Comment by tw1010

Philosophy is not like software engineering. There's a lot more reading that needs to be done before you can make a contribution. A lot of it progresses by just reading the works of the established masters, getting ideas, and publishing your thoughts about what they had to say. You don't start from scratch. You build on what is already there. Addition by addition the field progresses and removes bad ideas or clarifies good ideas and long-term that mountain of work has gotten us from plato to the rich field it is today.