The Art of Writing a Philosophy Article -- How To Master It

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(Note: "Art" is used in this article as synonymous to craftsmanship)

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A good philosopher is one who dedicates and sacrifices elements in the name of sharpening and clarifying their intellect. A paragon of reason, many elements are, ultimately, in the way of one's thinking, from becoming better, and from excelling in cognitive thinking. Put them out of the way, and your intellect can be purer and thus, grant you greater access to its untapped potential.

Deep inside, we are capable of more than what we might think. The intellect is a portal to many ideas and insights. Some of them could be applicable to reality, and even be practical, while others are in the realm of abstract theory. However, in order to promote philosophical thinking, we must focus on practical philosophy, as practicality is key to philosophy's relevance.

Deem philosophy completely useless, and you may ignore the fact that it is also practical and can bring much help and benefit to humanity. Show people that they can philosophize for practical efforts, and you can help them think for themselves, and help solve the many problems that exist and prosper in our flawed world. Use philosophy, and you can reduce herd mentality.

An excellent philosophy article is a product of clear thinking. By decluttering your mind from distractions, unconscious fallacies and biases, you can hone your ability to philosophize to the point of producing a piece that can bring much benefit to this world.

The clear-minded philosopher is not only an abstract thinker. That is only part of one's intellect. They are also a problem solver. They use logic in order to detect flaws in reasonings, and point out how these reasonings can be fixed, by improving the flaws. Thus, philosophy is a tool for improvement.

In a sense, the philosopher is like a construction supervisor. They observe buildings and analyze their flaws. Their purpose is to make sure these flaws are reduced to a minimum by criticizing them, and offering ways to improve their stability as structures. After all, it is reason that keeps your logical structure stable and durable.

Those who fear criticism may struggle to improve when they can improve. In other words, their own worries of being hurt, stand in their way for solutions that could make them be hurt less. Therefore, it would only be reasonable for the philosopher and the philosophy reader to accept vulnerability as part of the very truth they are invested in. Being less insulted using reason can also help.

When crafting an article, the philosophy craftsman must have a clear mind, and not let their own emotions stand in their way of providing a quality product. In a sense, it is like many other craftsmanship.

For a good product, the article writer must not be distracted by hunger, irrelevant problems, thirst, and so on. In today's world, that includes the many technological distractions out there, such as social media.

A writer who submits to procrastination might find great difficulty in being a good writer. Thus, in order to increase productivity and efficiency, procrastination must be kept to a minimum, if not removed entirely, when one is set to work. I myself discarded my smartphone because it interfered with my plans of becoming more skillful in the article-writing craft.

Serenity/being calm can help us work better.

I have no regrets. Unlike many other writers, I view this craft like Walter White from "Breaking Bad" views cooking. More than his own accomplice. It's one of the reasons I choose to live. It's one of the few things in life that makes me happy. To write or revamp a philosophy article in solitude.. ahh.. it is truly wonderful. Makes me grateful for being alive.

In order to make a philosophy article relevant, you must not only speak to the reason of your readers, but to their hearts as well. Although they may contradict each other like water and oil, there are cases where they are not. There are cases where the appeal to emotion fallacy does not apply, because it is possible to trigger and intrigue emotion without using it as a substitute for reason. As such, when you cover the reasoning of your argument, you can use rhetoric to make your readers emote. That way, you made them emote without their emotions compromising your article's reasoning. It is a difficult thing to master.

The point to make your readers emote is to make them desire to read you more. By reading you more, your writings can become more relevant than otherwise. Use logic entirely, as if you were a machine, and you may alienate some of your readers. In retrospect, I also know this: Alienating readers from your audience also be possible by focusing too much on negative emotions.

When speaking to people I found out how weak they are to pain and suffering, even though both no longer mean much to me. After I suffered from post-traumatic pain for 15 years, I now realize how resilient it made me.

However, I overlooked the fact that many people are not like that. Perhaps, most of humanity isn't like that. This is how virtue can also be an obstacle: When you may struggle to connect with your readers, due to barriers such as those.

Thus, you must receive input from your readership in order to understand them better, to understand what they desire and what they want to stay clear from. While philosophy is the study of truth, not every truth is desired even by philosophy readers themselves. Paradoxical, but it is the fear of pain and suffering that stands in their way, even if it does not stand in my way.

Study logical fallacies, study biases. Be open to realize that you were at fault when you wrote something illogical or incorrect. Do not be insulted by the reality of your own imperfection. Don't get overexcited when you can just fix the mistakes you made, after understanding why they were mistakes. Overexcitement in face of reality won't help you. Improving yourself as an article craftsman, will.

Strive to perfection but don't expect to ever reach it. Instead, expect yourself to be as good as possible, or as close to perfection as possible. That is the way for you to write the high-quality articles that your readers want to read.

Improve the trust of your readers in you by adding sources that confirm your insights. Adding credible sources across the internet, and even from books, can reinforce your positions as well as your own position as a philosopher. Do not rely solely on your own internal experiences. That is known as the anecdotal fallacy.

And it is easy to distrust purely-personal stories without external confirmations. It is also easy to fabricate them, as it can be done in propaganda. A philosopher does not favor propaganda, nor have his/her work seen as propaganda. They are a researcher of truth, not an agenda promoter. As such, the philosopher isn't necessarily an ideologist.

Create hyperlinks between your own works in order to avoid repeating yourself unnecessarily. This will also allow your readers to study your work more, and improve user experience. An article that has both external and internal sources is therefore a very good article. An article that is more trusted and has more authority. Overall, the master article writer is one whose content makes an authority blog. The same goes in philosophy without the necessity of degrees, but the necessity of intelligence.

Emotions can impair your judgement, hence why they can contrast logic. They do not contrast it when they are used as a way to motivate your readers to read your logic. That is the wonder of verbal logic, and its advantage over the logic of code. There is no emotion in coding. But there is far more in verbal communication. Use it to your advantage to lift the spirits of your readers, and to spark inspiration in their hearts, using charisma and confidence.

Be overconfident, however, and your judgement can be impaired as well. When the motivation of your logic stems from confidence and not from the desire to truly understand reality, you may promote poor reasoning without your own awareness. Keep your confidence in check by entertaining other sides of the topic you are covering.

That is, of course, unless you focus specifically on one department of a topic (like when you write specifically on the "dark side" of an issue, or a "controversial side" of it. Then these are the exceptions).

Like with any other craft, it takes time, it takes experience, and it may takes failure as well. But in the end, in the name of the quality of your product, it might as well be worth all the effort and the sweat put into your works.

There's a reason why some philosophers are considered great, or at least good. There is a reason why their contributions are admired for centuries, if not thousands of years. Their contributions managed to reach a very high degree of relevance, and people may study and reflect upon them to this day.

Master the art of article-writing, in a world where people are reading books less and less, and you too can have a chance at becoming a philosopher, deemed as great as Socrates, Sun Tzu, and the like.

Feel free to ask me questions in the comments as long as you agree to Philosocom's rules.

Final note: I am known by some as the Undead Philosopher. That is because, when I philosophize, I am like a metaphorical undead. I detach myself from unnecessary distractions, and even from my own sensations, in order to focus on the work at hand, and when I do so I may even see only the screen and the words in front of me and nothing else. That, is known as the state of hyperfocus. Hyperfocus is a feature common among people with Asperger's. To ensure optimal hyperfocus, I do whatever necessary.

And when you are regularly hyper-focused, you may forget, empirically, that you are a human being. One that is capable of socially-based interactions, one that is capable of giving and receiving affection. You can lose touch with the "earthly" reality, by hyper-focusing on "deeper" reality.

Practice makes perfect, and aside of having little formal education in philosophy, I am considered by some a philosophy master. Founder of my own school of thought and political ideology, and inventor of a mental technique that granted me freedom from a temporary period of physical disability. I also contributed the discovery of several logical fallacies.