To do so, I distinguish two constituent components—novelty as ingenuity/originality and novelty as discovery/priority—which, taken together, comprise the aspirational ideal of novelty. I outline a series of traps or pitfalls associated with the practical pursuit of each component part and show that efforts to avoid traps associated with one render philosophers vulnerable to traps associated with the other. I argue that an aspirational ideal of novelty should be rejected, as the pursuit of each component part is in tension with the other. Throughout my analysis, I demonstrate that the greatest risks accompanying the pursuit of novelty are unevenly distributed and that an aspirational ideal of novelty disadvantages certain practitioners disproportionately. I conclude that an aspirational ideal of novelty is less desirable and less feasible than it appears.