Sup Forums Book Thread

Which books should be essential reading for Sup Forums?

I just started reading pic related. I have nothing else to do nowadays so I want to read more desu.

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youtube.com/watch?v=nLD09Qa3kMk
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twitter.com/AnonBabble

Bump pls respond

:^)

Read it desu.

Never forget the Greeks .

Diogenes rules!

shitty book, will drive you to insanity. (bill clinton said it was his favorite book)

Not an argument.

a heart-wrenching classic set during the Easter Rising. anyone interested in Irish history owes it to themselves to read this.

How does one get started with Stoicism. Are there essential writings? People say he wasnt a pure stoic somehow but the idea of putting your thoughts down on paper to focus on as a method for self improvement is attractive to me. The idea of refining the self in order to improve your life seems powerful.

Why is the right obsessed with Sanders-tier Democratic Socialist George Orwell?

Is it just that no conservative has ever written a competent literary critique of Soviet communism?

Diogenes, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius

In that order

The left is as well. Much of the spying shit people would have assumed is fantasy is taking place now.

Those are some of the cringiest book covers I've ever seen.

Is any Greek philosopher less sympathetic to nationalism than Diogenes?

You idiots should stick to The Art of the Deal.

Yeah, but it makes sense for the left to be obsessed with
>a Sanders-tier Democratic Socialist

>Are there essential writings?

Seneca, Epictetus, Aurelius.

>People say he wasnt a pure stoic

Nonsense, he lived the philosophy. This is a great lecture youtube.com/watch?v=nLD09Qa3kMk

There is no "pure" stoicism, the main Stoics had varying positions upon the same things. For example Epictetus would say that you should have no reason to go into mourning even if your entire family died, because you wouldn't have lost anything that belonged to you. Seneca is more lenient, more accepting of basic human emotions and says you can mourn, just not for too long.

There are degrees of strictness with Stoicism, read the main guys and see which you prefer. It's all much the same bar how you might approach more extreme situations. A Guide to the Good Life is supposed to be a great book on implementing Stoic practices into everyday life, but I haven't read it. Stoicism is a great philosophy because it's all about being able to apply it, in word, thought and ultimately action.

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Heraclitus is my favorite of the pre Socratics.

I own the Way of Men and Handbook of Traditional Living. Bretty good.

Also OP, if you want to get into Stoicism, check out A guide to the good life, by William Irvine. Good read on stoicism.

Also Enchiridion of Epictetus, and Letters From a Stoic.

Anything by Aristotle.

Parallel Lives. I re-read Plutarch every couple of months or so I don't know why, I just do.

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What is this?

Anything by Thomas Sowell

THE based nigger

United Republic Of get out of my sun .
Emperor of himself.

Critical book in my life. Read the Tao te Ching afterwards and be mystified by how many similarities the two have considering one is arguably the most Western school of philosophy (idealizing Reason itself) and the other is the most Eastern school (idealizing intuition and balance).

The answer on how to live is where they overlap.

Is that pic the translation you recommend or just the first one you picked up?

>Sophocles and not Aeschylus
>barely anything from the presocratics
>no Heraclitus

and you call yourselves "right wing"

y'all niggers need to get a reading group together and work through Being and Time. Doesn't matter if you don't fully get it- nobody does

The Histories, by Herodotus, the first historian ever.

Parallel Lives, by Plutarch. About the lives of great man of more or less his time.

Back then books were written to be useful, not to brainwash people. They were meant to contain valuable information for the coming generations.

this also

Prometheus Bound is all I read, what else should I read?

>parallel lives

My negro

"Some men learn the cussedness of whiskey by having a drunken father; and some by having a good mother.
Some men get an education from other men and newspapers and public libraries; and some get it from professors and parchments—it doesn’t make any special difference how you get a half-nelson on the right thing, just so you get it and freeze on to it."

PDF
gutenberg.org/files/21959/21959-h/21959-h.htm

Just finished it, Existence and Being, and his series of essays starting with The Question Concerning Technology. Wew, am I confused but wordy.

The Orestia trilogy and The Seven Against Thebes are really good.

The main draw of Aeschylus over the other two tragedians is his treatment of the divine. Both Sophocles and Euripides (more so the latter) are proto-liberals who deconstruct faith and lower the gods down to the level of human beings. Euripides presents the gods as pathetic flawed humans cheating on their spouses and getting drunk, and has plays promoting rights for women, etc

Aeschylus meanwhile is utterly awed by the divine and treats holy things and high concepts with the utmost respect- he's more in tune wit the divine in that way. He doesn't need to deconstruct it because he recognizes it's value

Mine too. One of my favorites philosophers period.

meditations is a shit book. wasn't even meant to be published

Stoicism is the "just b urself" of philosophy.
Prove me wrong.

Heidegger undergoes several pretty radical transitions between BT, the nazi period, and The Question Concerning Technology. Early and middle Heidegger see the history of philosophy as degeneration: the early Greeks had it right, then ontotheology got fucked up and we've been wrong ever since. Later Heidegger looks forward- he fears that scientism and technology are pushing us toward a world where everyone's life is equally meaningless and superfluous

Highly recommend the writings of Iain Thompson m, especially the book "Heidegger on Ontotheology"

As a monoglot (ahahaha) you'll have to settle for English-language authors like Henry James, Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov. TRANSLATIONS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE. If you read Kafka in translation, you did not read Kafka.

Heh heh.

good meme good comment.

This is probably the only Sup Forums appropriate rec so far, although despite Heidegger's closet Nazism the left has gotten more out of him than anyone else so far. That's probably due to muh continental divide though.

I still can't figure out how any of the Greeks, pre-Socratic or otherwise, are even slightly Sup Forums-related.

Especially Heraclitus what the fuck. That's directly out of the Hegel-Marx-Lenin lineage.

Translations are better than nothing.

Oh man, I totally forgot about the Oresteia.

I need to re-read, thanks user. I'm a casual pleb, I never went to school, but I do love his stuff.

Also, a good suggestion I forgot would be Caesars commentarii.

/lit/ here. Wow, this thread is just embarassing.
>I read Aurelius, I read Plutarch, I read Heraclitus . . .
No you don't. You will never understand their works without you speak the classical tongues.

>without you speak

/lit/ here. Embarrassing.

Heraclitus was Heidegger's biggest Greek inspiration. Heraclitus' Logos is more or less equal to the Christin God, and Heidegger views Being in much the same way- it's the "river" out of which Dasein comes, and to where Dasein returns upon death.

Left wing existentialists believe that there is absolutely no essential nature to human life, and that we can just invent meaning on our own based on pleasure. Heidegger believes he opposite- that Being, being,and death are essential parts of human life and shape all of our experience and figure prominently in all non-degenerats cultures.

Yes, that's true. So much is lost in translation.

I guess everyone should just give up reading anything, faggot.

>I still can't figure out how any of the Greeks, pre-Socratic or otherwise, are even slightly Sup Forums-related.

They aren't. People just have a hard-on for the ancient Greeks so they read them only because they feel obligated to do so. That being said, it's foolish to not read things simply because they're outside your worldview, culture or experience, so I can't really say they're doing themselves any harm by reading the Greeks. Any educated man should probably have read them.

This is the blueprint for phase of Marxism that is used against us right now, the "march through the institutions". Read it to know your enemy, and also for the 19th century history of armed insurrections that formed the modern state of Italy, which is known as the Risorgimento.

Stoicism is about accepting that Fate has a monopoly on everything in life and you cannot escape it. Live by good virtues, and be content.

It's humility: the philosophy. It actually has a lot of similarities with Christianity.

Alright see you in eight years after I learn classical Greek.

You're right, especially about Heraclitus, but you have to start somewhere. Fortunately his writings are in small fragments that can easily be translated one word at a time.

>It actually has a lot of similarities with Christianity.
>BIble thumper detected

Christianity copied a lot of Stoicism, right down to fabricating letters been Seneca&Paul, even interpolating Epictetis to replace references to Socrates with later prominent Christians. You fucks cannibalized Greek&Roman philosophy and now run around claiming it all originated with Jesus.

The Greeks are viewed as "right wing" because they believed that their civilization and their traditions were sacred gifts from the gods. Socrates in the Crito considers the law of Athens to be so "sacred" that he would rather die than blaspheme against it by breaking out of prison. Modern right wingers wants to promote the idea that Western civilization is good, and there is a lot of ammo to be found within Greek philosophy

It's proper English, fucktard. One sense of the word "without" means "unless."

this. Also cannibalized was Heraclitus' concept of the logos.

The closest to a "pure" stoic you will ever get is Cato, but he didn't write much down. Too busy living that pure stoic life.

>Heraclitus' Logos is more or less equal to the Christin God

Not sure I would phrase it exactly that way, for Heraclitus the Logos is tantamount to the universal. Which is why Heraclitus comes to the conclusion: "Hence in so far as we participate in the knowledge of [the universal], we are in the truth; but in so far as we are singular we are in error.”

The 'philosophy' of Sup Forums is anything but universal. Nearly every thread is a celebration of the singular, of the particular, whether it be in a racial form, a national form, a sexual form, or whatever.

Even the category of "non-degenerate" you set up (implying obviously a degenerate category) is hostile to Heraclitus' notion of Logos, since everything must ultimately collpase into the Universal or what Hegel would call the Absolute for it to be true.

This is also why Marx gets so much mileage out of Hercalitus: what is the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the abolition of all class difference, but the realization of the Logos?

This, but I suggest Brave New World as well, it's better than 1984, it's writing is less complex, but the message is much more aligned with our current state of things.

That's assuming that difference and inequality are not equally important parts of the universal. Hierarchical societies (like that of the Greeks) would view class inequality as the nature of things, and stoics of the time would argue that your place in society is fated, and therefore not worth being bitter about. Trying to "realize" the logos implies that the logos is not already and always present

>Heraclitus
>a stoic

Born 200 years too early, friendo

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Just bought that exact copy of Aristotle's complete works.

What are some other good bits?

Roger Scruton's Fools, Frauds and Firebrands introduces every major leftist thinker, summarizes andcroticizes them, and offers alternatives.
Stephen Coughlin's book Catastrophic Failure is the first text on Islam. You do not understand Islam until you read this book. Israel Shahak's Jewish History, Jewish Religion is the first text on Jews. Other good books on Jews (all of which are longer) include Culture of Critique, Jewish Revolutionary Spirit, Judaism's Strange Gods, Yankel's Tavern, And The Dead Shall Rise, The Jewish Century, Esau's Tears, and the Toaff text.
On race: Face to Face With Race, Facing Reality in American Education, White Girl Bleed A Lot, White Guilt and Into The Cannibal's Pot.

>That's assuming that difference and inequality are not equally important parts of the universal.

That's not how Heraclitus would understand "the universal" at all.

And if you want to stick with your point that Heraclitus' Logos is the precursor to the Christian God then you're really out of luck. As per Colossians 3:11 "Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all."

This is how the notion of the Universal or the Absolute is understood philosophically. Hierarchy is not compatible to it, least of all in Christianity.

>That's assuming that difference and inequality are not equally important parts of the universal.

I'm not assuming that; that's not how anyone with a background in philosophy understands the Universal.

If you want to stick with the Logos as precursor to the Christian God argument you're really out of luck.

Consider Colossians 3:11: "Here this is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and in all."

Galatians 2:38 is similar. The Logos effaces difference. It is incompatible with hierarchy. Try telling your average Sup Forumsack that in truth, there is neither stormfags or Jews and you'll see how relevant Heraclitus is to Sup Forums.

Sorry for the doublepost, the first one wasn't showing up for some reason. Self-saging.

Cuck, socrates and plato

youtube.com/watch?v=a2oxC23YQOU

well I'm not a Christian- I agree with Heidegger that Christian philosophers made a mistake when they repurposed Greek philosophy and interpreted "truth" as "correctness" in a historical sense- they laid the foundation for the death of their own religion as science answered more and more questions.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that the logos means no hierarchy- I think that you're right that Marx used it that way, but Heraclitus himself was not remotely a proto-Marxist. There's reason to think that Heraclitus thought that our individual perspective made a full understanding of the truth impossible. See pic related (shit translation but consistent with others I have used)- injustice is an illusion. Difference is also an illusion, but only as it relates to the oneness of everything and not in the particular sense. "You and I are exactly the same" is not equal to "you and I are both of the same generative principle"

It's entirely memorable sentences from John Graham, the pork merchant father. Graham is self made as the title suggests, and his son has just started studying at Harvard, and the book is the letters that he sends to his son while at school and on the job afterward, trying to help his son see the big picture.

"Anything that trains a boy to think and to think quick pays; anything that teaches a boy to get the answer before the other fellow gets through biting the pencil, pays.
College doesn’t make fools; it develops them. It doesn’t make bright men; it develops them. A fool will turn out a fool, whether he goes to college or not, though he’ll probably turn out a different sort of a fool."

"It’s simply the difference between jump in, rough-and-tumble, kick-with-the-heels-and-butt-with-the-head nigger fighting, and this grin-and-look-pleasant, dodge-and-save-your-wind-till-you-see-a-chance-to-land-on-the-solar-plexus style of the trained athlete. Both styles win fights, but the fellow with a little science is the better man, providing he’s kept his muscle hard. If he hasn’t, he’s in a bad way, for his fancy sparring is just going to aggravate the other fellow so that he’ll eat him up."


The main theme is the application of whatever knowledge one has. It's about doing, about delivering. I posted this because a lot of us could benefit from more doing and less thinking.

>injustice is an illusion

This isn't compatible with Sup Forums, either. Post that Hillary Clinton has never committed an injustice and you'll be flamed to death. But then, I don't think any philosophy could ever really be Sup Forums-related.

This thread was sort of doomed to be dead on arrival.

The golden sayings of epictetus. He doesn't sugar coat anything and you feel like shit reading it.

to be fair I think you're conflating the abstraction of Heraclitus (that all things are one within the logos) with particular instances that happen in human lives. Our individual perspective necessarily means that we are unworthy of the cosmic wisdom- we can never truly embrace it because we have to act and react to things that happen in our human lives.

I agree with you though- Sup Forums is largely retarded, resentful, and anti-intellectual. No serious philosopher could be called "Sup Forums" because being a serious philosopher requires more thought than political ideologues are willing to put out

Orwell may have been a democratic-socialist, but Arthur Blair served the crown, and ratted out socialist and communist. Included in a falling out with another writer.

1. At least 3000 pages on the history of Greece and Rome, particularly the roman civil wars, Caesar and Augustus, lots of options here; start with a translation of Titus Livius: Ab Urbe Condita book 1-5 (~500 pages total)
2. A history of philosophy, with at least 1000 pages (takes a year to work your way through that if it's your first encounter with philosophy)
3. A world history of some sort, 5000-10000 pages. Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Hitler, islamic conquests, all need to be covered.

After that, I recommed skipping straight to the classics of world literature.

Personal recommendations:

Platon's entire oeuvre, ~2000 pages
Seneca's Letters to Lucilius
The stoics Marc Aurel and Epictet
Homer
Vergil's Aeneas
Shakespeare (Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra)
Goethe's Faust
Decamerone and Divine Comedy
The great novels of Dostojevski

Personal favourite of mine: War and Peace by Tolstoi

Some good 'modern' classics: Fight Club, American Psycho, Houellebecq, 1984, Clockwork Orange

Yes, 1000x yes to this book. I read this first time in 2006 related to an intro to philosophy class I took as an undergrad. I cannot possibly recommend this book enough to other people, this is where my philosophical inquiry began.
Definitely required reading for Sup Forums
Same, although this version was garbage. Get the pre-Socratic/early Greek philosophy compilation from penguin books instead.
This book is tied with Meditations for my favorite book
I read this in 2009, my Uncle sent me a copy when I started grad school, definitely helped me with understanding statistical theory, highly recommend

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