/lit/ is for the discussion of literature, specifically books (fiction & non-fiction), short stories, poetry, creative writing, etc. If you want to discuss history, religion, or the humanities, go to /his/. If you want to discuss politics, go to /pol/. Philosophical discussion can go on either /lit/ or /his/, but those discussions of philosophy that take place on /lit/ should be based around specific philosophical works to which posters can refer.Check the wiki, the catalog, and the archive before asking for advice or recommendations, and please refrain from starting new threads for questions that can be answered by a search engine./lit/ is a slow board! Please take the time to read what others have written, and try to make thoughtful, well-written posts of your own. Bump replies are not necessary.Looking for books online? Check here:Guide to #bookzhttps://www.geocities.ws/prissy_90/Media/Texts/BookzHelp19kb.htmBookzzhttp://b-ok.cc/http://libgen.rs/Recommended Literaturehttp://4chanlit.wikia.com/wiki/Recommended_Reading
Are you incapable of making decisions without the guidance of anonymous internet strangers? Open this thread for some recommendations.
Hegel? Heidegger? Plato? Aristotle? Who?
>>23330615You can be a person. The point of nirvana is to stop expecting things, because that's unreasonable, to stop retreating back into the past in your mind, because you cannot change it, to stop desiring things, because you probably won't get them, to stop projecting your madness on to others, because others aren't you. Basically, the point is to see reality for the first time, and to lose attachment. It doesn't mean you stop acting in the world or being yourself. It means being able to do this without shooting yourself in the foot and constantly spewing venom and insanity at others. Its a tool for being more effective as a person, not less.
>>23324837This is a retarded question and you should stick to harry potter
>>23330615Again 'annihilation' isn't the correct word as that means to completely destroy your ego, what advaita vedanta teaches is that your persona, I.e the psychophysical is an illusion, a perturbation and the goal of wisdom is the subjugation of being in order to realize that which you truly are. Thus doesn't mean you will melt with the universe in some bizarre dmt trip 24/7, we still need a 'persona' to navigate this world. As someone with a Christian perspective 'Be in the world, not of it'
>>23324837>>23324844>AquinasQuite right.Read Chesterton's The Dumb Ox.** The starting point of Thomas's philosophy is that we can trust the senses. The starting point of Kant's theory is that we *can't* trust the senses. Kant reasons from this assumption to his idea of the noumena, or the "noumenal realm." But it is a dubious inference that can never be proven, certainly not empirically.Chesterton talks about all modern philosophies needing to start with a "queer twist" -- an idea that does not correspond to a common-sense view of reality, such as that of St. Thomas wrt trusting the evidence of the senses.In turn, an elaborate overarching philosophical superstructure is then built upon the initial "queer twist." Kant's system of philosophy is an archetypal example of this process.>Since the modern world began in the sixteenth century, nobody's system of philosophy has really corresponded to everybody's sense of reality: to what, if left to themselves, common men would call common sense. Each started with a paradox: a peculiar point of view demanding the sacrifice of what they would call a sane point of view. That is the one thing common to Hobbes and Hegel, to Kant and Bergson, to Berkeley and William James. A man had to believe something that no normal man would believe, if it were suddenly propounded to his simplicity; as that law is above right, or right is outside reason, or things are only as we think them, or everything is relative to a reality that is not there. The modern philosopher claims, like a sort of confidence man, that if once we will grant him this, the rest will be easy; he will straighten out the world, if once he is allowed to give this one twist to the mind.Thomas stands in opposition to these modern philosophies because, as an initial matter, he trusts in the evidence of the human senses, because the senses were created by God. (Of course, if the senses are merely a product of mindless evolution, all bets are off; you would have no particular reason to trust them; why not be a Kantian?)Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>23324943which is why youre terribly wrong
Has anyone read this book? Thoughts on it?
>>23312592This cover is so ugly the designer deserves a punch in the face
What is a good representation of a smart person from a smart perspective + adaptive and optimistic not some primitive slop like Flowers for Algernon? A romance at international Maths Olympiad sort of book or media. My adhd makes my communication style less suited and fulfilling for interacting with NT people. I come across as quite smart even in academic circles, but I think it is mostly from niche and in-depth interests and over-investing time into them not raw IQ. I am nowhere near writing formulas on napkins for fun or solving everything in an instant, however, having smaller chances to truly connect with people is something I am interested in exploring and contemplating. >>23330410>Who cares if nobody understands you? Get over yourself. Higher speed to process and solve doesn't typically free a smart person from normie brain circuitry, so you still want to socialise, fuck someone who understands you, see levels of beauty and complexity you enjoy being well-received and acknowledged in the mainstream and easily accessible. I feel smart people should have fewer excuses to be miserable and not some Hannibal Lector style bon vivants savouring what they like while verging Nirvana.
>>23312592Any other books or dissertations that *aren't* written by midwits discussing intelligence and how it pertains to the future?
>>23312592Aaron Clarey is great, I highly recommend World Without Men which shows by data how useless and entitled women are and men do all the workAnd Book of numbers which shows how unlikely it is to find a partner today
>>23331326Just read this thread and you can make a good prediction of humanity and our intelligence. Spoiler: it ain't prettyt. 200IQ with crippling social anxiety, thus a pseud
This book is irrefutable, I'd like to see arguments against its main thesis
>>23331266spbp
I read this book and enjoyed it, what would you say the main thesis is?
>>23331263>death isn't real broThat's it, that's the book.
>>23331255The book is self refuting by looking at the authors early life.
>>23331255>irrefutableThe book's supporting points are literal nonsense. It refutes itself by attacking the author's capacity for reasoning directly.It's too bad because the thesis is compelling, but the book itself is worthless.
>Plato, and all other ancient authors, supposedly had opinions not in line with liberal democracy.>BUT this is only because they would've been persecuted if they stated their true opinions, and we can tell what their true opinions were by esoteric reading.>Now how do we do this? I'll just invent whatever I want them to be saying and you'll listen to me. So yes, Plato was a liberal democrat.lmfao how did this dude convince anyone
>>23331194You keep insisting this but refuse to show it. Where, where does Strauss do this? Or did you just imagine it while reading Gottfried?
>>23331162>the 'deep' understanding is actually... it's uh... it's... hmm.. uhhhhh
>>23328880Welcome to /lit/
>>23330272Plato argued that liberal democracy was the direct cause of tyrants. Did you read the book?
>>23331350BAPoid probably, reading carefully is kinda not their thing
Temple by the Sea edition>Recommended reading charts (Look here before asking for vague recs)https://mega.nz/folder/kj5hWI6J#0cyw0-ZdvZKOJW3fPI6RfQ/folder/guIyhAzS>Archivehttps://warosu.org/lit/?task=search2&search_subject=sffg>Goodreadshttps://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1029811-sffgPrevious: >>23314259
>>23331275Your mom's diary should cut it
>>23331275Literotica.
The ending was shit
>>23331284Literotica?
>>23331288He shouldn't have locked himself into writing prequels.
Wait, marxists expect the working class to read this boring snorefest of a pretentious ass book meditating on abstract shit in dry prose spamming 1000+ pages? The book just contains pages and pages of very obscure and rarefied descriptions of capitalism. It's not even a scathing critique of capitalism that it's touted to be, and It has nothing to do with political organizing or any call to action
>>23328972I assume that’s what the Communist Manifesto is for>>23329356And there it is. Having discussion of Marx on /lit/ is impossible because it will always get derailed by lolberts who think you can cleanly separate market forces from the influence of the state. The “libertarian to fascist pipeline” needs to make a comeback.
>>23329805Their brains have been mutilated by capitalism, it’s hard to blame them
>>23329218He wasn't. It's far beyond capitalism.
>>23329062>Leftypol, xitter and reddit these daysThe irony is that none of these people read it either. I know enough twitter leftists IRL to know most of them get their ideas from Youtubers and Twitch streamers, not from reading literature.
Marx was an excellent social critic but a flawed economic theorist. I'm more partial to the Tory and Fabian Socialists of Marx's time than Marxism itself. Working Class people should probably stick to Tressell but anyone who genuinely wants to engage with Marx's ideology in good faith should read Das Kapital.
Shorter please, I don't have much timeAnd make sure to explain why
Major Major is literally me
what is it about?
>>23331209you're secretly henry fonda?
Fuck you
>>23330560He said English girl, 98% she was asleep face down in a gutter with her skirt hiked up above her ass. At least, if it was a weeknight or Saturday. On Sunday they watch "footy."
Mods stickied this???
>>23329636you wamt a medal and a complimentary blowjob along with that?
>>23330515You truly are the ESL aren't you.
>>23331328Yes
What do I read first? The Rig Veda? The Bhagavad-gītā? Upanishads? Sankara?
>>23328651 First you need to understand that the word 'Hinduism' was invented by the colonizers.You'll not be able to understand the Vedas without a proper preparation, but you can read the Gita and the Upanishads.
It depends what you are interested in. If you are interested in very basic "Hindu mysticism" then some small primer on Hindu metaphysical concepts would probably be sufficient, you could even just dive into studying Yoga-Samkhya with a beginner-friendly approach and some standard translation of the Yoga. If you are interested in Hindu metaphysics more rigorously I recommend starting with the first volume of Dasgupta's multi-volume History of Philosophy, or his one-volume abridgment if you can find it but it's out of print. The first volume of the multi-volume series is thick but introduces you to most major currents of thought, including Buddhism, and ends with Advaita if I recall.You could also just dive right into the Bhagavad Gita, then the Upanishads. If you do this I recommend reading the Brhadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads, the first and most difficult two, in chunks, while also reading shorter subsequent Upanishads from the start. This will ensure that you don't get utterly buried in the difficulties of the first two Upanishads and become discouraged or misled about the relative easiness of the others. You could then read commentaries like Shankara's, or read the Brahma Sutras with Shankara's commentaries, etc.Or some combination of all of the above. There are also shorter helpful summaries of Indian philosophical concepts but these can be quite dense and leave you feeling "why is this important?," as they assume that the entire medievally formalized "scholastic" framework of Indian metaphysics is of equal interest to you, which it may not be. You could also read Guenon's introductory works on Hindu metaphysics, while taking them somewhat with a grain of salt however. In general, you should do some combination of the above so that you can familiarize yourself with the basic structure and major reference points of Hindu thought, and then from there you will be able to chart your own path based on what interests you.
>>23328824I agree with skipping most of the pre-Upanishadic Vedas, however OP could read selections/anthologies like Radhakrishnan's and Doniger's since these do a decent job of collecting proto-philosophical and proto-mystical stuff from the otherwise unreadable Rgveda and such.
>>23328824>>23331026>>23331026>>I don't really think you need to read the Vedas as the philosophical section of them is the Upanishads. The rest consists of instructions for ritual, hymn, music, etc.the pre-Upanishadic texts are the true part of Hinduism
>>23331091> the pre-Upanishadic texts are the true part of Hinduismt. larper
>favorite poet>what you're listening to right now
>>23329688>Crazy Janey>The Mission Man>Jimmy the Saint>...Though I never had the opportunity to experience any of this (obviously) I nonetheless feel nostalgic for a time when all the kids had nicknames. Website handles are a poor substitute!OTOH I guess 'Fat Suzy' and 'Fat Frank' just wouldn't fly on modern playgrounds..
>>23322549Approximately:Poet: I'm not sure I have one. My favorites keep eliminating themselves by revealing blasphemous allegiances. Yeah. Open slot, for now. Music: Naragonia (especially Naragonia Quartet) and Talisk
>>23323854Listen to Come to Life and then come back to me.
>>23329743Yeah I feel you, it's all part of living in our current fake colorless nothing-world. The bandmembers had great nicknames too though, "The Boss" and "The Big Man"! Which could be a bit much I suppose, but the charisma they had in performance was just something else, so you can't really argue against it. Also listening to some early Peter Gabriel just now, speaking of that era. Weird and sort of reticent but vibrant stuff. Featuring, fun fact, Roy "The Professor" Bittan of the E Street Band on keyboards!
>poeti guess spenser. i don't usually read poems unless they are very long.>musicjust started listening to beabadobee. it's a mixed bag. a lot of the songs are absolute jams but there isn't an album i can listen to all the way through without skipping four or so songs.
The average person is unironically too low IQ to read the Bible. All the amount of parables, allegories, metaphors, and allusions are literally too high-brow for most Christians to comprehend the actual meanings within the scripture.
>>23327626I'd wager I'm quite a bit smarter than a stereotypical retard but I can not make any sense of at least half of Jesus' parables. That's why I'm not a Christian.
>>23331150Even if they are difficult to understand, they should eventually be intuitive. Purposefully speaking in riddles does not come across as speaking in good faith.
>>23331150Can you speak of any that don't make sense to you?Some people have ideas as ro what they mean, so if you post the parables you struggle with, someone can help you>That's why I'm not a ChristianDoubt
>>23331188Sure, here are a few for example that just "do not compute" for me:Mark 218 John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and they came and said to Him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?" 19 And Jesus said to them, "While the bridegroom is with them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast, can they? So long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 "But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. 21 "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear results. 22 "No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins." Mark 322 The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, "He is possessed by Beelzebul," and "He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons." 23 And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan? Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>23327724>he doesn't know
>when we compare the thoughts that an author expresses about a subject, in ordinary speech as well as in writing, it is not at all unusual to find that we understand him even better than he understood himself, since he may not have determined his concept sufficiently and hence sometimes spoke, or even thought, contrary to his own intention” -KrV A 314/B 370, tr. 396
What's the best English translation of Dickens novels? I already chose my Dumas and Dosto translations but what about Dickens?
>>23328594>he doesn't knowand neither do I
>>23330302>Shakespeare isn't fiction
>>23330302>English is specialNo, it's not.
>>23328602Reading Victorian prose is a fucking nightmare. It's better in foreign languages.
>>23327817Kek
