I wish to know what scope there is in academic philosophy for amateur philosophers? By amateur philosopher, I mean anybody who is not a professional philosopher, anybody whose livelihood does not depend on philosophy. And by academic philosophy I mean the philosophical discourse and dialogue that takes place on the venue of academic journals of philosophy, philosophy conferences and philosophy books.

Being a professional philosopher is certainly not an official prerequisite for participating in the discourse of academic philosophy. Let's just consider the case of philosophy journals for now - publish their articles in peer reviewed journals of academic philosophy is an excellent way for philosophers to participate in the discourse of academic philosophy is to. But being a professional philosopher is certainly not a prerequisite for this. Journals publish articles based solely on the credentials of the submitted article rather than the credentials of the author (this is what is meant by a "blind" peer review process). The journal is not interested in who you are but is only interested in one question: is the submitted article of a high quality? So long as the submitted article is of a high quality the journal does not care who you are - you need not be a professional, you need not be a professor and you need not even have a PhD; as far as the journal knows, you may be 13 years old.

Although the journals aren't specifically restricted to professional philosophers, I'm willing to bet that over 90% of articles published in academic journals of philosophy are in fact submitted by professional philosophers. (Of course, I just made up that number, 90, and I'm interested in knowing the actual percentage figure here.)

I'm asking this question for personal reasons - because this is something that I'm personally interested in doing with my life. I'm currently finishing up college and looking to go into a philosophy PhD program, but beyond that I'm not sure if I want to pursue a career in professional philosophy. But I'm also not sure that I want to turn my back on philosophy entirely. So I'm wondering, if I go down that path, what scope will there be for a person like me to publish my work in journals of philosophy and be part of the philosophical discourse and dialogue?