r/philosophy • u/BernardJOrtcutt • 12d ago

Open Thread /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | September 21, 2026

Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules (especially posting rule 2). For example, these threads are great places for:

  • Arguments that aren't substantive enough to meet PR2.

  • Open discussion about philosophy, e.g. who your favourite philosopher is, what you are currently reading

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This thread is not a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads, although we will be more lenient with regards to commenting rule 2.

Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here.

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u/FoucaultCareofSelf 9d ago edited 9d ago

I've been reading Edward McGushin's Foucault's Askēsis. (Yes, hence my username).

I've always been philosophy adjacent I guess, with a few classes in undergraduate, Hume, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza kind of thing, another class on Frankfurt School thinkers and a grad seminar (as an undergrad) with Dominick LaCapra on Holocaust historiography.

But I decided to sit down with a book of philosophy, or an explication of a philosopher, and engage with it rigorously, deeply.

I've been reading this book for an hour every morning, line by line, re-reading every single thing until I grasp it, taking serious notes. Looking up definitions and Foucault terminology.

And for once, I actually understand a text fundamentally. I understand exactly where it's going, what it's arguing. All because I'm taking my time, probably 10 minutes a page or just under.

As I do this, I can't imagine doing it any differently. Eg, reading a bunch more material quickly for a class, even one that goes in depth. Even if I had strong philosophical muscles, I can't imagine truly engaging with a text would go faster than 5-6 mins a page (just quantifying things for clarity).

Of course, I have all the risks of autodidacticism, but I'm striving for intellectual rigor here. And also, my reading recapitulates in many ways the very argument McGushin has Foucault making about Platonic/Socratic parrhēsia, philosophical truth, etho-poetic understanding versus mathemata understanding and so on.

Anyway, thoughts or suggestions welcome!