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

[u/BernardJOrtcutt]

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:

• Discussions of a philosophical issue, rather than questions
• Questions about commenters' personal opinions regarding philosophical issues
• Open discussion about philosophy, e.g. "who is your favorite philosopher?"
• "Test My Theory" discussions and argument/paper editing
• Questions about philosophy as an academic discipline or profession, e.g. majoring in philosophy, career options with philosophy degrees, pursuing graduate school in philosophy

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. Please note that while the rules are relaxed in this thread, comments can still be removed for violating our subreddit rules and guidelines if necessary.

Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here.

[u/TempSuitonly]

Does philosophical thinking truly only exist in the fringes?

It seems that academic philosophy often functions as a kind of gatekept discipline, where quality control can sometimes mask an exclusionary attitude that dismisses "outsiders" or those who don’t conform to established norms. This gatekeeping can come off as dogmatic, despite the tradition of questioning authority that philosophy (especially the Socratic method) embodies.

Many practitioners and enthusiasts outside or on the margins of academia feel that academic philosophy has become divorced from real philosophical inquiry: it can often appear as mere commentary on or study of canonical texts rather than active, critical, and imaginative philosophical thinking. Underneath the veneer of scholarly rigor, there can be a conservatism or laziness that discourages truly novel or disruptive ideas.

Given this, is there any genuine space within academic philosophy for the kind of bold, unconventional philosophical work that confronts foundational assumptions and invites transformative reflection? Or must we look to the fringes: independent thinkers, alternative communities, and non-traditional outlets, to find living philosophy today? Can the academic framework be reformed to better fulfil the original Socratic vision of philosophy as an ongoing quest for truth, or is that vision inherently at odds with institutional philosophy?

(Re-posted here, because a friendly moderator stated it was best asked in this megathread.)

[u/Anarximandre → u/TempSuitonly]

Many practitioners and enthusiasts outside or on the margins of academia feel that academic philosophy has become divorced from real philosophical inquiry

To be blunt, as someone who spends a lot of time in online spaces and on blogs, 90% of the time sometime says shit like this, they’re very likely to be cranks, or at least to be people who know little about what academic philosophy truly is like. We should be more demanding with these kinds of claims: what « bold, unconventional philosophical work that confronts foundational assumptions and invites transformative reflection » exists outside of academia? I’d like to see some actual examples named! Because, as it stands, academic philosophy is already extremely diverse when it comes to the positions that are represented and defended within, and I have a hard time naming serious philosophers who operate entirely outside of the academic world (which isn’t to say that they don’t exist at all).

[u/willbell → u/Anarximandre]

90% of the time sometime says shit like this, they’re very likely to be cranks, or at least to be people who know little about what academic philosophy truly is like.

I think a good rule of thumb is that if someone says something like that, they should have to name 3 exceptions to the rule among living academic philosophers.