How “Originality” and “Interdisciplinarity” Can Mislead Philosophy Students (guest post)

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Clarifying these expectations is not a minor pedagogical matter. It is essential to helping students succeed, avoid wasted effort, and stay motivated.

Many of us have witnessed at least one graduate student who, when confronted with the requirement that their dissertation be an “original” contribution to the philosophical literature (or something like that), finds themselves either paralyzed and unable to proceed, or what is sometimes worse, venturing out to craft a project on something no other philosophers are talking about.

By the time they’re in a graduate program, philosophy students have learned not to rely on dictionary definitions for proper understandings of philosophical terms. But fewer have realized that the discipline’s—or academia’s—terminological idiosyncracies extend beyond substantive conceptual matters to the way we phrase rules and instructions, or express expectations and evaluations of students and colleagues.

In the following guest post, Thomas Moore looks at how in academic philosophy, when we talk about “originality” and “interdisciplinarity”, we often deviate from common interpretations of these terms, and why it’s important to be clear with students about what these words mean. (Of course, those are just two of the many terms we deploy in discussing aspects of the profession that may have a specialized meaning; commenters are welcome to share others.)

Mr. Moore is a PhD Student in Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, working at the intersection of philosophy, Asian studies and politics. He is the author of, among other things, “Is Confucianism Compatible with a Laclauian Conception of Democracy?” (which won the Charles Fu Foundation Biennial Prize for Best Paper in Chinese Philosophy and the Young Scholar Award for Best Early Career Paper from the European Association for Chinese Philosophy).

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How “Originality” and “Interdisciplinarity” Can Mislead Philosophy Students: A Call for Pedagogical Clarity

by Thomas Moore

Philosophy students are often told that their work must be “original” to be of high quality. Similarly, the importance of “interdisciplinarity” is increasingly emphasized. But what do these terms actually mean in academic philosophy? I argue that their meaning within the discipline departs significantly from common and reasonable interpretations of these terms (as you’d find in dictionaries), creating a need for greater pedagogical clarity.

Let us begin with “originality.” The Cambridge Dictionary (2025) defines something original as “not the same as anything or anyone else and therefore special and interesting.” Merriam-Webster (2025) describes it as “independent and creative in thought or action,” while the Oxford Dictionary (2025) offers “having the quality of that which proceeds directly from oneself, such as has not been done or produced before.” These definitions all suggest novelty, independence, and innovation, but do not give students a detailed or nuanced answer to what philosophers expect when they call for original work. This creates potential for confusion without further clarification.

A reasonable interpretation of the above dictionary definitions might be this: original work is that which is truly new, untouched by precedent, and very different from what has come before. To illustrate this, imagine someone who has only ever seen classical art encountering modern art for the first time. To them, modern art may appear wholly novel, independent of past styles, unrecognisable by familiar standards. This is how Plato or Heidegger might strike a student encountering them for the first time: radically different and strikingly new.

This ‘reasonable interpretation’ of originality is often subtly reinforced by academic institutions. For example, the University of Buckingham (2025) describes an original philosophy thesis as one that makes “a contribution to the knowledge of the discipline either by the discovery of new knowledge or by the exercise of a new and independent critical approach.” This language (particularly the phrase “discovery of new knowledge”) can reinforce the above interpretation of originality as radical innovation.

I would argue, to the contrary, that what philosophers mean by original is something much more specific. First, original work is something that arises not solely from oneself, but through a rigorous and focused engagement with a narrow area of literature, articulated in relation to a clearly defined research question. Second, originality in philosophy is contextual. It is not about inventing entirely unprecedented material; rather it is an attempt at improving in some way an ongoing conversation. By articulating a new objection, framing an old debate in a new way, or applying familiar ideas to a novel case, a student’s work can be original relative to its research area and in a way that is meaningful within the discipline.

Here, originality is not something one should hope to achieve by beginning one’s research deliberately aiming for it. Rather, one should aim at a thorough understanding of a specific subfield and the debates within it. This puts one in a position to see what problems persist and to avoid reinventing the wheel, which may in turn allow one to produce a novel contribution. Originality may come, then, as a natural by-product of seeking understanding.

This stands in stark contrast to the interpretation of originality as radical innovation. Indeed, an abundance of innovation can actually hinder one’s philosophical progress. Aiming to be independent of existing literature risks severing the ties that ground an argument in shared standards, distinctions, and debates. Academic philosophy does not reward work that is merely creative. It rewards work that is intelligible, rigorous, and well-anchored within an established problem space.

There is potential for similar confusion surrounding the idea of “interdisciplinarity”. The Cambridge Dictionary (2025) defines interdisciplinary work as “involving two or more different subjects or areas of knowledge.” The Collins Dictionary (2025) offers a similar definition, defining interdisciplinary work as “involving more than one academic subject”. Again, these definitions are insufficient to give students a clear understanding of what philosophers seek when they call for interdisciplinary work.

A reasonable interpretation of these definitions would be that interdisciplinary work is work that is written in the style (broadly conceived) of two (or more) disciplines and devotes at least a substantial minority of its content to engaging with the distinct debates, methods, and standards of each disciplinary field it draws upon. Indeed, this conception of interdisciplinarity has historical grounding in works such as Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) and Robert Owen’s *A New View of Society *(1813), both of which integrate philosophy, economics, politics, and sociology, without being clearly grounded in a single disciplinary methodology.

I have found that this conception of interdisciplinarity is not what today’s philosophers usually want when they call for “interdisciplinary” work. In contemporary academic philosophy, “interdisciplinarity” typically refers to work that remains firmly grounded in one subfield of philosophy while drawing selectively from another discipline, often importing examples, concepts, or case studies to enrich an otherwise clearly philosophical project. The norms of argumentation, structure, and rigour remain squarely philosophical. Therefore, the “interdisciplinary” work contemporary academic philosophers value is not a hybrid of disciplines, but a recognisably philosophical contribution, clearly grounded in a certain sub-field of philosophy while being enriched by interdisciplinary references.

In fact, a student who interprets interdisciplinarity as genuine cross-disciplinary synthesis may find their work judged to be unclear or insufficiently grounded, sometimes precisely because it meets the everyday dictionary sense of interdisciplinarity. Conversely, work that remains firmly within disciplinary boundaries while selectively incorporating external material in a carefully delimited manner is more likely to be successful.

This divergence in both cases, originality and interdisciplinarity, can be demoralising. After being told to be “original” or “interdisciplinary” without a detailed explanation of how the profession interprets these terms, students may expend considerable effort pursuing goals that, while reasonable according to dictionary definitions, conflict with what academic philosophers actually reward. Academic philosophy must improve by clearly articulating what it means when it uses these terms. Originality involves making a careful, contextually grounded contribution to an ongoing conversation. It does not mean radical innovation. Similarly, interdisciplinarity means enriching a project clearly grounded in a subfield of philosophy with insights from other disciplines. It does not mean fully straddling different disciplines in the manner of Adam Smith.

Clarifying these expectations is not a minor pedagogical matter. It is essential to helping students succeed, avoid wasted effort, and stay motivated. Philosophy, as a discipline especially concerned with the clarity and precision of its concepts, owes its students this much.