to interact with the book as much as I can. Thank you!

Hm! Good point and thank you for the resource! I have an English translation by Desmond Lee, but I was thinking of reading in my native language because the edition I got comes with *many* footnotes and additional context.

I raised questions and challenges and addressed them to the text as if I was talking to Socrates. — Fooloso4

I'm definitely aiming for this. Also, how lucky! Reading it with people who are invested and care must have been such a treat.

Oh yeah, I heard about that! How the ancient Greeks (or Plato only, maybe?) though of the state as a kind of iteration on the self. I'm hoping to understand that more as I read on!
I also though it interesting that you mention noting my thoughts *above* understanding. Is that because it could drag me down to try to understand every single thing at first?

Yes, that's such a great mindset! It's not going to be a one and done.

Oh thanks for the encouragement and tips! I absolutely should start with a smaller dialogue first, can't believe I hadn't thought of it

@NotAristotle :clap: :clap: :clap:

I think they would disagree here, though:

Aristotle: Yes, I thought you might say so, for if it were the same, then by investigating the form in the particulars I would be seeing outside of the cave, don't you think?
Plato: That sounds right to me. — NotAristotle

Imo, Plato could never agree that particulars could be anything but a smoke screen. And true knowledge could only be achieved dialectically and rationally, by setting ourselves free from the influence of particulars.

I see, I see! And I agree, I think both thought there's something to unveil, so to speak

It's what one of the cynic philosophers replied to Alexander the Great. The emperor asked what he could do for the philosopher, and he replied 'get out of my light,' in true cynic fashion :rofl:
Googling it, it was Diogenes, the cynic!

(The difficulty here is that Plato would never have said that to Aristotle. The allegory of the cave is not primarily a means of dialogical argument.) — Leontiskos

Hm! Could you expound on this? The cave allegory isn't a means of argument, but do you think Plato wouldn't be bothered by Aristotle's fixation on the senses and particulars?

I'm gonna DM you :)

Oh yay! I'll send you a message

Eros for the good is innate. We all desire what is good. The problem is, we do not always know what that is. — Fooloso4

Ah I see. So Eros for the good is innate, but people may be thwarted in their efforts to get to the good because they don't know what it is. They may end up pursuing pleasure, for example, thinking that it is the good. So that's where Plato's city-state would come in, educating its citizens on what the good is.

However, the good itself can never be fully grasped because it is not only a "form," in the realm of being, but something beyond forms that actually informs all forms themselves, too.

So the human Eros for the good, even if appropriately applied, would never be able to reach the true and full concept of the good (whatever that may be.)

Thanks for your reply, yes, I agree with you! I think our points are compatible.

While a deconstructionist may have 'the group' in mind, it is still an individualized group that follows 'what they think is right,' as you put it. And while there's no motivation for an individual to become liberated, there's no push-back against having one individual represent the group.

I think I might be giving myself too much leeway with the term 'individual,' though.
What I'm saying isn't that there's more focus on each individual, in deconstructionist movements, but that there is more importance given to individualization. So that would be why I always associated those movements with the Enlightenment... Another reason could be the 'deconstruction' of a higher force (God, religion, etc) which accompanied the Enlightenment and colors the deconstructionist movements, imo :chin:

Hm. So Eros is innate to the soul, but Eros for the good is not innate to the soul because Eros is blind. Thank you, that helps!
I suppose that Plato was just lucky that his desire was for the good, and then he wanted to school everybody on what he saw was the right path for the betterment of the soul?

Postmodernists, feminists, and certain strands of communitarian thought reject in general what they take to be the Enlightenment's inadequate conception of selfhood and individuality — Isaac Kramnick

I found this very interesting to read because I tend to think the opposite. Usually I associate "communitarian thought" with the Enlightenment.

Even though it doesn't seem like it at face value, all these currents of thought aim to reconstruct the world. And to do it, they ultimately place the individual as the spearhead of change.
Maybe not postmodernism, which maybe is more like a simply de-constructive current? But feminism and "communitarian thought" seek to de-construct what they see as wrong and replace it with what they see is right, which happens to be individualized (feminists prefer the individualizing characteristic of "female", while the other prefers the characteristic of "being able to organize the community")

That's precisely what the libertarians reject in the Enlightenment, to turn it around for a second here. If an individual is preferred, that hurts the liberties of certain other individuals.

Is this so? Any thoughts?

that's a great point, I think I may neglect bringing things into real life sometimes!
I know that story is stressful irl but I found it pretty funny btw

@unenlightened @bongo fury keeping it casual around here I see :cool: thanks for your comments!

Just added "The Case Against Reality" to my goodreads heh. Thanks for the tip about going back to introductions to consolidate your knowledge, I'd never thought of that! :ok:

wow thank you for adding this one! It seems like it'll be the perfect litmus test to really get to the bottom of certain ideas, since I tend to agree with his worldview and values.

@javi2541997 @unenlightened @Vaskane @Jamal @mcdoodle @180 Proof @Fooloso4 @Count Timothy von Icarus @BC @Wayfarer

Guys! Thank you so much for your suggestions and comments.
Especially to @Count Timothy von Icarus. What a comprehensive answer -- my jaw dropped! Did you read all those books?

I compiled all the suggestions into this list:
1. Exchange your views with others
2. Have a go-to dictionary
3. Philosophical Dictionary: http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/
4. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/
(”will give depth on anything that grabs you”)
5. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://www.iep.utm.edu/
(”more approachable than the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy”)
6. “Mind Your Logic,” by Donald Gregory
(”great book for learning Aristotelian Logic”)
7. “History of Western Philosophy,” by Bertrand Russell
(”though he is very much not to be trusted concerning Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche”)
8. Nigel Warburton’s books
9. “Philosophy Bites” podcast with David Edmunds
10. Plato's shorter dialogues
11. “A New History of Western Philosophy,” by Anthony Kenny
12. Starting with specific area surveys:
”Complexity: A Guided Tour,” by Melanie Mitchell
”The Ascent of Information,” by Caleb Scharf
13. The "Oxford Very Short Introductions to..." series
Particularly Objectivity, Mathematics, Continental Philosophy, Analytic Philosophy
14. The Routledge “Contemporary Introductions to…”
Particularly Metaphysics, Free Will, Time, Philosophy of Language, Phenomenology
15. "Philosophy of Mind," and "Problems of Knowledge," by William Jarwoski
Better introductions to those areas than the Routledge introductions
16. "X: The Basics.” Oxford series
17. The Great Courses: lectures on a wide array of topics
(Recommended to get it through Audible or Wonderium)
Particularly "Mind Body Philosophy,” "The Science of Information,” "The Philosophy of Science,” classes on Complexity, Chaos Theory, and Free Will, "Descartes to Derrida,” "Search for Value.”
18. Springer Frontiers: really good cutting-edge philosophy of the sciences
Particularly "The Reality of Becoming: Time Flow in Modern Physics,” "Asymmetry: The Foundations of Information,” "Particle Metaphysics.”
19. “Mystics,” by William Harmless
Introduction to Mysticism
20. "Saint Augustine in His Own Words,” by William Harmless
Introduction to Augustine
21. "Philosophical Mysticism in Plato and Hegel, and The Present” by Robert M. Wallace
Introduction to free will and ethics
22. “Philosophy of History," by M.C. Lemon
23. "Hegel's Naturalism,” by Terry Pinkard
Introduction to Hegel
24. "Kantian Reason and Hegelian Spirit,” by Gary Dorrien
Intro to German Idealism
25. “The Opening of Hegel's Logic: From Being to Infinity,” by Stephen Houlgate
Introduction to Phenomenology
26. “Hegel’s Ladder,” by Henry S. Harris
Introduction to Phenomenology
27. Graduate seminars on Kant and the Phenomenology: [www.bernsteintapes.com](http://www.bernsteintapes.com/)
28. The North Holland Handbook of the Philosophy of Science: Volume I - Complexity
(”Fairly technical”)
29. “What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics,” by Adam Becker
Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
30. “In Our Mathematical Universe,” by Max Tegmark
Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
31. “Decoding the Universe,” by Vlatko Vedral
Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (”information theory-centric account”)
32. “Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics,” by Paul C.W. Davies (Editor), Niels Henrik Gregersen (Editor)
Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (”more general physics”)
33. "For All X,” by P.D. Magnus
Introduction to Logic (textbook)
34. “Meaning and Argument: An Introduction to Logic Through Language, Revised Second Edition,” by Ernest Lepore
Introduction to Logic (”pulls in content from the philosophy of language”)
35. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Information
Introduction to Computability (”for after the Great Courses course or the Ascent of Information”)
36. “Turing's Vision: The Birth of Computer Science,” by Chris Bernhardt
Intro to Computability (”Turing Machines and the mathematical problems that defined the early 20th century”)
37. “Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid,” by Douglas Hofstadter
Intro to Computability (”if you really care about formal systems, otherwise Complexity: A Guided Tour is better”)
38. "More Precisely: The Math You Need to Do Philosophy," by Eric Steinhart
Intro to Maths (”Solid introduction to sets, machines, probability, and information theory.” “something you read to understand other things”)
39. Routledge, Blackwell, Princeton, and Oxford "handbooks to.”
For any particular area you want to go deep in.
40. The Philosopher's Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods (3rd Ed), Peter S. Fosl and Julian Baggini
41. Peter Adamson's podcast & book series A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps
42. “The Great Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy,” Bryan Magee
43. “An Outline of Philosophy,” by Bertrand Russell
44. “The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism,” by Cornel West
45. “The Meaning of Life,” by Terry Eagleton
46. “**The Book of Dead Philosophers,” by Simon Critchley**
47. W. T. Jones’ Introduction to Philosophy (5 volumes)
48. “An Essay on Metaphysics,” by R. G. Collingwood
49. “What Does it All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy,” by Thomas Nagel
50. “The Story of Philosophy: A Concise Introduction to the World's Greatest Thinkers and Their Ideas,” by Bryan McGee
51. “Confessions of a Philosopher,” by Bryan McGee
52. “The Republic,” by Plato
53. “Looking at Philosophy: The Unbearable Heaviness of Philosophy Made Lighter,” by Donald D. Palmer
54. "The Story of Philosophy," by Will Durant
55. “A Concise Introduction to Philosophy,” by William Halverson (textbook)
56. “The Penguin History of Western Philosophy,” by D.W. Hamlyn
57. “The Unity of Philosophical Experience,” by Etienne Gilson
58. “An Essay on Metaphysics,” by R. G. Collingwood
59. "The Pattern Paradigm: The Science of Philosophy,” by Bruce S.C. Robertson

I think, after this Arthur Holme's lecture series and Sophie's World, I'm gonna take a look at Russell's History of Western Philosophy. It seems to be the most frequently mentioned book in this topic. But who knows! There are so many resources to choose from -- I'm excited!

I appreciate the metaphor and I think it's very accurate! I read The Hedgehog and The Fox, by Isiah Berlin, and it was very much that. It also made me way more eager to learn more about everything.

But do you have any suggestions for resources to give me a good overview of philosophy?
I believe it's easier to start that way so I can then place whatever else I read in a clear timeline, and make connections more easily too.

@javi2541997
The forum is definitely a lil intimidating, but you're absolutely right and I do feel like I wanna join in
Thank you for the encouragement! :D

I will finish up this app that I'm making for myself.
It'll allow me to set up periodic notifications to myself. I'lll use that for spaced repetition, helping me expand my vocabulary and learn the names of all these damn philosophers and movements my curiosity has entrapped me in :lol: