When I'm not on the beat for Refiner, I can sometimes be found in a university classroom talking about philosophy with my students. While these conversations, you’ll not be surprised to hear, rarely touch on the finer points of translating and copyediting, we do talk about language, especially when it comes to writing coursework and essays – and here there are some interesting parallels with what we do at Refiner.

A philosophy paper stands and falls with the author's arguments and ideas. To a large extent, this part – the content – is something that you develop outside of the essay. The role of the finished product is to convey those ideas. And, put simply, how well a text does this boils down to two things: (i) structure and (ii) language.
When it comes to structure, I'm afraid to say, my advice is rather formulaic:
Introduction: say what you are arguing for and describe the structure of the argument
Body: expand on the argument, following the structure you described in the introduction
Conclusion: repeat the description of what you argued and the structure of the argument
My advice on language isn't too different in tone: keep the vocabulary simple, use as little jargon as possible, and make sentences as short and direct as possible.
I imagine this advice is rather uninspiring to many students and gives them the impression that philosophical writing is rather dull. As it goes, there is some truth to that. For, indeed, this is very much the standard advice in the philosophical tradition I trained in and much of the material I teach is rooted in – the so-called analytic tradition.
To describe the analytic tradition succinctly: It started in the early to mid-20th century and is now the tradition most taught in English-language universities. Its luminaries include Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein (at least the young one), John Rawls and more recently, Daniel Dennett. Even if you are familiar with these names, odds are you wouldn’t recognise many others. It is often rather unambitious, favouring (seemingly petty) debates about minutiae and specifics over answering the “big questions”.
And, reflecting that, it is governed by a rather plain methodological principle: When you put your ideas and arguments on paper, someone with no prior knowledge of the topic, or even any philosophical background, should be able to understand those ideas and judge the merits of your arguments
In other words, to get to the point, philosophy in this tradition is partly defined by the style in which it is written. Hence the uninspiring advice on essays. For, if just anyone should be able to understand your writing, it seems to follow that your writing should prioritise clarity and comprehensibility. And, so the thinking goes, the best way to achieve that is a formulaic structure, simple vocabulary, as little jargon as possible and uncomplicated sentences. (To be fair, not all philosophy in this tradition exemplifies these principles, and contemporary work has become far broader in ambitions and subject matter.)
Now, if you've got to this point and know anything about us, you may see the link to Refiner. We like to think of ourselves as connoisseurs of the clear language movement, and the thinking behind that movement should sound somewhat familiar:
Whatever your message is, when you communicate it in writing, you should prioritise clarity and comprehensibility.
Having read the story so far, you may be thinking that this convergence of principles is not entirely coincidental. And you'd be right – indeed, it's not just me. As it happens, our head honcho Margus also studied philosophy, and he also specialised in the analytic tradition.
But now for the twist in the tale...
The analytic tradition has a rival, an enemy, a nemesis: the so-called continental tradition.
The continental tradition is at least as hard to summarise as the analytic, but here’s a quick gloss. It, arguably, also started in the early – mid-20th century, but it is more explicitly tied to the history of philosophy than the analytic tradition, with thinkers such as Hegel, Marx and Kierkegaard as key influences. The “continent” is Europe, with France and Germany the main centres, but certainly not its extent. Luminaries of the tradition more narrowly defined include Sartre, Derrida, Deleuze and Guatari, and Jürgen Habermas. You could probably throw Foucault and Žižek in there, too. (Though sociologists and others would claim Foucault, and I’m not sure anyone wants to claim Žižek.) You might notice, the big names mainly fall into the continental camp. Not unrelated, you might notice that it includes a very wide range of thinkers and schools of thought. (Though, maybe that reflects the way these labels are sometimes employed to draw battlelines rather than serving any useful intellectual purpose.) It is often ambitious, openly tackling the big questions about existence, humanity, society and so on. And reflecting that – despite the range of thought it covers – this tradition could be said to follow a deep methodological principle:
When you put your ideas and arguments on paper, you must convey the variety and complexity, the contradictions and sometimes senselessness, and the inscrutable and usually baffling nature of existence, humanity, society and whatever else you are writing on.
In other words, to get to the point, continental philosophy is partly defined by the style in which it is written. A style that – deliberately – embraces poeticism, metaphor and (hidden) layers of meaning. For if the topics are deep and challenging, maybe the language needed to address them should not erase that through simplification and reductionism.
Now this is the point where the uncouth hordes of the analytic tradition cry out: “But good writing should be clear and comprehensible and the drivel that comes out of your lots’ gibbering mouths is anything but!”
(OK, maybe that's a little colourful for this lot. Still, you get the point.)
But this is where I diverge from some of those in the camp I’ve ended up in. To my mind, the kind of language that is appropriate depends upon the message it needs to get across, as well as the audience the message is intended for. And sometimes, conveying a message in the best way possible does require a less straightforward way with words. That is not to say, though, that clarity and comprehensibility go out the window – they are always essential. Rather, the point is that what counts as clear and comprehensible is just as dependent on the message and the audience as is any other aspect of the text.
So what does this mean for Refiner? It means that we will indeed always prioritise clarity and comprehensibility. But we do so only because we see our job as being to help you get your message across to your audience in the best way possible – not because of a dogmatic commitment to some ideology of style. And yes, for many contexts, we’ll preach simplicity and straightforwardness as the right way to do that job – but not for all. When the message requires, we’ll heartily embrace an artistic concept’s demand for metaphor and poeticism, a financial report’s need for specific terms and drilling down into the details, a marketing text's verve and energy, or, indeed, even the irregular, free-flowing, and imprecise looseness of a human conversation. (Not to mention an occasional tongue-in-cheek way with words for a light-hearted and lightly informative blog post.)