Zettelkasten for Philosophy Advice

Sage

Hi, I am a newbie trying to start using the Zettelkasten, particularly in the field of philosophy. I have a few questions that I'm not sure about, hoping that I could get some guidance from more seasoned users.
1) What kind of notes should I be taking as "permanent notes"? Should they be what prominent philosophers e.g. Plato think about a certain topic, or should those be just within my reference system? Should my permanent notes just be my own synthesis of various different thoughts and views, a comparison of varying commentary on the same topic (or is that too "large" of a note to be atomic), or something else?
2) As a general rule of thumb, how many atomic notes should I be making per reading? I'm not sure how atomic the notes should be and the size of the ideas, so for example if I should have individual notes for every single thought about what Aristotle thinks about virtue and my commentary on it or just have it all in one big note or some in-between method.
3) Any other advice that would be helpful for getting started?

Sascha

What is the level of your philosophical education? (Asking because the answers depend on the tools at your disposal)

andang76

I know it might be trivial and even useless, but the answers to these questions depend on what you want to achieve by using the Zettelkasten. :-)

In both cases, it is best to choose the option that you see working best over time.

The process could be useful to you whether you want to understand and remember a concept from Plato, connect or contrast the different views of philosophers, or build your own personal research in the field of philosophy over time, or beeing able to "see" philosophy in many aspects of your life. Or having a blog about philosophy.

Personally, over time, the Zettelkasten has increasingly gained more value in the second type of development (personal view), since it is "my own stuff" rather than "something made by others that I find lying around", like the content of a book or a paper. It is irreplicable and tailor-made.

This is also how I think about atomicity. I don't try to make every note atomic because atomic notes are inherently better. Atomicity gives you certain properties: easier recombination, linking, reuse in different contexts, and so on. If those properties are useful for what you are trying to do, make the note more atomic. If a more composite note serves your purpose better, there is no reason to split it just to satisfy the rule.

When in doubt, you can also mix the different approaches.
Try exploring the different approaches, don't rule anything out, and see what works.

Make some smaller notes, some larger ones, try different ways of developing your readings and thoughts, and see what actually becomes useful to you over time.
My little personal advice: don't forget to involve your thoughts, your doubts, your questions, your observations, and so on into the stuff you'll process. They are often what makes the difference when using a Zettelkasten. It's not only a matter of extracting concepts from text writing by others.

To better understand what you need, instead of thinking "I want to use Zettelkasten for philosophy," try defining your "I want to achieve this from philosophy using Zettelkasten."
Different answers can slightly alter the structure and properties of your notes, as well as how you create them.
You don't need a "noble goal" right now. Your initial purpose can simply be "I want to play around with Zettelkasten a little and see if I can get it to work the way I want."

andang76

Going back to what I wrote and adding a little thing, having a Zettelkasten authorial knowledge and the development of your own thinking (about philosophy in this case) don't have to be alternatives.

At first, you might simply want to bring knowledge from other authors into your Zettelkasten, gradually building a foundation of your own knowledge about the subject.

Over time, you may realize that it is useful to build a second layer on top of that foundation: your own questions, interpretations, connections, comparisons, and ideas, drawing on the knowledge you have already accumulated.

This is actually what I have experienced in my own Zettelkasten. What initially looked like a system for collecting and organizing knowledge from others gradually became a system for developing my own thinking on top of that knowledge.

There is not necessarily a dichotomy between the two: quite the opposite.

harr

@Sage said:
Hi, I am a newbie trying to start using the Zettelkasten, particularly in the field of philosophy.

What kind of philosophical work are you interested in? Are you a hobbyist who just wants to learn a few basics? Are you taking classes and preparing for exams at school or university? Are you writing a PhD thesis in philosophy?

@Sage said:
1) What kind of notes should I be taking as "permanent notes"?

One of the more useful general rules is "don't copy Wikipedia" or "don't build an encyclopedia". There are enough encyclopedias available online where you can look up stuff. The idea is that you are selective in your notes. You only take notes about stuff that matters to you personally.

What do you expect to get out of Zettelkasten? What prompted you to start a Zettelkasten?

@Sage said:
2) As a general rule of thumb, how many atomic notes should I be making per reading?

As many as you need. :-)

It really depends on your interests. Sometimes you reference a 1000 page book in only one note. In other cases a single paragraph in a tiny booklet can prompt you to write a dozen notes.

@Sage said:
3) Any other advice that would be helpful for getting started?

Don't overthink it. Just get started. Treat the first 100 notes as an exercise that is meant to be thrown away. You learn a lot about Zettelkasten by trying things out.

Sage

I'm a student who is just starting to get into and learn about philosophy, but also want to eventually produce work of my own and go deeper into this field of study in the near future. Hope this is helpful.

andang76

I see two needs here: to build two layers. The first is to learn the foundations of philosophy. So, in a Zettelkasten, it can be helpful to write in terms of 'what Plato says,' or 'existentialism is.'

Once you've established the first layer, or even while you're building the puzzle piece by piece, you can start building your own perspective. You don't necessarily have to build the entire first layer before moving on to the second, nor do the two layers have to remain completely separate.

At least in my experience, when dealing with a new field of knowledge, before I can offer my own view, I need to know something about it first. And to know something about it, I have to understand and learn the ideas of others.

My first note in a new knowledge field is rarely a "true Zettel of my own".

It tends to almost always be something written by others, perhaps rephrased. Even just the definition of a concept I didn't know before (I need many "what is this"). Only over time do I see my own thoughts start to form around that initial note.

It’s a natural way to get started with Zettelkasten, which can then evolve however I need it to from that start.

For example:

"What does Plato say?" → "How does this relate to X?" → "How does it differ from Y?" → "I'm not convinced by Z..." → "My position might be..."

Could be one possible path. And not everything is mandatory, of course.

Not something you have to go through in a single day, but something that can emerge over many cycles of reading, thinking, and writing over time.

I don't know if it's the best advice in the world, but it's what I often do (though sometimes I take different approaches).

harr

@andang76 said:
I see two needs here: to build two layers. (…)
Once you've established the first layer, or even while you're building the puzzle piece by piece, you can start building your own perspective. You don't necessarily have to build the entire first layer before moving on to the second, nor do the two layers have to remain completely separate.
At least in my experience, when dealing with a new field of knowledge, before I can offer my own view, I need to know something about it first. And to know something about it, I have to understand and learn the ideas of others.

Same here. I find learning about "the ideas of others" particular important in philosophy because debating the ideas of others is at the heart of the discipline. Philosophers comment on the ideas of others, challenge them, elaborate on them, support them, contradict them, oppose them, celebrate them, etc.

So the foundational layer is about getting the facts straight. Who was Plato? What did he say? What did others say about what he said? etc.

We don't need a digital ZK to capture all that. Others use other kinds of notes or simply rely on their memory.

In my digital ZK I capture some details that others don't. In philosophy I use (among other types):

• person notes — these are notes about individual persons. When I write about Plato, I like to be able to link a note about Plato. The person note is where I collect all the tidbits and questions about Plato that I find interesting about Plato. It's also useful for backlinks, so that I easily find all the other notes that mentioned Plato. Person notes also help me get a better idea about an individual philosopher. In what time did he live? Who were his teachers, contemporaries, followers? How did we hear about his thinking? etc. These notes can get quite messy. I think of them like my personal sketchbook. A side effect of these notes is a richer mental image that makes it easier to remember the person.
• source notes — these are notes about individual works and sources that I reference or that are referenced by others. For example Plato's Symposium or Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus logico-philosophicus. This is where I process a source. This is where I collect literal quotes from a source for future reference. This is where I collect tidbits and questions about the source. In case of a classic text with multiple translations, like the Symposium, such a note also references and compares different translations. These notes can also get quite messy. They are my personal sketchbooks, not articles for publication.
• definition notes — this is where I define terms, phrases, concepts, etc. For example I have a note about Plato's lost halves that explains Aristophanes' myth of the spherical humans as I understand it and how others understand it.

I find philosophy much easier to understand when I think of it in terms of authors, their works and their concepts.

With this foundation, I find it much easier to write concise notes for the second layer, because I can use shortcuts for persons, sources and concepts that link to the notes in the first layer.

This approach works for me. Others prefer other approaches.