I’ve never read a philosophical text in my life

What sort of things should you make notes about?

It's barely a dialogue. 90% of what others besides Socrates say is "why yes Socrates this is indeed right". I would imagine irl they would have tons of objections and corrections.

have sex

You know, people like you bring down the level of this board to a place that is even shittier than I would have comprehended as being possible a year or two ago. What a pity. You should really give some honest thought to killing yourself.

About the philosophy. Start with definitions of basic concepts. Then show how the philosopher develops their ideas.

A) Socrates wasnt a normal person or conversationalist. He would literally follow people spouting ideas. It's likely many of his conversations were pretty much just him 90% of the time
B) People occasionally do disagree, but are shut down pretty quick by Socrates. They probably just gave up.

first read books summarizing philosophy like

Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction
Nigel Warburtons Philosophy: The Basics
A Little History of Philosophy
Thomas Nagels What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy
History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell
B. Russell, The Problems of Philosophy
The Story of Philosophy - Will Durant
New History of Western Philosophy - Anthony Kenny
F. Copleston, A History of Philosophy

then start with the presocratics, but by first reading a book that summarizes the presocratics like Presocratic Philosophy - A Very Short Introduction

basically you wanna read summaries explaining shit before you jump into the actual text

i haven't ready any of these so i probably don't know what i'm talking about

hope this helps

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>i haven't ready any of these so i probably don't know what i'm talking about

ladies and gentlemen, lit

What is irony you fucking midwit :D

Don’t ‘approach it’

Just open the cover and read the words enclosed.

After Plato what else?

Xenophon, then Aristotle

Is the Trial and Death of Socrates the same as the Last Days of Socrates? How is the Symposium for a starting point?

A history of western philosophy is fucking huge mate, you are retarded.

yeah. same thing. hackett has a good edition.

symposium is not where you want to start. you want to know the truth which plato/socrates are seeking before you start accepting their thoughts on love..

the last days of socrates is a penguin publication, right? I have that and includes Phaedo an apparently later dialogue but connected.

It has Euthyphro/Apology/Crito/Phaedo

I believe the Trial and Death is just the first three.

As someone who has read a fair bit of Plato and is only know reading through The History of Western Philosophy, I really didn't need the pre-socratic context or the summaries of socrates and plato.

They are interesting and could potentially aid someone, but it's generally the background as to why they wanted to ask these questions and why that made them controversial or lauded within their own era etc.

It's as the title suggests, mainly historical context, you will not understand the socratic elenchus any better.

>i believe you must read twenty different summaries of a thing before reading the thing
>btw i don't read
i can see why

I started with it in year 9 I think and really enjoyed it. Had ADD so some parts felt as if he was really whacking you over the head with the tripartite soul but still a masterpiece and I really enjoyed it.

Pic unrelated.

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Seconded. Read “History of Philosophy” concurrently with, not before, reading primary philosophical texts. And preferably with at least a little understanding of classical languages (I had to do a LOT of google translate).

Phaedo is the death of Socrates. These 4 books are a really good start to philosophy. Also, read F. Copleston "A History of Philosophy" Vol.1 to better elucidate Plato's metaphysics, politics and psychology.

I think it is better to read about the Pre-Socratics and Sophists in Copleston before reading Plato. Then read Plato, then read on Plato in Copleston and then Aristotles in Copleston (if you eventually wish to continue reading Aristotle's works, which are quite complicated, as he didn't have the same oeuvre of exceptional poetic writing as Plato did in his dialogues at least.

Beyond good and evil is a good starting point for absolute beginners.

No, Republic is long. Start with shorter dialogues like Symposium.

Started with the republic (okay I read lysis before but it doesnt count?). In my opinion politeia is perfect for beginners. It is really fun to read because often socrates has discussions you probably also had with your friends-difference being that socrates was actually smart. Fuck they even had the "what if you had superpowers" discussion in there. I bet you had that one with your friends atleast once. It is a masterpiece my dude, I realised that plato literally shaped millenia. This is probably as influential as the bible is. A must read for every westerner

you should read a few

I haven't read it yet but I suggest to read ancient Greek history and history of ancient philosophy to understand the historical and cultural context first. It helps knowing what was the world like during Plato's life.

LOL, Seriously DONT READ PLATO
LISTEN TO PLATO
Only history majors could be as autistic as to READ A SET OF PLAYS

Highly recommended

How will that help him understand a play?

the dialogues aren't plays, moron. do you even know what a greek play looked like?

>Dialogues werent plays
>Dialouges
>Plays
user, Im sorry youre this retarded
I guess you think Poptarts arent sandwiches either

Is this bait?
They’re not plays you retard they’re theoretical conversations between people used as a method of conveying ideas

>He thinks theres a difference
user..I
Seriously, You read the plays in Hexadecimal style, it makes way more sense

>What are Yea Forums‘s tips on reading philosophy for beginners?
Go for what sounds interesting to you, getting into it will draw you to the foundation stuff eventually. You don't start watching movies at Eisenstein, you start watching movies and then decide you need to watch Eisenstein.

Eisenstein is a confessed fraud and theif

simply containing reported speech does not make something a play, a play is a literary form that follows specific rules and is written to be performed theatrically. theatrical performance in ancient greece involved elaborate music, singing, dancing and costumes and was tied to specific religious festivals. there isn't a shred of evidence that any of this was ever done to platonic dialogues let alone was the intended way to receive them and the texts themselves are absolutely unfit to be staged in this way for many reasons: that they're prose whereas all plays were in verse, that they're impractically long, that they contain little to no physical action, that they don't have a chorus whereas a chorus was the bedrock of ancient greek theatre from which everything else sprang, that they don't follow any of the other formal constraints to which all greek plays of this period were bound and so on. the dialogues were written to be read, not performed theatrically. there's no doubt that some of the reading would be out loud and in public, since the greeks enjoyed doing that during drinking parties, but they did that to everything inducing herodotus or thucydides, and that doesn't make narrative history into a play nor does it mean that narrative history must be listened to and not read.

It's worth reading, but not on it's own as a first text.
Start with 2-3 introductory textbooks to get a good idea of major basic positions, arguments and fallacies and how things fit together.
Find a college level survey of western philosophy. You can pick one with excerpts to get exposed to different style of writings. Pick one that isn't trying to argue only a particular position. One good one i had was by Louis Pojman.I also recommend a college level introductory text in analytic philosophy. Very helpful to me in progressing.
Be sure to read lots of science. I've learned philosophy is very useful in reasoning with facts but you still need to learn facts to reason with.

>hey i want to read philosophy
>NO STOP don't read philosophy, just read a pile of college textbooks until you know the official canonical modern interpretation of every work by every philosopher and then once you know what you're supposed to think you can optionally read the actual philosophers just for flavor. i mean you wouldn't get too far in philosophy if you had to actually engage with people's thoughts, am i right?

if you don't build a foundation you'll be lost

What books should I start with them?

Read out loud. Take notes. Start with Plato, but don't start with The Republic.

I just ordered this

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You made a good choice. Although you should have just got the $50 Hackett complete works edition so you don't have to keep buying a new book every time you read a new dialogue and also so there's no overlap.
It sounds expensive, but it's a one time purchase, considering you're getting all 25+ of his dialogues in one volume.

Plato is a good start, but start from the four shorter dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo. The Republic can be hard if you have no previous knowledge of philosophy.

Also a good alternative to the Hackett complete edition is the Oxford editions. They each have like 50 pages of explanatory notes in the back that really holds your hand through some of the more complex dialogues like Gorgias or Theaetetus.

You know what, this is a really good idea. I ordered through amazon so I can return this and order that

why yes this is indeed right

that is a good choice if you want to start reading philosophy

I suggest you keep the Republic and order the other one, if you can. The Republic is a fantastic book and deserves to be read - also, I would say if you study a little bit of the five dialogues you'd be ready to have a good reading experience with Republic.

The Republic is included in the complete edition though.

I’ll keep the Republic simply because if I ever want to take it with me somewhere I won’t have to lug a big hardcover book with me.
I actually just ordered the Hackett completely works. Is there any reason to keep this 5 dialogues book or should I send it back?

The 5 dialogues book is also published by Hackett, so they're literally just taking the same text and translation that would be in the complete edition. Footnotes and everything.

>be me
>analphabet
>want to learn to read
>read "How to read a book"
>dont understand anything because i cant read the book
>mfw

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good.

that's exactly the hackett i mentioned before. that's the right place to start. if you want some fun, read gorgias and parmenides afterwards.