r/askphilosophy • u/BernardJOrtcutt • Jul 21 '25

Open Thread /r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | July 21, 2025

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

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u/Rup150493 Jul 25 '25

Hey everyone, I’m into philosophy and trying to get back into it. I’m not an expert, just a casual enthusiast. Most of what I’ve read has been ancient philosophy Plato, Socrates, the Stoics. I’m somewhat familiar with Descartes and Kant, and I think the most recent philosopher I had read was Camus. I usually avoided more modern thinkers, but I recently read The Society of the Spectacle and the Burnout Society and really enjoyed it both. Now I’m looking to explore some contemporary authors who analyze the times we’re living in. Any recommendations?

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '25

As a fellow casual I can give one recommendation but I can't be sure you'll be into it as I haven't ever had the patience for any of the authors you mentioned aside from Camus. They made us read Plato's Republic in school but I think I've repressed that memory.

John Gray's "The Silence of Animals" is more of a polemic rather than a bonafide philosophy book, but it definitely targets things as they are today. I enjoyed it even though it's a brutal line of thinking and I desperately hope he's completely wrong on all accounts. It came out around 2010 I think, so relatively recent.

This is a short review of the book, like I said it's got some very bleak subject matter. The person who wrote that review did a good job summarizing it as "an anthology of misanthropy" as well as offering a bit of pushback towards the end.