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Re:So You Want to Study Philosophy by dr_dshiv on Thursday September 02, 2021 @07:49AM (#28390900)
Plato is, by far, the best philosopher of all time. I don't say that lightly and am open to arguments.

But Plato doesn't lay out "the truth." He presents beautiful dialogues that allows the reader to consider, agree, disagree or digress. Try reading the Parmenides. Here, the impossibility of unity is presented alongside the impossibility of difference. It shows the limits of language and maybe thought— or read the symposium for radical ideas about the nature of love.

Or, hell, read Xenophon's Socratic dialogues. He was more radical than Plato, though they were both students of Socrates. Xenophon turned into a mercenary and defeated the king of Persia. Then wrote extremely practical dialogues about getting rich.

Philosophy isn't about truth. It's about the love of wisdom and, ultimately, wisdom is about living a better life. Philosophy includes material that cannot be expressed with words.

Finally, Pythagoras—who coined the word philosophy. He wrote nothing out of principle and yet his worldview is arguably the most transformatively modern. Newton, Copernicus, Kepler and Gallelio all credited Pythagoras for their findings. He seemed to believe that the world was made of math and that the natural harmonies of mathematics would manifest in the harmonies of the cosmos. This idea is still resonant in the sciences — like in the groundbreaking discovery of harmonic peaks in the cosmic microwave background radiation. Pythagoreans conducted the first empirical test of a mathematical hypothesis (that bronze chimes in ratios of 1:2 and 2:3 would sound consonant).

When you read about groundbreaking wisdom that is over 2000 years old, it gives perspective on how we might build a society that similarly endures.

Re:So You Want to Study Philosophy by bakuninsbart on Thursday September 02, 2021 @02:20PM (#28395483)
One thing that I find a bit shocking about the linked article as well as this thread is the complete abscence of discussion from the recommendations on how to learn philosophy. Yes, reading philosophy is an essential prerequisite, and the truly novel stuff is often done in silent reflection, but discussion is hugely helpful in both understand and expanding philosophical discourse.

Take almost any book on the list of the OP, read it with a friend, and you will probably disagree completely on at least a couple of the points made, or how they should be interpreted.

Re:So You Want to Study Philosophy by twobuy on Thursday September 02, 2021 @09:35AM (#28391804)
> Plato is, by far, the best philosopher of all time. I don't say that lightly and am open to arguments.

This is a thoroughly modern perspective. Historically, Aristotle was considered "The Philosopher". Plato has staged a resurgence in the discourse (in fact I'm partial to Plato myself), but you're over-stating his historical impact. Which is sort of ironic, when you're discussing historical impact.

Re:So You Want to Study Philosophy by dr_dshiv on Monday September 06, 2021 @09:19PM (#28439822)
Source please. I think you are wrong. Admittedly, Aristotle was big in the 500AD-1500AD, which is when the books of Plato were lost to the West. But apart from this, Plato's always been bigger.
Re:So You Want to Study Philosophy by cutler on Thursday September 02, 2021 @08:42AM (#28391363)
Marx is as relevant today as ever. Dialectical materialism gets to the root of what is driving the world over a precipice.
Re:So You Want to Study Philosophy by hpoe on Thursday September 02, 2021 @01:13PM (#28394660)
Every empirical prediction Marx made, failed. The societies based on his teachings led to the greatest human tragedies in the history of mankind. Marx's only relevance is to show the dangers of those who preach the philosophy of the ends justifying the means.
Re:So You Want to Study Philosophy by cutler on Thursday September 02, 2021 @06:18PM (#28398071)
Marx predicted that capital could never be satisfied and was compelled to seek new sources of surplus value in the process of which labour itself would become surplus value and that wages would be consequently be driven down. What we are witnessing right now is the ever-increasing concentration of capital in technology designed to put human beings out of work. The capitalist's dream is a production line which doesn't require human beings at all. Once the stuff of fiction, we're now bearing witness to it in our lifetime. The gig economy is part of the same scenario Marx foresaw which the government euphemistically terms the flexible workforce.
Re:So You Want to Study Philosophy by hpoe on Friday September 03, 2021 @12:04PM (#28405977)
Except Marx was wrong for most of the time after he predicted this as there was a steady rise in wages during most of the 20th century.

Further Marx predicted that the first nations to fall to communism would be the most capitalist ones, but in fact the opposite occurred and the least capitalist countries fell to communism, meanwhile the capitalist countries have not.

That's just one example there are plenty of other others that can be provided, from how is theory of dialectical materialism was wrong on all counts when it came to any scientific power, to history.

In fact the most impressive part of Marx is how truly wrong he managed to be without actually being original as the majority of his work is derivative from Hiegel.

Re:So You Want to Study Philosophy by Koshkin on Thursday September 02, 2021 @11:54AM (#28393637)
Somehow marxism has always seemed to me a shallow mix of Hegelian dialectic, Feuerbach's materialism, and Aristotelian categories.
Re:So You Want to Study Philosophy by cutler on Thursday September 02, 2021 @05:39PM (#28397701)
Well, he was a student of Hegel's and described his work own work as "turning Hegel on his head". As for the other two it's conceivable these influences may have been formative during his student years.
Re:So You Want to Study Philosophy by dr_dshiv on Friday September 03, 2021 @04:43AM (#28401811)
I love Hegel. Get his complete works and keyword search!

I wish I could better understand dialectic materialism in order to critique it. I can't get around not having a noetic reality that serves like chaotic attractors to materials. Spheres and triangles are just more real than material manifestations. Penrose and Popper proposed similar tripartite realities of, roughly, the material, the conscious and the mathematical.

Re:So You Want to Study Philosophy by Koshkin on Friday September 03, 2021 @09:14AM (#28403735)
Indeed, Platonism seems to be a useful mental framework, and separating the three realities from each other helps to keep some degree of sanity when thinking about all these things.