Book Club!!!

 Golden Apple Book Club
        “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them”                  –Mark Twin

 
  Welcome to the Golden Apple book club syllabus! We host our book club every first and third Sunday of the month, barring any unforeseen circumstances. In this introduction I hope to go over details of the club, give a projected reading list, explain why we are reading what we read, and if you are not able to join us, at least inspire you to read a great book. 

  Firstly, as mentioned, we meet at our house every first and third Sunday of the month, text me if you need directions. Sometimes we will make food, sometimes we will have appetizers, sometimes we will order pizza, sometimes we won’t have anything, it all depends on our bank account that week! What matters to us is opening our doors and sharing our house with like-minded individuals. You are always free to bring anything you want to eat, or a dish to share, or just yourself. It is also BYOB so if you want to bring yourself some wine or herb you are welcome to. We will start at 6pm and eat/talk until 7, then begin the reading and discussion, or a short power point presentation. While we read, we do sit on the floor (we have lots of rugs and pillows) so dress comfortably for sitting and moving around. We want it to be relaxed and fun!  

         “Aristotle was the student of Plato, who was in turn the student of Socrates. That the constellations were once so aligned as to produce three great philosophers in close succession and in the same locale is astonishing; that the written accounts survive of their thoughts and deeds is one of fate’s most generous blessings.”  

                                                                                          –Robert C. Bartlett 

 The book: Plato: Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo (Hackett Classics). Just search “Plato five dialogues” on Amazon and it will come up. The book is only $9.50 and will be the wisest investment of your life. People died and were killed to preserve these books for the past 2,400 years. 

          “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato”        -Alfred North Whitehead 

  This first ‘semester’ will be focused on working through introductory dialogues of Plato. When I mention Plato, some people nod their head and say “Yes I know that name”, as if Plato were some celebrity to be briefly acknowledged like Cardi B or Kylie Jenner. People remember being forced to read him in school, then much like everything else forcefully presented to an uninterested kid, gets forgotten. Other people don’t even know the name, and have never been even introduced to his work. 

 Plato’s books are put away on the useless philosophy shelves, inside the equally useless book store. With unlimited videos on Netflix, unlimited media on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, why should we bother reading or learning outside of school? And besides, we have documentaries and YouTube videos for us on any subject if we want to learn, why would we waste time reading a book? And if we wanted to read, why should we bother with a practically useless subject like philosophy? Philosophy is just a bunch of old men discussing pointless subjects.  

 These are difficult questions to address, in such a short space remaining. My main contention is that reading difficult books trains the mind in a unique way, just as squatting trains the legs in a unique way. I think everyone does benefit from slowing down and going back to our origin. There was a time when philosophy, religion, and science were all one. Nowadays, we are bombarded with ‘what’ to think, an overload of information. Plato was the first person to write down ‘how’ to think, and ‘what’ is worth thinking about. To read Plato is to be left with more questions than answers, because philosophy begins in wonder. The first step of any intellectual endeavor is to remove us of our two-fold ignorance – our ignorance of just how ignorant we are. Reading Plato is the gateway drug to all other branches of knowledge, and ultimately the most important question we are trying to answer, how does one live a good life?