this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2026
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There are many, many things I disagreed with my philosophy professors about in college, but one thing I absolutely agree with them about is that it is essentially impossible for you to be a 'philosopher' and have any kind of actually unique insights in the philosophical space before you are 40.
I'd make that 50 if you are a Youtuber.
Having unique takes is really, really hard. A big part of what graduate school in philosophy is supposed to do is give you a good enough understanding of the pre-existing literature in your sub-specialty that you're capable of knowing if your idea is actually original or not. Even then, it's really difficult to come up with original takes that are also sensible and defensible. I agree that it is virtually impossible for a 20-something with no formal background in philosophy to put forward original ideas or positions; the space of arguments is just too densely filled.
I feel like the prioritization of unique insights is kind of glory hound behavior and it's better to just be well-reasoned even if it "just" leads you to, in part, supporting positions that people have had for 200 or 2000 years.
The key to even knowing if your insights are unique is to have a comprehensive understanding of what insights came before you, otherwise you will, no joke, just reinvent the wheel over and over again, like all the 'effective altruists' did.
Certainly, my point was just that the priority of unique insights is I think something that can lead people to detrimental biases because a number of those insights of the past are correct (using a math example, Euclidean geometry is still a very useful system). It feels like there's historically a problem of treating philosophy like a series of inspired geniuses, almost like prophets of mutually incompatible realities, and to be a philosopher you need to have your own Doctrine with your own Brand that has whatever sort of novelty or gimmick to separate yourself from the others, not just merely have a set of views and arguments without particular concern one way or the other for novelty.
It's similar to how people who only really wrote commentaries, or who we only have commentaries from, are implicitly degraded. Commentaries aren't as good for branding, though of course some end up working out.
Sorry, I think this is just a bugbear getting g the best of me, as often happens.
Totally understand! It is absolutely a symptom of the academic reality of having to generate a 'brand'.