/lit/ - Literature

>>3830595
>>whatever there is

Watts is so pleb.

I'm reading Cicero right now. The Nature of the Gods. Nothing special.

Nichomachaen Ethis, Epicurus, and Democritus changed my life.

>>3830596
That's why I love him, he doesn't surround the meaning in what he says with a bunch of fancy words that just confuse the whole matter for the beginner and even for the more experienced person.

I'm about to begin the 3rd vol of Marx's Capital. It took me a year to get through vols 1 & 2.

I'm a grubby materialist now, comrades. Stuff your spiritual etherealisms up your dungholes!

>>3830595
Can you believe Im in a "humanities" degree and I can't even read? I have an antique and medieval philosophy subject but I dont have the time to actually read antique and medieval philosphy. No, we must be busy with practices and such. I proclaim it today, right now. In the european university, literature has officialy died.

>>3830618
Well his ideas are pretty shitty though. That image is cringe-worthy.

>>3830641
All of those statements are perfectly valid.

>>3830641
Well that image hardly summarises his meta-physics. He has well over 120+ lecture recordings that are all about 5-10mins or more, this is just a wallpaper compiled by a person who is interested in him, it's not the be all and end all of his ideologies.

>>3830630
I've heard this an awful lot in degrees like this, can you clarify on what you mean by "practices and such" ?

>>3830606
What did you read by them, I'm relatively knew to this whole endeavor but I've heard good things about Epicurus in particular.

>>3830595
Reading as many longitudinal history of philosophy books as I can. First Will Durant's 'The Story of Philosophy', which was quite light, and now Anthony Kenny's 'A New History of Western Philosophy'.

I plan to read the 'canonical' works chronologically. I feel as if no (traditional) philosopher is really intelligible if one does not properly understand the philosophers they address, respond to and criticise, and naturally this takes us all the way to the beginning, the Greeks...

>>3830683
Good way to look at it, I'll have to take a look into The Story of Philosophy since it's not to heavy, thanks for the recommendation!

>>3830646
They're all invalid on a sentence-by-sentence level. I can't read it without sighing intensely. You can't imagine the rinsing he'd get if he were taken seriously. Everything is wrong. I don't even know where to begin. The idea of an ego? A self? - of which he makes little interesting or original remarks. The ego or the self is a cartesian fiction.

>>3830819
From listening to his lectures I can tell you that what is typed up on this wallpaper is an injust replication of what he actually said, whomever made this tried to put their own slant on his meanings and summarised it - I admit this is not a good wallpaper, but I assure you, these are not his words, and on any point, this was not the matter of the thread, you've brought nothing of positive value to this thread thus far.

>>3830595

Aristotle. Greatest philosopher in history, bar none.

got some Althusser and some Kuhn at the top of my to-read pile. that's for fun shit. right now I'm trying to slog through Glock's Wittgenstein Reader for a research project and it's p. boring (not LW, but the encyclopedic character of most of the articles).

I'm now into the philosophy of math, Russell, Gödel, Turing, etc.

>>3830843
i'm just jumping into this conversation, but i have to agree the OP image is cringeworthy. you know how much fun we poke at shit like "babby's first existential crisis" or "babby's first nihilism"?

well, the OP is like hearing the disorganized unspooling thoughts of someone going through babby's first manic, life-affirming episode.

>mystical love
>fluidity
>unique
>individual

you could peddle this guy at a shop that sells crystals, incense and has up-to-date contact information for local acupuncturists. he's gushing the unrefined, rainbow colored sludge of someone's mind the day after they took lsd/dmt

>>3831157
He was peddling to the hippies of course, you need to adjust your tone to those you try to reach. Then again, the actual things he says aren't all that new agey when you're familiar with nondualist thought.

>>3831068
Tell me, dear, how illuminating is the after-feel of reading Marx's Capital, and Marx's works in general, for an individual that possess no grasp of economics and politics whatsoever?

>>3831212
how illuminating is the smug after-feel of projecting on the internet?

>>3831309
or maybe you're not being a dick. I suppose I can't entirely tell. or I'm tired.

>>3831309
What? How did you misunderstand that one?
I was genuinely asking for your advice/opinion on the subject matter, as I am planning on reading him soon

>>3830595
I find his best work to be 'Joyous Cosmology'. He actually gives you a nice entry-level case on Eastern spirituality. Like all Eastern philos they have to appease the 'entry-level' faculties, so laymen can get into the deeper insights.

>>3831320
sorry. "after-feel" and "dear" made it sound like you were being condescending. my apologies.

I had some general knowledge of economics and contemporary political theory when I first read Capital, so our bases might not match up. It will definitely help to have a guide to go along with (yes, Harvey's lectures are recommended), but on the whole if you're perceptive and willing to give the book the attention and close-reading it deserves it does not demand all that much familiarity with economic terms (since, in fact, Marx is in many cases eschewing or reconfiguring the terminology of his day). If you can get an unabridged version of the book with all the footnotes it might become clearer to which economists he's reacting.

best of luck. Capital is a beast but incredibly eye-opening if you approach it critically and scientifically.

>>3831341
that said, it might be helpful to read a short introduction to early political economy, Adam Smith and Ricardo in particular

>>3831341
>>3831348
Cool. Thanks.

>>3831363
no problem. I'll leave you with the lovely quote from Marx's preface to the French edition of Capital:

"There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits."

>>3831363
Did you really need a someone on /lit/ to tell you to read Adam Smith and David Ricardo to learn about political economy?

I know people on 4chan often can't help themselves, but goddamn.

>>3831367
Funny pic; in return, here's a similar satire of Marx

But I'm having mixed feelings about his quote/aphorism. It's as if it is poetically well-written and _almost_ suitable with my own opinion/judgement [of reaching a certain point of understanding in a particular discipline/subject], though, in the end, it comes out indifferent to me because it misses the philosophical underpinnings of science.

>>3831425
Except that I was asking him for an advice on Marx specifically, not Smith or/and Ricardo.

>>3831467
I'll grant (and herein lies some of my appreciation of Althusser) that Marx himself was not all that adept at giving voice to "the philosophical underpinnings of science." I take that quote to be more of an encouraging remark and reminder than any serious rumination, though.

>>3831478
>I take that quote to be more of an encouraging remark and reminder than any serious rumination, though
In that sense, I agree.

>a person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts

AHAAHAHAHAHHAHHWHHIHIAHWOOOOOOEEHHAHAHAHHELel love the gangrenous face added touch, really drives the hrhrhr home

>>3831512
>love the gangrenous face added touch

I think it's supposed to be buddhist symbolism but I'm not sure.

>>3831512
get with the times, stan, it's experience that's paramount nowadays. you couldn't even get a job as a janitor without 10 years of prior experience as CEO of a company.

>>3831514

yeah clearly; of all renditions of diluted mysticism for the suburban white male, his is the most cringeworthy,

>>3831514
>incoherent blend of melting rainbow facial features
>symbolism of buddhism

really now

>>3831526

yeah that's largely irrelevant to why that sentence is retarded but i agree with you

>>3831528
Watts actually has a good grasp of the subjects he treats. You probably hate him for the same reason you hate Camels: his fans.

>>3830595
>not capitalizing the "e" in "everyone" in the first paragraph
What an illiterate faggot.

I ain't readin' that damn picure, but what Watts meant by the self was the great self, Atman. It's not the cartesian ego perse.