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Rheinberger argues that scientific research is driven by the investigation of “epistemic things”—entities or phenomena that are not yet fully known or understood. These “things” emerge within “experimental systems,” which are the material and conceptual arrangements of research. Rheinberger claims these systems don’t just reveal pre-existing objects but actively shape and bring forth these epistemic things through the ongoing process of experimentation. In this way the unknown plays a key role in scientific discovery. ↩︎
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“A discourse coalition is a set of actors that, via their activities in particular practices, shares and reproduces a particular construction of reality (cf. Hajer 2009). Note that actors within a particular discourse coalition do not necessarily agree with each other on matters of substance; yet they share a language to express their concerns and fight their fights. Hence, they will also search for solutions within the confines of the reality that that particular discourse allows one to express.” (Hajer 2004:300). ↩︎
- A video interview with the author.
- A summary of the argument, adapted from the introduction: The Surprising New Significance of Shu Ha Ri in Postwar Karatedo.
- A 1983 BBC documentary about Okinawan karate: The Way of the Warrior: Karate, the Way of the Empty Hand. This is extraordinary and a real classic! (mentioned in a footnote on p.97).
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Leonardo da Vinci, whose notes were “a collection without order”;
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Leibniz, who created a haystack of notes (oh, and calculus);
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Aby Warburg, who suffered from Verknüpfungszwang - the compulsion to find connections; and
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Hermann Berger, a Swiss author who wrote a novel about a Zettelkssten (two actually) but didn’t publish it.
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Then there’s cultural theorist Walter Benjamin, who invented a whole new methodology for his Arcades Project, which he didn’t finish. Wikipedia. He’s certainly a candidate for unqualified posthumous ADHD diagnosis.
Is there a Zettelkasten method?
Quite a few people write and speak about the Zettelkasten, a simple way of maintaining a note making system, but is there really any such thing? An online forum comment drew my attention, since it captured something I’ve been thinking about for a while:
“I have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a method. The very adjective is a mistake. What exists are a few very general guidelines, essentially revolving around the idea of atomic notes and some form of connection between them. I am not saying this as a criticism of the method or anyone. I have been using “the method” since 2020 and appreciate zettelkasten.de. But there is no method. There is not much to write about “the method” as if it were something beyond those two guidelines.” - u/Magnifico99 on Reddit.
Here are my thoughts and I’d like to know what you think.
There’s no single method, but many
“I have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a method… What exists are a few very general guidelines… But there is no method.” - u/Magnifico99 on Reddit.
I really agree with this. There is no single ‘method’. Instead there’s a seemingly obsolete practice of writing notes on small slips of paper and arranging them so they can be found again. Then there’s the digital version of this, which differs from how most note-making apps expect their users to do things.
“What exists are a few very general guidelines, essentially revolving around the idea of atomic notes and some form of connection between them.” - u/Magnifico99 on Reddit.
Well, yes, that’s pretty much it. At any rate, there’s not all that much more to it than that. And I appreciate a minimal approach to making notes.
It’s not a method, but an ‘approach’
I usually employ the phrase Zettelkasten approach. That’s because there clearly isn’t just a single Zettelkasten method. The German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, unwitting patron saint of contemporary Zettelkasten discussions, kept two different Zettelkästen, and everyone else who ever made notes on cards also did it a bit differently from everyone who was doing something similar. I’ve read several 19th and 20th century manuals on writing and note writing - and they all prescribe slightly different approaches, which are all a bit different both from how Luhmann did it and from how most people do it now.
We can experiment with writing notes
But this fuzzy definition isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength. It means the field is wide open for us to experiment and to discover and share what works for us, each of us, guided, but not constrained, by a handful of simple principles.
I see the Zettelkasten in the context of what science historian Hans-Jörg Rheinberger calls “epistemic things” (1997). By discussing the Zettelkasten, we’re actually engaging in the process of creating it 1. Conversely, if ever the conversation stops, that’s when the concept is over. As the Russian literary theorist Mikhael Bakhtin (1986) said,
“If an answer does not give rise to a new question from itself, it falls out of the dialogue”.
But isn’t it a waste of time?
“For a few years now, I have not been able to read anything about Zettelkasten on the internet without clearly feeling that I am wasting my time or indulging in some form of entertainment."- u/Magnifico99 on Reddit.
Despite writing quite a lot here about note-making (sorry to waste your time, dear reader), I agree with this view too. Since the basic guidelines are simple, there’s only so much to be said about them before confusion ensues.
In particular, I’m frustrated by a ballooning of idiosyncratic vocabulary. For example, ‘evergreen notes’? This is kind of helpful, though it seems to be conflating note-making with journalism. For journalists an evergreen article is one you can write at any time of the year and publish later, since it won’t get old. It’s what the newspapers publish when all the journalists are on holiday around Christmas and New Year.
Andy Matuschak reuses this concept for his evergreen notes, to describe something slightly different: a note that stays fresh because it can always be added to. I don’t usually add to my notes. Instead I resolve this differently - not by editing and updating my notes, but by writing new, linked notes, so I can clearly see the evolution of my thought over time.I’m also a little frustrated by the proliferation of supposed note types. What’s the difference between a ’fleeting note’ and a ‘permanent note’?
These concepts are like training wheels on a bicycle. They’re useful until you don’t need them, but as with training wheels, there’s a possibility they may impede learning, for some people.
I’m even more frustrated with all those YouTube videos and AI-generated articles purporting to come from helpful experts but actually just regurgitating the previous videos and SEO fodder.
It seems like everyone who ever heard of the Zettelkasten approach has also made a YouTube video or ten about it. And if you look at the chat bot marketplaces you’ll see that there’s an explosion of AI Zettelkasten ‘helpers’ that all offer various half-baked schemes for writing all your notes for you. I counted more than 50 before I gave up. It all seems to add up to nothing but a pile of pointlessness.
So where’s the silver lining?
In two words: community and practice. Low-key community, that is, and real-life practice.
Low-key community
Low-key community is one silver lining to all this rumination. There’s a loose assortment of people (on Reddit/zettelkasten, zettelkasten.de, maybe the Obsidian forums and personal knowledge management (PKM) forums somewhere — and even some readers of this very website) who are interested in better writing and clearer thinking. We are using the Zettelkasten approach as a social object, around which to gather and work on.
These people don’t necessarily agree with one another. In fact disagreeing is one key hallmark of a ‘discourse coalition’ (Hajer, 2009), where everyone who talks about the same thing gets to mean something different by it, then argues over the definitions 2. Although this may sound obtuse, it’s actually quite productive. That’s because it’s in the nature of objects of knowledge to be unfinished or unattained - maybe perpetually.
objects of knowledge in many fields have material instantiations, but they must simultaneously be conceived of as unfolding structures of absences: as things that continually ‘explode’ and ‘mutate’ into something else, and that are as much defined by what they are not (but will, at some point, have become) than by what they are. - Cetina (2001: 182).
Not that, but this. Not quite agreeing on the contours of the Zettelkasten approach is evidence that it’s worthwhile (at least for us) to continue to explore the concept. The more you look into it, the more you see.
“objects of knowledge appear to have the capacity to unfold indefinitely. They are more like open drawers filled with folders extending indefinitely into the depth of a dark closet.” - Bennet (2005). Chat GPT made this great image, but for now your job putting handles on drawers appears quite safe.
Real-life practice
The other silver lining, the main one really, is real-life practice. Writing is and remains an ‘organizational technology’ for thinking (Eddy, 2023). By writing notes, and experimenting with doing it better (whatever better means), people are gradually improving their skills at writing and thinking productively and meaningfully.
Until the hype settles down, AI is revolutionising our understanding of the significance of literacy, but the need to organise our thoughts effectively will probably increase, not decrease. Making notes, whatever the ‘method’ or ‘approach’, will continue to have a place in the intellectual toolkit.
That’s my view and I’m sticking to it until you convince me otherwise. I’ve found the Zettelkasten approach to making notes very helpful and I know others have too.
Now read:
Don’t let your note-making system infect you with Archive Fever.
What to do when you’ve made some notes.
I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters. It’s a short and accessible introduction to the concept, available now.
And if you liked this article, why not subscribe to the weekly Writing Slowly email digest?
References
Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. University of Texas Press.
Bennett, T. (2005), ‘Civic Laboratories: Museums, Cultural Objecthood and the Governance of the Social’, Cultural Studies, 19(5): 521-547. Preprint PDF
Cetina, Karin Knorr (2001). Objectual practice. Ch.12 in The practice turn in contemporary theory. Ed. Theodore R. Schatzki. London: Routledge, 17-18. P. 182
Eddy, Matthew (2023). Media & the Mind : Art, Science, and Notebooks as Paper Machines, 1700-1830. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Hajer, Maarten A. (2009). Authoritative Governance: Policy-Making in the Age of Mediatization. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
Hajer, Maartin (2024). Teaching discourse and dramaturgy. Ch. 20 in St. Denny, Emily, and Philippe Zittoun, eds. Handbook of Teaching Public Policy. Cheltenham, UK ; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg (1997). Toward a history of epistemic things: Synthesising proteins in the test tube. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Mastering Any Skill, the Japanese Way
📚 A review of Analysis of Shu Ha Ri in Karate-Do: When a Martial Art Becomes a Fine Art by Hermann Bayer, Ph.D.
Most people believe that mastery of a skill comes from practicing harder and longer. ‘10,000 hours of deliberate practice’ has achieved a level of imperative unwarranted by the actual evidence (Epstein, 2021). Yet countless learners, whether in business, the arts, or sport, hit a plateau they can’t break through. The problem isn’t effort. It’s that they’re missing a hidden progression that separates the true experts from the merely experienced.
For centuries, Japanese masters have understood this journey. It has three distinct phases, Shu, Ha, Ri, and each demands a different mindset and approach. Skip one, and your growth stalls. Get them right, and you move beyond imitation into competence and ultimately mastery. Unlike many Western theories of learning, it’s not a linear set of stages to be climbed like the rungs of a ladder: instead it’s a cycle, a spiral of increasing competence where the earliest phase is never forgotten.
Hermann Bayer’s Analysis of Shu Ha Ri in Karate-Do is one of the clearest and most extensive explanations of this progression I’ve encountered. While his examples come from Okinawan karate, his real subject is the universal process of moving from novice to master, potentially in any discipline.
Bayer brings to his writing both deep scholarship and decades of martial arts expertise. This shows, but the book remains reasonably accessible for general readers. He unpacks philosophical ideas without jargon, showing exactly how they play out in practice. One of his most important clarifications is effectively a major theme of the book: Shu Ha Ri is not an Okinawan tradition. Despite its frequent modern association with karate, Bayer shows that the concept comes from Japanese fine arts, especially from the tea ceremony, and only entered karate after karate’s fairly recent introduction to mainland Japan, in 1922. This detail is more than just historical trivia; it changes how you see the concept. Shu Ha Ri is not tied to a single fighting style, and certainly not to karate. It’s potentially a transferable blueprint for mastering any complex skill.
Although Shu Ha Ri has wide applicability and has been adopted in many different disciplines, Bayer does focus heavily on karate, and on its Okinawan origins. This is the author’s specialist field. He is, after all the author of the two-volume Analysis of Genuine Karate, which explores Okinawa as the cradle of true karate. So readers curious about Shu Ha Ri, but with limited interest in karate and Okinawan history may wish for more examples from other disciplines. But the underlying framework is so universal that the author’s examples still work. You don’t need to know a kata from a kumite to apply what you learn.
If you are a practitioner of Karate, I suspect after reading this book you’ll never see it in quite the same way. But what makes the concept of Shu Ha Ri valuable beyond martial arts is its potential application to any field where performance and creativity matter. For instance, writers might see how to move from imitating their influences to developing a unique voice. Leaders might understand when to enforce process and when to encourage innovation. Artists, athletes, and entrepreneurs might recognise the moment to step beyond rules without losing their foundation.
If you care about personal growth and continuous improvement, or want a proven roadmap to mastery, this book will give you both the theory and the practical insight to get there. By the time you finish it, you won’t just understand Shu Ha Ri, you’ll be inspired to integrate this learning philosophy into your own life. And in case you were tempted, you will never again confuse Shu Ha Ri with the historical traditions of Okinawan karate.
Details
Analysis of Shu Ha Ri in Karate-Do: When a Martial Art Becomes a Fine Art by Hermann Bayer, Ph.D. (June 2025, ISBN: 9781594399954)
Purchase directly from the publisher, YMAA.
Resources
I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters. It’s a short and accessible introduction to the concept, available now.
And if you enjoyed this review, you may like to subscribe to the weekly Writing Slowly email digest.
Open, free and poetic
The Web is 34 years old! Following on from Plenty of ways to write online, here are some really practical resources to help you create your own presence online :
Keeping the Web free, open and poetic.
Old hands will probably find a few useful tips here too.
Oh, and here’s another great big list of useful personal website stuff. Actually, I’m making a note of this for my own ‘going down the rabbit-hole’ purposes:
Resources List for the Personal Web
It’s also easier than ever to publish a book. Check out mine: Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters. And to stay connected, subscribe to the weekly email digest.
*Image source: Public Domain, Wikimedia.
#indieweb #webwriting #worldwideweb #blogging
Plenty of ways to write online
Writing online is more accessible than ever. We can maintain control of our own work by publishing on personal websites while also syndicating content to social media. And as I’ve discovered, it’s also easier than ever to publish a book..
Watch in awe as a fleeting thought becomes a lasting note
I describe in detail how I wrote a blog post and then repurposed it as a permanent note in my Zettelkasten collection. This is the opposite of my usual workflow, where I create publishable writing from my existing notes.
Hot takes on our future with AI
Here are eight ‘hot takes’ on the latest problems, questions and opportunities large language models are giving us. It was going to be just three, but the hot takes are coming thick and fast right now. These links are shared alongside my personal reflections on the impact and future of AI that does your writing for you while cosplaying as a human.
I designed a book in three and a half hours
A while ago, well, quite a long while ago, I designed a book in three and a half hours. Fun, yes, but it wasn’t very publishable.
Now, years later, I’ve finally got round to updating and redesigning the whole thing.
Yes, I’m still writing slowly but I’m excited to say it will soon be available for sale - so watch this space for more information.
I’m unqualified to diagnose the following writers with ADHD but I’ll do it anyway
Yes indeed: confidently diagnosing deceased note-making writers with ADHD, while in possession of no medical qualifications myself, is a temptation I simply cannot resist.
For example I have wondered about:
As I said, it’s interesting, but for now I’ll stop there.
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This post started life as a comment on Reddit. If you’d like more from me, but in a weekly email, why not subscribe right now?
Don't let your note-making system infect you with Archive Fever
The Zettelkasten note-taking system offers a structured approach to organizing thoughts but might induce “archive fever,” which may lead to an obsession with preservation over actual writing. Here’s how to protect yourself.
Don’t throw away your old notes
Don’t throw out your old notes, even if you feel overwhelmed by them. Here are some helpful ideas on what to do instead.
How Walter Breuggemann shaped me
At its best, a family can be ‘a communal network of memory and hope in which individual members may locate themselves and discern their identities’
What to do when you've made some notes: Start writing
The next step after taking notes is to create a finished piece of writing, acknowledging that the first draft may be disorganized but serves as a foundation for improvement.
What I Learned from Bob Doto about Making Effective Notes and Writing a Book
Historian Dan Allosso led a discussion on Bob Doto’s insights on flexible note-taking and writing processes. It emphasised the importance of iterative development and audience engagement. Here are my notes.
Influence is everything: novelty its flimsy dress
This whole article dumbed down by AI summary: Cultural trends often leave behind valuable ideas that merit revisiting rather than being dismissed as unfashionable. And I thought I was being clever.
A search for meaning in the palace of lost memories: Thoughts on Piranesi, a novel by Susanna Clarke
Susanna Clarke’s novel Piranesi has got me thinking about memory, identity, the fallibility of writing, and the paradox that intrinsic value might be created rather than found
Who says you have to choose between yourself and others? The case for intelligent generosity
It’s not rocket science but if you want to foster sustainable generosity and human flourishing here’s how to cultivate a balance between caring for yourself and supporting others.
Daniel Wisser’s notecards as art and archive
Daniel Wisser’s exhibition in Vienna features 60 index cards with sketches of stories displayed in a note box (Zettelkasten).
What Tim Berners-Lee Has to Teach About Effective Notes
Tim Berners-Lee’s insights on the interconnected nature of knowledge have inspired a flexible, web-like approach to note-making that mirrors my natural thinking rather than some restrictive categorization.
Leibniz created a haystack of notes that wouldn't fit in his Zettelschrank
Gottfried Leibniz, a prolific yet disorganized thinker, struggled to manage an overwhelming influx of ideas, resulting in a vast but minimally published literary legacy. Is this a cautionary tale or some other kind of tale? I have an opinion.
Sinister Zettelkasten?
The 2025 Sydney Film Festival program features Jodie Foster’s new film, “Vie privée,” accompanied by a marketing image that evokes mystery with index card boxes in the background.