What is the best way to absorb ideas and concept from a philosophy

are you fucking insane?

Read it once for pleasure and inspiration.

Read it a second time to write a full summary and notes on points of interest.

That's what I do. I never forget anything now.

Annotations

do a different drug every time you read it

I make up a song as I go, a little ditty of the key concepts

There's a reason why people dedicate their professional lives to reading and critiquing these things. Give up on this idealistic notion that if you orient yourself correctly or prepare enough in advance, you'll fully understand whatever it is you're trying to read.

Read, then read some other stuff, then come back and read it again.

>>8911825
Really? Do you actually read the same book two times just to write a summary? Do you think any great philosopher did that?

>>8912453
Many books don't have summaries online and the ones that do are bad at compressing the author's points in an accurate way.

The reason I do it the second time instead of the first is because I don't know whether a book is worth summarising and writing my own points on first time reading. Plus reading a second time is great for comprehension and retention. Schopenhauer wrote a whole essay on it.

Also, I don't care about being a great philosopher, only pseuds do.

I believe Descartes wrote about this. If I remember correctly, he said that you should do a quick, cursory reading of the work to decide if you want to read it again. Then, read it again and pay attention. Then, read it a third time critically and take plenty of notes.

>>8912574
Here is the quote:

“I should like the reader first of all to go quickly through the whole book like a novel, without straining his attention too much or stopping at the difficulties which may be encountered. The aim should be merely to ascertain in a general way the matters I have dealt with. After this, if he finds that these matters deserve to be examined and he has the curiosity to ascertain their causes, he may read the book a second time in order to observe how my arguments follow. But if he is not able to see this fully, or if he does not understand all the arguments, he should not give up at once. He should merely mark with a pen the places where he finds the difficulties and continue to read on to the end without a break. If he then takes up the book for a third time, I venture to think he will find the solutions to most of the difficulties he marked before; and if any still remain, he will discover their solution on a final re-reading.”

>>8912564
>trying to avoid being a pseud is what pseuds do

>>8911729
This might help: https://philpapers.org/rec/CONRPW

>>8912623
Thank you

A lot of the time the work is just to get a feel for what the main ideas are in the first place. The sooner you know what kind of theme or question you'd like to track through the essay, the sooner you'll be able to pick out the details for that topic.

Annotations and underlining are pretty necessary I think. They can really help you remember the topic and can train your mind to find quotes relevant to what you're exploring. One thing that helps a lot is creating a reading journal where you summarize the work for yourself, or jot down interesting excerpts and try to analyze them.

Asking questions WHILE reading is the most important. Reading the same thing multiple times only helps this process, creating new opportunities for different questions.

>>8912584
Epic circular logic, brainlet.

Typical pseud.