/lit/ - Literature

>>15496172

>>15496626
>The basic idea is that if a slave, who is inferior in every way to a citizen
That's the first thing Plato emphasises heavily. It's not only a slave, it's also a child: he is a παις in two ways. A παις (you most probably know the genitive παιδος/paidos - better) is a child but also a slave, someone who isn't able to fend for himself. Therefore, he needs others who reign over him instead of himself. And he can't reign over himself, because he lacks the proper reasonabilty to do so.

>Adding four and four would be common sense that even a slave could do.
They're not discussing a problem as easy as that. Instead they're discussing a problem which isn't solvable arithmetically at the time, it's only solvable geometrically. Plato even hints that jokingly since he tells the slave: if you can't tell me the very number, just point on the length.
This problem is: There's a square with the side length of 2. We want to construct another square double the size of this square. What's the side length of the second square?
The answer to this is: the square root of 2.
But noone could give that answer at the time. Sqrt(2) is an irrational number - that means, it can't be represented as a fraction of two integers. The concept of irrational numbers was unknown, then. Nevertheless, the slave could point at that length since the diagonal of the square with a side length of 2 is sqrt(2) long.

What's interesting about this are two things which kind of contradict each other. On the one hand, Plato seems to prove the immortality of the soul which is a Pythagorean concept. On the other hand, he attacks the very Pythagorean concept said immortality is based on, namely the concept "everything is number" which includes the indivisiblity (and therefore indistructibility) of certain basic things.
Although the concept of irrational numbers wasn't known at that time, you could prove there were numbers which couldn't be represented as a fraction of two integers. For example, the very symbol of the Pythagoreans (a Pentagram) included a certain proportion which was one of them.

>>14916462
Promising post. You're on a good way. Unfortunately, you didn't walk it long enough, yet.

>Everyone knows not to kill because this leads to bad consequences for yourself.
So I shall not kill animals to feed off them? I shall not kill bacteria with antibiotics when I'm ill? I shall not kill someone who attacks me and threatens my life and I don't have any other choice?
And if you say I'm allowed to do these things, because it doesn't lead to bad consequences for me, why shall I not kill a rich person to get his money, if I'm sure I won't expect any bad consequences? Or why shouldn't I hold a girl as my sex slave if I'm on an empty island with her and she's unable to defend herself? And is it bad to torture, murder, rape masses of other people at all as long as it's fun for you and you can get away with it?

>You shouldn’t even risk harming others, because the fear of punishment itself will be enough to worsen your experience of life.
You punish bad behaviour. That means, you first have to define what bad behaviour is, then you can punish it. You do it exactly the other way round: bad behaviour is bad because it can get punished. This concept of "bad" is totally empty. Everything which gets punished is bad. Thus, what's bad becomes totally arbitrary since everything a certain society punishes is bad and everything it doesn't punish is good. That's exactly what constitutes an authoritarian personality - and that's pretty much the opposite of a real ethician.

>His moral principles are empty because we have no real reason to do them.
That's one of the main problems here: you didn't understand Kant properly. I give you a hint: the moral principle isn't empty, it's formal. In other words: it's not a specific moral judgement, it's more a kind of the correct "syntax" of moral judgements. The moral principle is the condition of possibility to make moral judgements at all.

I won't tell you more, because the moment you understand why that's the case is actually a great experience since it's so beautifully simple and I won't spoil that experience for you.

Good luck. (I know, this sounds quite arrogant, but I'm actually honest.)

>>13488009
...daily thread about the free will. Someone should finally prepare a standard response we can pasta.

There are two sides to the problem:

1, The misunderstanding of "free will" as "indetermined will".
Will can't be indetermined, otherwise it wouldn't be will: if you want something, it's a conscious decision in contrast to desires, instincts and impulses; it's not a chaotic decision to want something, at best it's a pretty well-considered one. This, on the other hand, includes an influence of all those elements considered on the will: they determine it in a certain way. That means an undetermined will is a contradictio in adiecto.
Swiss philosopher Peter Bieri wrote some interesting stuff about that - unfortunately, it was never translated into English (afaik).

2, The misunderstanding of "determinism" as a scientific insight (although it's a metaphysical concept).
Determinism cannot be proven or somehow be detected, otherwise, we'd be able to look into the future without any problems. It's a concept we presuppose due to a certain scientific claim, we once formulated; nothing more, nothing less.
Actually, there are basic mathematical and physical limits which hinder us to really discover the "truth of determinism".
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_demon#Arguments_against_Laplace's_demon
(And there are some more arguments btw.)

The classical "problem of free will" (which is posted here over and over again) is actually pretty simple.
>I postulate: will is indetermined
>I postulate: everything in this world is determined
>oh fuck, we need some magical mumbo jumbo so that both can be true...
After all, it's quite a naive presentation of a problem which might simply vanish if the ideas of "free will" and "determinism" are clarified properly.

>>13332206
>I would recommend starting with Leibniz
Do you really think anyone without a serious background in the history of philosophy (especially Descartes) and an habitual understanding of philosophical vocabulary would have the slightest chance to understand the Monadology?

>>13333397
>starting with the greeks
Sooner or later you will end up with the Greeks anyway.

>>13332176
1, Ask yourself what you're really interested in. Philosophy has a lot of fields of work. Are you interested in ethics, philosophy of mind, logic, metaphysics/ontology, esthetics, philosophy of science, philosophy of language?
2, After you decided which field(s) you're interested in, help yourself to a good introduction to that field. Use a thematical one, not a historical one: that means, use one which sums up and describes the base problems and approaches of that field.
3, You will find a lot of strange approaches but also a lot of interesting ones. If you find something you're really interested in, check for the books and papers on that approach the introduction lists.
4, Read those texts.
5, Go to 3; rinse and repeat.

Why do I feel like philosophy peaked around a thousand years ago and everything since as just been an over examination that has resulted in this pervading sense of nihilism throughout modern civilisation?
Is there a name for this?

>>13044986
>You can literally get 2000 years of philosophy in 1 minute of internet search.
And how long does it take to find out, how the word "literally" is used adequately?