I sat across from my supervisors at the University of New England, discussing what I hoped would become my first peer-reviewed publication. The paper argued that understanding consciousness—both human and potentially artificial—is fundamentally a matter of paradigm lenses. I challenged assumptions about human superiority in intelligence and consciousness by drawing on Thomas Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions and Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. I’d worked the argument through multiple drafts, incorporating feedback regarding its theoretical rigor and engagement with the philosophy of mind literature. The conversation was productive. They offered good suggestions for strengthening my treatment of panpsychism and clarifying my intervention in consciousness studies.
Then I said it: “I think this might be ready to submit for publication.”
Their eyes conveyed a different message than their courteous words. There was a brief pause. The diplomatic “well, it’s coming along.” The subtle shift to discussing what the next draft might accomplish. The message was clear: not yet. Maybe after more revisions. Maybe after finishing the dissertation. Maybe when you’re more established.
After incorporating some of their suggestions, I submitted it to NanoEthics anyway.
Six months later, when the acceptance email arrived, I felt that particular satisfaction known to every graduate student who has ever trusted their own judgment against the cautious counsel of their mentors. It wasn’t vindictive—my supervisors had been genuinely helpful. But there was undeniable pleasure in forwarding them the acceptance notification: “In the Age of AI: A New Paradigm, A New Consciousness“ would be published in a Springer journal.
This experience taught me something crucial about the gap between academic mentorship and publication readiness, a gap that I suspect many graduate students navigate without sufficient guidance. Our supervisors, for all their expertise and good intentions, are not infallible judges of when work is ready for journal submission. Sometimes they’re conservative gatekeepers. Sometimes they simply misjudge unconventional work. Sometimes they’re protecting you from a rejection they assume is inevitable.
A Harvard-trained philosopher I know—now an independent scholar running Incite Seminars after leaving the university system—once related to me an anecdote about Nietzsche that has stayed with me. In his early years as a university lecturer in Basel, Nietzsche showed his emerging work to his academic supervisors. They laughed at his non-academic style, his wit, his neologisms, his unorthodox take on the history of philosophy. The work didn’t fit their template for serious scholarship. Nietzsche eventually left teaching and published The Birth of Tragedy independently. It became a classic of philological studies and transformed how we think about Greek culture, aesthetics, and the relationship between Apollonian and Dionysian forces in art.
I’m not comparing my first publication to The Birth of Tragedy—let’s be clear about that. But the parallel illuminates something important: academic gatekeepers, even well-meaning ones, can be poor judges of work that doesn’t conform to established templates. My paper on consciousness and AI was interdisciplinary, engaged with physics and cosmology alongside philosophy of mind, and argued for panpsychism as a framework for understanding machine consciousness. My supervisors wanted something more conventional for our internal discussions: something that fit neatly into recognizable philosophical categories. But NanoEthics, a journal that publishes at the intersection of emerging technologies and ethics, immediately understood what I was attempting.
Here’s what I learned that might help other graduate students in similar situations:
First, trust your own assessment of publication readiness. You know your argument better than anyone. You’ve lived with it through multiple drafts. You understand its intervention in the literature. If you genuinely believe it makes a contribution, submit it. The worst outcome is rejection with reviewer feedback—which is itself valuable. The best outcome is acceptance and the discovery that your judgment was sound.
Second, choose your venue strategically. My supervisors were evaluating my paper against traditional philosophy of mind journals, but I wasn’t writing for Mind or Philosophical Review. I was making an intervention in applied ethics and emerging technologies, bringing together philosophy of mind, physics, cosmology, and AI theory. This aligned well with my research into the future of human consciousness in the age of AI and quantum computing. NanoEthics was the right venue precisely because it values interdisciplinary work addressing urgent contemporary problems at the intersection of technology and ethics. Match your work to journals that share your methodological commitments and intellectual stakes.
Third, understand that supervisors’ caution often reflects institutional conservatism, not your work’s quality. Academia rewards caution. Supervisors don’t want their students to experience rejection. They prefer you submit work that’s ‘ready’ by very conservative standards. But journals—especially innovative ones—often have different criteria. They want timely interventions, fresh perspectives, and arguments that advance ongoing debates. What seems ‘not quite ready’ in a supervision meeting might be exactly what a journal needs.
Fourth, acknowledge that vindication requires humility. My supervisors had genuinely improved the paper through their feedback, even if they’d underestimated its publication readiness. The final published version was stronger because of their input. Academic mentorship is collaborative, not adversarial. The goal isn’t to prove supervisors wrong but to develop your own scholarly judgment alongside their guidance.
Finally, recognize that your first publication is about more than the CV line. It’s about discovering that you can contribute to scholarly conversations, that your voice matters, that you belong in these debates. Every established scholar was once a graduate student submitting their first article, wondering if they were delusional to think it was ready. The acceptance email doesn’t just validate your argument—it validates your judgment about your own work.
Would I recommend that every graduate student ignore their supervisors’ advice and submit work prematurely? Of course not. The feedback of supervisors is invaluable. They see weaknesses you’ve become blind to. They know the literature better. They understand disciplinary expectations.
But I would recommend this: when you’ve incorporated their feedback, when you’ve addressed the substantive concerns, when you genuinely believe your argument makes a contribution—submit. Don’t wait for enthusiastic endorsement. Don’t wait until every possible objection has been preemptively addressed. Don’t wait until you feel ‘ready’ in some absolute sense.
Nietzsche’s supervisors laughed at The Birth of Tragedy. Mine politely suggested more revisions. Sometimes the guardians of academic respectability are the least reliable judges of unconventional work. Sometimes you need to trust that the wider scholarly conversation is more open than your supervision meeting suggests.
Sometimes you just need to submit the damn paper.
John Hawkins
John Hawkins is a freelance journalist and poet who writes mostly about culture, politics, and the arts. He is currently pursuing a PhD in philosophy at the University of New England (Australia) and, simultaneously, a masters in humanities at Cal State Northridge. He blogs at his Substack site, TantricDispositionMatrix.
