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Quote: from Blackadder at 9:37 am on Oct. 30, 2007

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the foundations of Philosophy are way before Plato's  time -- they probably sprout from the moment humans gained a consciousness -- the ability to think is philosophy's only pre-requisite.

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And yet, if you do not study Plato, you don't really have a base to look at where much of modern philosophy stems from, nor do you really have a base to argue philosophy, particularly Platonic philosophy. It leads to a stunting of sorts.

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I contend that children need not to read shakespeare to understand and appreciate the english language.  

there are blenty of tales by modern writers that are both more relevant, and more accessible (fuck "old english") to modern students.

'Of mice and men' is a nice example, about racism and the 1930's deppression, I  remember it being the only book I was forced to read for my lit class and actually enjoying.   --

Philosophy is much the same, Modern texts are (generally) more relevant and more accessible, If plato ever wrote something of value, then chances are some modern author has written of it nicely.

so in short, I completly disagree, idea's are completly independant of books, or thier authors.

when studying philosophy, the basic foundation should not be any words of philosophers, but your own ideas.

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The truth is what money can be made from a lie.

You don't need to read Plato or Aristotle, but you're doing yourself a great disservice by refusing to read them simply for the purpose of being contrary and controversial.

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Let yourself be enchanted,
You just might break through
To ever ever after

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My main problem with your viewpoint isn't so much that I don't think you'll have a real basis for philosophy, but more that you're really limiting yourself by refusing to look at something and just arbitrarily dismissing it as unimportant and irrelevent. You'd be all up in arms if this was a topic about evolution and someone said, essentially, "fuck evolution and fuck Darwin, I don't need to learn either of them."  

You don't need to read Plato or Aristotle, but you're doing yourself a great disservice by refusing to read them simply for the purpose of being contrary and controversial.

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1) As I said, Ideas Are independant from authorship.

2) Your example is also a bad one, who the hell quotes ancient sources when dealing with science?  --- needless to say modern works on evolution should be read over darwins account.

3) we all lack the time to do and be everything in our lives, I won't read plato not simply to be controversial, but rather because there are better things I can do with the limited time i have availible.


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The truth is what money can be made from a lie.

socrates and all that he wrote...

aristotle fucked up science for god knows how long making him the bigest fuck up of the bunch.

even still they do provide a decent starting point and a useful reference in thinking about philosophy

Furthermore, The Symposium (Plato) and The Poetics (Aristotle) are both less than 100 pages, so unless you are an excruciatingly slow reader, the "I have no time" excuse doesn't really fly. Magazines nowadays are longer than that.

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Let yourself be enchanted,
You just might break through
To ever ever after

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I'm not even talking about the ideas presented, but rather how much you're limiting yourself by outright refusing to have anything to do with them in favor of more "modern" sources.  

Furthermore, The Symposium (Plato) and The Poetics (Aristotle) are both less than 100 pages, so unless you are an excruciatingly slow reader, the "I have no time" excuse doesn't really fly. Magazines nowadays are longer than that.

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it took me 6 hrs to get through brave new world.

anyhow, this is all getting old hat

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The truth is what money can be made from a lie.

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it took me 6 hrs to get through brave new world.

 

anyhow, this is all getting old hat

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And I'm pretty sure both of those works are shorter than Brave New World, and are written in dialogue form, so they're easier to read.

But you're right. Whatev.

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Let yourself be enchanted,
You just might break through
To ever ever after

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The written discussions of Socrates are probably not completely representative of Socrates.

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Actually not true. Plato studied under Socrates. Hence his theories, if vaguely different, were still of the same nature.

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"you have to remember that some days you're the pigeon,
and some days you're the statue"- DefaultTo0

Is there any particular reason you are asking or just an interest in who's read them?

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"We're like two children on the playground of the unconfessed souls
abandoned by our mothers and our lovers and our foes..."