I first started reading The Classics for Pseud Cred. However, i realized that by following 4chin reading lists, and "reading" Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Aquinas etc, in a mechanical way, without doing extensive research and rereadings, is a disservice to yourself and to other anons. For example, if you start reading The Greeks by Plato, following the reading lists, by the time you get to the Republic, you'll forget The Meno, The Symposium, Phaedo, Theaetetus; all important dialogues that one should know by heart, simply for the fact that human memory can't sustain such cramming of content. At best, you'll remember vague things like "uhh Crito is bout the social contract or something" without properly engaging with the twists and turns of Socrates arguments.
How do you counter act this? Do you use any learning techniques like spaced repetition? How do you apply it to philsophy and literature?
If you read them in English, then you didn't read them.
Ryder Cruz
having an autistic knowledge of the greeks really doesn't matter unless you're only interested in reading things from antiquity/medieval/renaissance era reading the greeks is important to shake you out of the pleb mindset. If you can't even read them, then you won't appreciate anything else worth reading
Gabriel Jones
why not?
Jack Reed
>thinks reading is about retaining information Let the readings influence your thinking and literary style. There is little value to memorisation in the Internet age
Sebastian Harris
I reexplain my insights from it to a fictional audience like a person practiced speeches in the mirror
Parker Foster
I've read them in Portuguese, so yes, i've read them. I didn't mean the Greeks, i mean reading in general. I see this with a lot of people who are interested in literature. You recommend a book to them and a week later when you two start discussing it, they can only pull out vague, abstract things about the work, because they haven't properly read it. They just scanned the pages left to right with their eyes. I see the same here on Yea Forums. Most people can only discuss on a very shallow level about literature and philosophy. I don't think anons are dumb, i just think they don't read things properly (i myself don't read things properly).
Evan Perry
You should not just be reading them. You should be breaking down the arguments made in the dialogues in your own words. You should be engaging with the questions and trying to come up with answers to them yourself. Doing this requires rereading, reading/watching secondary sources if you must, and finally, ideally, discussing those ideas with other people.
The dialogues are invitations to think, not just books to read because they sequentially predate other books as though you are speed reading a 10 part fantasy series or something because you heard that book 6 is really good.
Dominic Barnes
I used to do the same, i even gestured as if i was a professor giving a lecture, pointing to a non existing blackboard. I don't do this anymore because i now read with my mon. I got her into reading (she has actually a literature degree, but doesn't read much because she spends much of her time going to church), and we are now reading the Socratic dialogues. It was actually really fun discussing Crito with mommy.
Christian Butler
Your mum spent so much time at church she had no time to read? How often was she going?
Lucas Ross
Personally, I pretend I'm having a conversation with a good friend. I always learn the best this way. It really helps me unpack and discover more about the material.
This Discuss it w ur mom, take notes of what is interesting and read a spark notes on it after
Asher Bennett
>you'll forget The Meno, The Symposium, Phaedo Why? >all important dialogues that one should know by heart Why? So you can pretend to be intelligent?
Brody Morgan
She goes to it everyday. She teaches theology there and some other stuff i don't know (it's a protestant church, i'm not sure how catholic churches work, but there's a lot to do there beyond just going to mass or whatever).
I don't have a problem with getting things out of the text. I read on PC and i annotate things on a lot (normally on a notepad). My problem is with remembering this stuff. For example, i remember when reading Aeschylus i was comparing him a lot to Sophocles to understand why exactly i had this feeling that Aeschylus wasn't proper tragedy, more of "proto-tragedy", because his stuff read as really primitive and at times, childish. I ended up writing a lot of things on a notepad, only to forget the basis of my arguments a week later.
Kevin Gomez
You might've got really hyped about the process of being enthralled (or were enthralled by something else) and built neuron paths somewhere else. I recommend meditation for concentration
Benjamin Bennett
I have a group of friends that think I'm stupidly smart because I read and like to tell them about what I read. It helps me formulate ideas and test myself in terms of how much I actually retain and can bring out in a conversational and insightful manner.
Basically just talk to people.
Thomas Howard
You need to be unironically memorizing the points and should not be moving on until you can recite it right upon waking up in the morning and then repeating intermittingly
Daniel Taylor
Plato didn't write in English. Sorry but you didn't read a single thing that Plato wrote down.
Charles James
lol you should shout them when you cum or youre just wasting your time
Brayden Rodriguez
excellent post
Joseph Diaz
Did you read them in the original greek, user? How long did it take you to get to this level?
Owen Rivera
>he thinks he has 'read' plato because he knows ancient greek >he's a native english speaker >he had to translate greek concepts into english for him to understand the language in his brain >he hasn't read plato at all
Lincoln Morales
FUCKING BASED
English is a savage language
Noah Rivera
If you study intensely (2 hours daily) you can master Ancient Greek in 3-5 years. At that point, you should be able to read any text without much aid. It's highly worth it. In my opinion, one can never get a taste for certain writers without knowing Ancient Greek (Homer, for example, resists translation, especially into a language like English).
I agree! I was lucky to be born bilingual and after learning several languages, I can say with certainty that English is one of the most barbaric modern languages, if not the most. It's only barely better than a pidgin or creole. Compared to more sophisticated modern languages such as German, French, Italian, etc. it's basically baby-speak, not to mention any ancient languages or more distant languages in the Indo-European family such as Farsi or Modern Greek.
Jace Murphy
Sorry, but if you're reading a translation, then you're not reading a single word that Plato himself wrote and that's an empirical fact!
Adrian Lewis
Is this what monolinguals actually believe? Jesus christ lol
Thomas Jones
If you're not a native speaker you're not reading a single word that Plato himself wrote, especially if you weren't born in the exact cultural context that he lived in. You haven't read Plato at all.
Josiah Stewart
What is your native tongue?
Hunter Rodriguez
>If you study intensely (2 hours daily) you can master Ancient Greek in 3-5 years. Have sex.
But no, really, OP, you raise a good point. I'm guilty of what you describe. I really regret not having people to discuss with. At least I annotate.
English and German natively. Two hours of daily study is obtainable and also, if you love language, it'll fly by, especially with a language as rich and pure as Ancient Greek.
John Thomas
I read them so I can tell you trannies about it and my coworkers. Psergent psued reporting for duty.
Jeremiah Jones
Check first two books from picture. Personal advice is to write down what you want to remember. One way to take notes, the way I do it, is writing the page number and describing the page in your own words. A summery of each page, if you will. Most books aren't worth noting stuff though, but historical and textbook works it's good. Basically, the two books give the following advice with more words; >Recall main ideas from text by closing book and looking away after a page. Try to remember main ideas from memory. Try again to remember most important ideas while away from usual place of study. Space recalling out over longer and longer times. >Preform tests about subject frequently. Self made if needed, but with stuff like math books you can use online tests EZPZ.. >DON'T use repetition to memorize too often, space it out. > Use roughly 25 min intense sessions of study on a single subject, then change the subject. Might seem counter intuitive to change so often, but the point is to gradually extend the times of focus. The reason for changing often is to keep the mind adaptable. > Explain and reteach the information to imaginary people. Create analogies and metaphors. Create songs, stories or drawings to represent info. >Study right before sleep and right after waking up. This kinda helps with getting into a hypnotic state where information is harder to take in but easier to remember if done enough. That's the advice from A Mind For Numbers Here's the advice from How To Read A Book. Note that all steps are optional, and the order is interchangeable >Write list of books relevant to subject of study. >Read all material outside of main text. Preface, forward, index, table of contents, appendix, dustjactet, ect. >Skim the books. Check random paragraphs and sentences. Check underlinings, highlights, italics, bold text, ect >Speed read the book, don't try to comprehend, just go as fast as possible >Read normally what chapters seem most important to the book and most important to subject of study first >Research any words or terms that are unfamiliar. >Begin reading books analytically, if they're still believed to be relevant to subject. >Write your interpretation of the following ; What's it about as a whole. What are the major parts in what and relation. What questions does the author ask and what answers are given (In a math book, the questions might be "How do we calculate addition problems?"In a history book, it's "What happened here at this time?". >Finish reading the book at this point, summering each page in notes as you go >Write following; Key terms and words. The meaning of important sentences, Arguments from most relevant paragraphs. Determine what has been asked and answered or unanswered. >Rewrite most important and relevant text in own words. Establish list of questions asked and find answers from all authors. Examine disagreements between authors. >Review material created in process.
