Topics Philosophy

Question What does it take to write a scholarly journal article in philosophy? In other fields you have to do research. How does research look like when it comes to philosophy? Do you just have to form an argument in an original way, or come up with an idea or a thougt experiment? How would you suggest someone with no experience start with trying to accomplish this task?

Accepted:
August 11, 2009

Comments

Professional publications in philosophy are always embedded within a context of contemporary controversy in some subfield of philosophy. Except in experimental philosophy, philosophers don't do research by conducting experiments, but we do still have to do research--keeping up with the controversies in our fields, and when we think we have something to add to those controversies, writing our books or articles in such a way as to make clear just how our own view differs from those others have argued.

A philosopher simply won't be in a position to publish an article until he or she has already been adequately trained in the broad basics of that area, and then also mastered the contemporary scholarly literature in the specific area of some controversy. One does not just sit down one day, without all this training and mastery of the literature, and decide to write a journal article just because one thinks one has a lovely new idea. Superb undergraduates have sometimes published professionally, and graduate students often also make such contributions. But mostly, those who make these contributions are those who have completed graduate training and kept up-to-date in their subfield's existing literature and controversies.