/lit/ my friend can get me a huge discount on practically any book. I want to get Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, etc, philosophy books.
How do I ever know what versions to get, and by what criteria? Take Plato as an example.
The First Philosophers: The Pre-Socratics and the Sophist - Oxford World's Classics
Complete Works - Plato, Hackett Publishing
The Basic Works - Aristotle, Modern Library
Otherwise get Philosophy books from Cambridge Press, Oxford, Hackett, sometimes Penguin
I'm assuming you haven't read Philosophy before? If so pick up Maggee's Story of Philosophy. I wouldn't buy all the Philosophical canon in one go, you have no ideas what your interests will be in future.
>>7416466
..and the Sophists*
>>7416443
For Plato see
http://plato-dialogues.org/works.htm
For the rest, just go to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, search for those philosophers and check the bibliography section.
>>7416532
I dont mean how do I find lists of their works, I'm asking which versions should be preferred over others.
For example, there are the Signet Classic Dialogues of Plato, The Last Days of Socrates by Penguin, etc. Which ones do I choose? How can I tell?
I'm asking if there is some general guide, some tips or ways to go by. If there isnt then there isnt.
>>7416528
Pre-Socratics are very interesting (see Parmenides, Democritus, Heraclitus), but they also help you grasp Pluto's concepts in some of his more difficult works.
The Basic Works contain all of his main works, and some of his minor treatises (some are abridged). Complete Works would contain the complete versions of his biological writings for example, but they aren't really important unless it's your interest.
You should pretty much always have specific reasons for buying a book that has multiple options of edition, translation choice, etc.
What you should really do is think a little bit about what is different between editions for a given book, do a little bit of researching around for reviews or essays or opinions on the different things available, and then make a choice. You might not want to read a Victorian translation of Aristotle for example because you personally hate the prose, but you might also rummage around and find shitty reviews of a more recent translation because it takes liberties with the text, etc. Or you might want to weigh how much you value literalness and "fidelity" against how much you value readability.
You learn a lot by doing this.
>>7416540
Ok nice. Would just checking Amazon or Goodreads be enough when looking for different versions of the same work?
>>7416537
The bibliography section of the SEP isn't just a list of works, it tells you which editions/translations are best or standard. The only important thing is the translation, so if you can find a different edition of the same translation that should be good.
For Plato, The Last Days of Socrates contains the same translations as the Cooper edition, for other dialogues you should check the page I linked and try to find an edition that contains the recommended translations. If you want the complete works just get the Cooper edition.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/pub
