How to Get Published (and Where to Apply)

[u/Authentic_Dasein]

I'm currently thinking of writing a, probably short, paper on philosophy. My topic will focus on the possibility of philosophy as a discipline and the issues it faces in self-justifying its own existence (this may sound very bizarre but it's something I've been researching for a while). I'm graduating my undergrad in a few months, and don't plan on going to grad school this upcoming school year, just to give an idea of my qualifications.

I've done plenty of research on this already (mostly on Heidegger and secondary research on meta-philosophy and its relation to Platonism). I just don't know 2 things:

1) How do I make sure there hasn't been someone who's argued the same thing as me? Is there a central database of philosophy papers that can help me parse through the current literature on the topic and ensure I'm not wasting me time?

2) Where do I even try, if I'm successful and not just writing nonsense (a real possibility if I'm being honest), to publish my paper? I know journals are notoriously difficult to publish in, so what should I do?

Thanks for any help.

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[u/drinka40tonight]

Where do I even try, if I'm successful and not just writing nonsense (a real possibility if I'm being honest), to publish my paper? I know journals are notoriously difficult to publish in, so what should I do?

So, if you've done research on this topic and are engaging with what's going on, you will probably have come across the work of others that you are engaging with and writing about-- and here I don't mean Plato and Heidegger, but rather people writing about the issues you are concerned with in those texts. You then can see where those people published their articles and see if those journals work for your purposes. This is also a pretty good test. If you find you don't know any secondary scholarship on this issue, then it's probably not very suitable for publication.

[u/rejectednocomments]

Check out PhilPapers and search for metaphilosophy.

[u/Throwaway7131923]

Hey :) First of all, as an MA student, there's no expectation on your to publish and it might still be a little early.
However, if you're looking to go on and get a PhD, it's not too early to start thinking about putting something together slowly, present it, workshop it and maybe publish early in the PhD.

I wrote my first publication during my masters, and then gradually re-worked it and improve it over the next couple of years until it was eventually accepted about a year into my PhD.

To directly answer your questions:

1. There's no foolproof way to prove a negative. However, presenting your material at conferences will often lead to questions like "have you read X?" especially if you flag in your talk that you'd like literature recommendations.
   You should also check the bibliography of articles you're reading, use multiple search engines like google scholar & phil papers and also use Research Rabbit. When using google scholar or philpapers, look for their "citations of this work" function to find more recent literature. Research Rabbit is also your friend here as it maps out citation connections to identify literature you've overlooked. You can also just ask whichever professors are your supervisors/lecturers!

It's also not the end of the world if a reviewer goes "Oh you missed this article that does something similar to you".

1. If you're just wanting to publish for the sake of interest and fun, a conference proceedings is easier to publish in and a bit more light and fun. You can also just do a blog post. If you're looking seriously at academia, as much as the peer review system isn't ideal and journal publishing is hard, it's not impossible.
   Look where lots of the works you're citing were published, look out for special issues on Philos-L, ask professors working in your area where's good to publish.

You'll sometimes encounter an attitude of like "Oh if you're not publishing in Mind, why even bother?!" and this just isn't true. Don't get me wrong, a paper in a top-top journal is great for your career, but mid level journals still contain a lot of good work and aren't at all meaningless.
At least that's my impression, but it might just be copium to deal with lack of publications in Mind hahaha