Let me introduce you to Roberto Calasso.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Calasso
Put away your Stirners and Evolas, your Joyces and Wallaces: he's our new meme.
>Owner of most aesthetic publishing house of the world: Adelphi (also one of the most important Italian Publishing houses, first introducing Nietzsche, Guenon, Kerenyi, W.F. Otto and many many others to the Italian public).
>Has read every book ever, even you diary.
>Author of an unnamned magnum opus counting (to now) 8 novel/essay or whatever you would like to call the things he writes
>mixes anthropology, esotericism, philosophy, historical anecdotes and storytelling
>magnum opus meant to explain everything about everything
>basically a living Renaissance man
>Last Italian intellectual alive
>Possibly crypto-nazi
>Accused of leading a satanic revolution to reintroduce hedonistic pagan cults (Cfr. 'Gli Adelphi della Dissoluzione')
>Books are available in English
>Just as your favorite writers, you'll never fully get what he's saying
>You can keep playing with his books forever
What the fuck are you waiting for? Why are you not reading Calasso yet? Run to your local bookstore, NOW! This is /ourguy/!
Reading suggestions:
Essay - Literature and the Gods
"Narrative" (or whatever you'd call his non-non-fiction works) - The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (second of the magnum opus, works well as a stand-alone intro to Calasso's style).
Also, the guy looked like a fucking god when he was young.
Don't lie: you would have fucked him.
Check this interview if you are curious about his life. There are details of him writing his dissertation on hashish in London.
https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6168/roberto-calasso-the-art-of-fiction-no-217-roberto-calasso
I've been pushing Calasso for years, glad he's finally getting some recognition on here.
Here's a good interview between him and a fawning Italian succubus he introduced to the esoteric rituals of Venus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okwJB3FRDo8&t=615s
>>9460158
That white bitch needs to check her cultural appropriation.
Hello /lit/ many of you steal books? and if yes why?
do you think it is morally ok? for example if the author is dead, the work is quite successful or the subject of the book is thievery?
Read Crito you stupid fuck
Breaking the law, even in the face of abject tyranny or immorality, is unethical. You are a product of the exact tyranny you act against; to consider yourself morally or ethically Correct in the face of the social contract is to admit that the social contract itself is ethically and morally sound.
>>9460039
mostly agree with this post
Socrates qualifies his argument with the fact that he had the right to expatriate at any time (I see no need for such a qualification).
I think it's ethical to resist a tyrannical leader if they order you to do something that you believe is morally wrong, but by resist I mean only flatly but politely refuse. In such a case, you must accept whatever punishment you receive graciously.
>>9460056
A good point.
Worth mentioning as well that even if you augment this system of ethics with Enlightenment-era political ideals about the nature of Revolution, it wouldn't justify committing petty crime.
Tl;Dr Having fun isn't hard when you've got a library card, OP.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/05/transracialism-article-controversy.html?mid=twitter-share-di
How is philosophy, the academic area, taken seriously with shit like this? You guys defend this simply because it has the stamp of academic approval and is categorised as philosophy.
I'm the guy who constantly posts about infinitely many possible axioms and how the space for unfalsifiable ideas is infinite.
>>9459945
no one is going to read that clickbait shit brah
It's funny because you're doing exactly what the article is describing.
>>9459951
TL;Dr: Junior professor of philosophy writes paper comparing trans gender people with trans racial. Gets excoriated by other academics and the journal, both for the topic and with falsehoods.
I don't really feel like reading right now. Can you convince me to go do it?
>>9459902
Get an interesting audiobook. Eventually you're annoyed by the voice but you still want to follow the story so you just read normally instead.
>>9459913
I want to read the master and margarita, the b&o translation. But I just got done doing a lot of tasks today, and I don't really feel like working my mind any more than I already have. I just feel like relaxing.
Go do it
Are there any books (fiction or nonfiction) that give an in-depth insight into schizophrenia??
I've been watching schizophrenia case studies on YouTube and my interest is peaked.
No Beautiful Mind pls
Piqued
>>9459897
who's the author?
>>9459907
>book has praise from famous people written all over the cover
Any of Penn's books decent? Beyond atheism and magic dieting stuff. I'd love to read a serious dissertation on Libertarian political theory from him, especially since he espouses the idea that everyone is basically altruistic in politics (up until he got butthurt about Trump, but that's an obvious personal bias)
>>9459834
And?
>>9459869
>I'd love to read a serious dissertation on Libertarian political theory from him
Could I compare the autonomy and freedom of Kant and Spinoza? What do you think about?
Go read the first 50 pages of Charles Taylor's book "Hegel" and you will see that yes a highly altered/confused form of Spinoza's self-sufficiency was used by the Romantic idealists in conjunction with Kant's radical freedom
>>9459790
Dude you can like do whatever you want
It's literally what Schopenhauer did. Read WILL and Rep.
Read my novels you fucking pussies. I thought this was supposed to be the smart board.
>>9459768
Suttree in top left corner. Also I will once the semester ends, smugglers bible has been sitting on my shelf since Christmas
>>9459768
>le I write difficult novels man
Women and Men was not that good. Complicated and hard to understand =/ literary quality, I'd just like to remind you. His short stories are decent though.
>>9459817
Maybe you are just stupid. Ancient history and actress in the house werent hard at all.
I'm trying to write a barebones YA/young adult novel to sell on Amazon, just a potboiler, but I'm having trouble reducing it to the essentials.
My idea of fantasy is all very dense worldbuilding, like if Ernst Robert Curtius or Hippolyte Taine wanted to create a society based on the form of agriculture it has. I don't want to toot my own horn here, but it's genuinely too mature and complex for a teenager to understand. They feel trapped by their school and home life and don't want to be told that their hopes and dreams are largely environmentally determined, at least in their outward forms.
So I'm having trouble setting all that perspective aside and saying, "Whoop! Society is now governed by, uh, lacrosse players! Now all social value is determined by your lacrosse ball goaling-score thing! Join our heroes in their fight against the tyrannical Games and Sports Commission!"
How do I pare this shit down to the bones without making my inner sociologist weep?
Infinite Jest kinda does what youre describing in the right way.
If you wanna go "deep" on simple concepts you kinda just repeat them over and over in slight different ways/contexts
>>9459763
Don't curb your ideas for anything.
It's better to have a cult following than some kind of faddish recognition.
>>9459791
I have no interest in recognition, just an income. Even $50 a month would be a relief. In any case, I'll be writing under a disposable pen name.
Can I just skip the Pre-Socratics?
>>9459702
You can safely skip or skim many philosophers
Here's a good overview in podcast from
https://historyofphilosophy.net/
>>9459702
Sure, if you want a dangerously incomplete knowledge of all other philosophy.
Yes absolutely. They're fun and a general overview is useful but most of them (with some exceptions like Heraclitus) are just historical points of curiosity.
What the fuck is it called when you can understand a shit ton of words when you read stuff, but whenever I wish to write anything the same vocabulary is not there? And I don't just mean understanding words within a sentence, but knowing what the words themselves mean in a vacuum.
Sure I find the right word in a minute or... 5.
Is it just a case of not writing much or enough?
Anomic aphasia
the slight irony in ops post is amusing
Recall is a different function of the brain than contextual comprehension.
You're not the only one who experiences this, I'll get hung up trying to remember a specific word and have to spend time trying to recall it through phonetic association.
Just another reason everyone who writes should own a good, physical thesaurus.
Some people say that writing down new words and their definitions into a continuous logbook helps, maybe try that?
Which of his books should I read and what are your personal thoughts on these (if you have read them):
>Buddenbrooks
>The Magic Mountain
>Doctor Faustus
>>9459612
the one where he wrote it because he wanted to fuck his own adolescent son
>>9459618
No way. Really?
I've heard high praise for Joseph and his Brothers.
ITT: Writers that are literally you
>>9459589
Friedrich Nietzsche
>>9459589
>tfw Knight of Faith
>>9460775
Youre an insufferable no-friended faggot, i'm calling it now.
but thats cuz youre an ubermensch right? lol
gtfo
Was it really all an analogy of the Soul?
As Socrates explicitly remarks on Book III of The Republic, the tripartite theory of the soul can be understood by looking at the big picture first (understanding the kallipolis makes it easier to understand the soul). The book clearly contains an analogy, but it would be mistaken to think that this is everything.
>>9459525
WHAT IF THE WORLD IS?
PLATO
THE REPUBLIC II
TIMAEUS VERISIMILE TALE
A COSMOGONIC EXPERIENCE
SOON IN (greek) THEATHERS
>>9461265
Obviously Plato's analogy reflects elements of the real thing he's drawing an analogy to and his experience and bias therein. But it's still important to remember that is an analogy for the soul above all else and is not an endorsement of any political ideal.
Why the f**k isn't there a thread about this already?
Zachary German, voice of our generation, has announced that his second novel, "A Lot of Things", is due to be published by Melville House in Fall 2017.
Biography:
>1988
-Born in Somers Point, New Jersey
>2008
-Published in Dennis Johnson's anthology "Userlands: New Fiction Writers from the Blogging Underground."
>2010
-Moves to Williamsburg, New York
-Publishes debut novel "Eat When You Feel Sad" aged just 21
-Launches popular radio show "Shitty Youth"
>2012
-Stars in documentary about his life and literary career also titled "Shitty Youth"
-Featured in lengthy Vice article titled "Who Is Zachary German?"
>2017
-Publishes short story "Thank You, Andrew" in New York Tyrant
-Announces publication of second novel "Lots of Things", praised as: "like it or not, [German] is now the most articulate voice of the Millennial generation" (Ben Lerner, NYRB, May 3 2017)
The only thing I'm interesting in is what is his real name? Zachary German? More like Zachary Shekelstein
>>9459366
oh this is just a sad viral marketing attempt by melville house, in that case i don't care at all about this fag, saged, hidden
I love when faggots like this turn 30
I want to wait five years until he has an ugly kid with a mediocre over-the-hill girl and then spy on him for a month and compare all his boring basic bitch dad behavior to his EPIC MEME PERSONALITY from his twenties
>Profession: "Erstwhile VICE Opinion Piece Writer"
>Fame Level: "Zilch"