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Philosophy democratized? A comparison between Wikipedia and two other Web–based philosophy resources
by Beate Elvebakk
This article compares the individuals categorized as twentieth century philosophers in Wikipedia with the selection found in two major edited and widely used online philosophy resources, The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu), and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://www.iep.utm.edu). These are both free online resources, but unlike Wikipedia, they are written and edited by members of the academic community, and thus sanctioned by the established communities. The individuals presented as twentieth century philosophers are compared along the parameters of year of birth, gender, and national and disciplinary backgrounds. The results show that although the types of academics listed in Wikipedia are generally similar to those in the other encyclopaedias, their relative youth and their very numbers may still serve to give the user a very different impression on philosophy as a field.Contents
Introduction
Previous research
The encyclopaedias
Methodology
Results and discussion
Conclusions
Introduction
The Internet–based and user–generated encyclopaedia Wikipedia currently ranks among the ten most–visited Web sites worldwide (Wikipedia, 2008). It is also huge, and is still growing at a fast pace; the English Wikipedia edition had over 2,154,000 articles consisting of over 937,000,000 words as of 1 January 2008 (Wikipedia, 2008).
Wikipedia is widely used among students seeking information relevant to their studies. Prescott (2006) demonstrates that Wikipedia traffic is tied to the academic school year. In spite of this educational traffic, teachers and librarians are often sceptical of Wikipedia’s value as a source, since the contributors are multiple, uncertified and frequently unknown. In February 2007, the New York Times reported that the history department at Middlebury College requested that students not use Wikipedia as a source for their papers or exams (Cohen, 2007).
Informal tests of Wikipedia have, however, concluded that its articles generally maintain high quality, especially in subjects related to technology and the natural sciences (Giles, 2005; Wiegand, 2007). In the social sciences and humanities, however, the quality of the articles does not seem to have reached quite the same standards (Martens, 2006).
This article aims to investigate whether the aggregated information found in Wikipedia on twentieth century philosophers differs from what is found in two Web–based, yet more traditionally constructed encyclopaedias of philosophy. Given that philosophy is taught in schools and universities all of over the world, it is likely that these pages are also used as learning tools by many pupils and students. The question this article poses, then, is whether the information they will find, and therefore the image they will be given of philosophy as a discipline, differs substantially from what will happen if they use disciplinary encyclopaedias produced according to traditional academic standards of editing and peer review.
Previous research
Over the last few years, a number of researchers have investigated the quality of Wikipedia articles. Lih (2004) argued that article quality is a function of the number of contributors and edits, and this is supported by Wilkinson and Huberman (2007) who demonstrated that there is a high correlation between number of edits and contributors and article quality, as judged by the Wikipedia community through their selection of “featured articles.” A somewhat different perspective was presented by Duguid (2006), who maintained that there is no automatic relationship between the numbers of authors and resulting quality, as long as there exists no mechanism for removing inconsistencies in individual articles. He also pointed out that although Wikipedia as a whole attracts an enormous numbers of visitors, there are great numbers of less visited articles and categories that are likely to be characterized by much lower quality. This conclusion would in its turn seem to be confirmed by Wilkinson and Huberman (2007) who found that editing patterns in Wikipedia imply that “a small number of articles, corresponding to topics of high relevance or visibility, accrete a disproportionately large number of edits.” [1].
Chesney (2006) asked experts and non–experts to assess the quality of a selection of Wikipedia articles, and found that the experts ranked the articles significantly more credible than did non–experts, suggesting that the information is fairly accurate, although the quality ranking was not extremely high. Nielsen (2007) looked into the number of outbound scientific citations, and concluded that although the overall number of citations to scientific journals is quite small, the existing citations were highly correlated with those found in Thomson’s Journal Citations Reports.
Emigh and Herring (2005) found that Wikipedia’s articles are similar to those of traditional encyclopaedias in terms of content and level of formality, and viewed this as a double–edged sword, in that on the one hand, this similarity has probably contributed to Wikipedia’s acceptance and popularity, but, on the other, it also indicates that Wikipedia has not succeeded in its stated objective of providing access to alternative voices and points of view. This is also the conclusion reached by Bellomi and Bonato (2005), who made use of network analysis in order to study the aggregated content of the English language Wikipedia, as their results suggested that it is “strongly biased towards Western culture and history.”
Taken together, this research seems to suggest that Wikipedia content is generally, if not universally, trustworthy, but that the of quality of individual articles varies considerably. For better or for worse, Wikipedia does to a considerable extent mimic, or at least harmonize with, materials found in more traditional publications.
The question raised in this article, however, does not directly pertain to the quality or content of individual Wikipedia entries, but rather the topics covered, which is, as we shall see, perhaps not wholly unrelated to the problem of the reliability of Wikipedia as a source of information. Similarity or contrast to traditional literature is also a function of what kinds of information are made available, in other words: what entries can be found (or not found), and how these are grouped under various subject headings. This paper seeks to find whether this is the case for a particular subject area; that is philosophers from the twentieth century.
The encyclopaedias
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) (http://plato.stanford.edu/), is a “dynamic online reference work” (Allen, et al., 2002). It is dynamic in the sense that articles may continuously be added, updated, revised or expanded, to reflect developments in the field. Versions of SEP are “fixed” four times a year, and previous versions are retained in its archives. Updates from the last three months are listed in the “What’s new?” section, where it is also specified whether it the change consists in adding a new entry, or revisions to existing entries. Articles are relatively traditional in form, but authors are encouraged create “nested” documents, where “highly technical, scholarly, or highly detailed” information is put into supplementary documents, linked to the main article (Allen, et al., 2002).
Entries are written by individual academics, who are assigned the task, either based on their own submitted suggestions or commissions. All articles are signed by the author. The academic quality of the articles is to be ensured by an editorial board consisting of three principal editors and (as of 1 June 2007) 52 subject editors, many of whom are leading scholars in their respective fields. The members of the editorial board, along with around 50 occasional referees, review all new entries and “substantive updates,” whereas the faculty of the Philosophy Department at Stanford University make up the editorial board. The Encyclopaedia is aimed at “academics and the general public” and articles are available through search engines. The SEP is mainly funded by a series of grants.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) (http://www.iep.utm.edu/) is a similar initiative, founded in 1995 “for the purpose of providing detailed, scholarly information on key topics and philosophers in all areas of philosophy.” It has a staff of 25 editors and uses approximately 200 authors, all of whom hold doctoral degrees. Like the SEP, the IEP makes use of traditional peer review, along the lines of scholarly journals, and individual articles are signed by the authors. It does occasionally, but usually not, interlink articles, so its appearance is close to that of a traditional, paper–based encyclopaedia. The IEP receives no funding, and is based on voluntary work by editors, authors and technical advisors.
Wikipedia, on the other hand, is not based on a formalized peer review process; individual articles are not written by single individuals, but collectively by distributed and usually anonymous contributors. Wikipedia’s stated policy is that the articles should express a “neutral point of view”, but there are no formal requirements as to the academic qualifications of writers. There are also no editors or boards, and new entries and articles can be entered by any interested party. Although the fact that no individual authorship exists, and that writers need not be known or formally qualified are all significant differences from the other encyclopaedias, one the most significant changes may be that the number and types of entries are not set, limited or edited. Wikipedia, then, is the only non peer–reviewed resource of those studied. As such, the comparison between Wikipedia and the other reference works may also be of some interest for the discussion of alternatives to peer review in academic journal publishing.
Methodology
As Wikipedia is huge, it is not feasible to identify every single philosopher listed, so this article is limited studying the philosophers found under the Wikipedia category “twentieth century philosophers” per 1 July 2007. For the other two resources, being more limited in size, every philosopher from the relevant period has been included, defined as philosophers who died after 1910, as those who died before that date can probably more reasonably be seen as belonging to the previous century. (Arguably, this would also be the case for some of those dying after this date, but they were in virtually all cases included in Wikipedia’s twentieth century selection, therefore this somewhat arbitrary demarcation line has been used [2]).
Once the relevant articles had been identified, information was collected on date of birth, gender, nationality, and disciplinary background of the philosophers listed. This information was then used as the basis for comparing the individuals representing twentieth century philosophy in the three encyclopaedias.
The study only made use of information found in the relevant sources, i.e., information has not been checked against “independent sources” beyond those studied. This means that some of the parameters studied may seem to be parts of a circular argument, as individuals are, for instance, roughly categorized according to “disciplinary background”; a categorization which is based on the information provided in the encyclopaedias. Since this information could in principle be partial or incorrect, and the categorization depends on information that may in fact be part of the difference between the resources. (For the entries that were listed in more than one of the resources, however, no such cases were encountered). This must be accepted as an inherent limitation of the approach chosen, but also as part of the issue studied.
One major, and perhaps the main, difference between the encyclopaedias is simply scope. Whereas the SEP at the time of study covered 60 twentieth century philosophers (with projected entries for another 88) and the IEP 49, Wikipedia listed 534 names under the entry “twentieth century philosophers.” In addition, virtually all of the names listed in the other encyclopaedias that were not found under this entry, could be found elsewhere in Wikipedia. Some, such as Iris Murdoch, seemed to not be included in the list of philosophers because they were seen to be primarily known for other reasons. Others, such as Hannah Arendt, are explicitly said to be more correctly classified under a different discipline, whereas the omission of others seemed to be merely coincidental, and a function of Wikipedia’s distributed structure, that means that no responsible editor has devised an overall policy. As it is impossible to know about the reasons for the omissions, however, these names were not included in the study.
Certain individuals listed in Wikipedia certainly are regarded as philosophers. Others might be listed in the philosophical encyclopaedias because of their contributions eventually to the discipline. This would be the case for entries for Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Even so, a listing would suggest how philosophy is currently being defined in these encyclopaedias, as it suggests what kinds of work is relevant to contemporary philosophy, and what is an accepted aspect of the history of the discipline.
Since these resources are — to different degrees — dynamic, the versions current as of 1 June 2007 are in all cases used as basis for the analysis.
Results and discussion
As a first observation, we could note that the number of philosophers listed in all three resources was rather small, a total of 15 individuals. The main reason for this, however, is the relatively low rate of overlap between the two peer–reviewed resources.
Dates of birth
As shown in Table 1, there is a very pronounced difference between Wikipedia and the other encyclopaedias when it comes to when the philosophers covered were born. While the proportion of individuals born before 1900 ranges between 46.9 percent and 53.3 percent in IEP and SEP, the corresponding percentage in Wikipedia is 25.3 percent. Wikipedia also contains a significantly lower proportion (although a much higher absolute number) of philosophers born between 1900 and 1910. For every decade after 1920, however, the proportion is higher in Wikipedia, and about 10 percent of individuals listed in Wikipedia are born in the period from 1950 to 1980, from which decades neither of the other resources lists any philosophers at all.
Table 1: Dates of birth of twentieth century philosophers in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP),
Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (SEP) and Wikipedia.–1900 1900– 1910– 1920– 1930– 1940– 1950– 1960– 1970– Wikipedia 121
25.3%52
10.9%43 9.0% 63
13.2%64
13.4%89
18.9%34
7.1%10
2.1%3
0.6%SEP 32
53.3%12
20%9
15%5
8.3%2
3.3%0 0 0 0 IEP 23
46.9%10
20.4%3
6.1%6
12.2%5
10.2%2
4.1%0 0 0
For 55 of the philosophers listed in Wikipedia, no year of birth is given. This, however, seems mostly to be the case when the philosopher in question is still fairly young, and currently employed at an academic institution. These are not included in this part of the analysis, but it seems likely that their inclusion would have led a more pronounced contrast with the other two reference works. The percentages reported in Table 1 refer to the number of persons whose dates of birth are available, however.
This difference in age distribution means that Wikipedia does not, like the other reference works, contain only philosophers who are already an accepted part of the philosophical canon — it does not represent philosophers only as historical figures whom posterity have granted a right to be included in the tradition. Many of the (relatively) younger philosophers listed are major academic figures that would be familiar to most academic philosophers, such as for instance Martha Nussbaum or Fred Dretske. In that way, Wikipedia might be said to better reflect the current knowledge base and concerns of professional philosophers today, as the majority of — at least in the analytic tradition — philosophy is dealing with contemporary debates, and even work in the history of philosophy certainly refers to recent commentators.
However, a number of the entries are much more marginal figures, who are probably highly competent and widely published, but cannot be seen to be real heavyweights. It is likely that this tendency will become more pronounced as Wikipedia grows, and ever more names are added to the list. As Lih (2004) points out, one of the strengths of Wikipedia is its ability to supplement existing encyclopaedias by filling in the “knowledge gap” for the period between when news (in this case new literature) is published, and history books are written. Notably, however, this is also the explicit ambition of the SEP, and, as a matter of fact, some of the entries found in Wikipedia refer to philosophers who are so young and relatively early in their careers, that one suspects that the entries could only have been added by someone close to the person in question, or indeed by the person herself, as a form of self–advertising.
Wikipedia then, unlike IEP and SEP, presents twentieth century philosophy as a highly dynamic field, rather than as set of iconic figures. Thus, it can be said to be a more truthful representation of the state of contemporary philosophy. On the other hand, it might make it more difficult for the reader to distinguish between those who are indeed considered to be important contributors, and those who are merely competent, and in some cases, perhaps not even that.
Gender distribution
The gender distributions in the three encyclopaedias are fairly similar, the proportion of women listed ranging from 6.7 percent to 10.2 percent (see Table 2). This, however, is somewhat surprising, as Wikipedia does, as we have seen, include a number of younger philosophers on its list, and thus covers a period when the number of women in the academe has increased quite dramatically. This is not reflected in Wikipedia’s gender distribution, however. One explanation for this apparent anomaly might be that the other reference works have made conscious efforts to improve their coverage of female philosophers, so that their proportion of female philosophers is in fact an overrepresentation relative to the number of female philosophers working in the periods they cover. Another reason could be that public perceptions of philosophers reproduce traditional gender roles and patterns, and male philosophers tend to be seen as more important contributors to the field. One might also speculate that some of the younger individuals listed have added their own name to the list, in which case the gender distribution might also reflect the respective genders’ self–promotion strategies.
Table 2: Gender of twentieth century philosophers in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP),
Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (SEP) and Wikipedia.Female Male Wikipedia 47
8.8%487
91.2%SEP 4
6.7%56
93.3%IEP 5
10.2%44
89.8%
Disciplines
In order to see whether the encyclopaedias differ systematically in their focus, and thus in their representation of philosophy as such, an attempt was made to categorize the listed individuals in the three encyclopaedias according to disciplinary backgrounds. This is necessarily an inexact science, but individuals were tentatively grouped into broad groups, in so far as possible without taking the substantial content of their thought into consideration. The idea was instead to group them according to institutional criteria.
The “philosophy” group encompasses any person who is reported to have trained and worked as a professional philosopher in an academic institution. The other groups contain people who either belong fully to another professional category (like Albert Einstein), or who are reported in the articles to belong to philosophy and another discipline. An example of the latter sort is the mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. In cases where individuals are reported to belong to philosophy and another discipline, they were categorized as belonging to the other category, so as to highlight tendencies and contrasts in and between the encyclopaedias.
These other disciplines are broadly construed as “natural sciences and mathematics,” “social sciences” (including law and psychology), and “humanities” (including theology). Also included are two further — non–academic — professions. One is “writing,” a category that encompasses anything from journalism to poetry. In this category one finds individuals who have given expression to important artistic, metaphysical or political ideas, but who are not professional philosophers, nor have been used as such to any considerable degree by the later philosophical tradition. Many of these individuals could also be called “public intellectuals.” Another group has been labelled “spiritual.” In this category one finds gurus, religious mystics and other thinkers of a more spiritual inclination, that do not interact much with the academic philosophical community. Lastly, a few individual listed in Wikipedia defied any of these classifications, and these have simply been excluded them from the analysis. Examples are a British politician with a background in philosophy, and the man who invented cryonics.
It is, of course in some cases difficult to decide what category is most appropriate for a given individual, and this categorization can clearly be disputed, but on the whole, the picture that emerges should nevertheless be able to yield some information about general tendencies and differences in focus between the encyclopaedias.
Table 3: Disciplines of twentieth century philosophers in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP),
Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (SEP) and Wikipedia.SEP IEP Wikipedia Philosophy 50
83.3%34
69.4%390
73.0%Social sciences 3
5%4
8.2%31
5.8%Humanities 1
1.7%6
12.2%39
7.3%Math/sciences 6
10%4
8.2%20
3.7%Writers 0 1
2%26
4.9%Spiritual 0 0 25
4.7%
Table 3 shows that all the resources contain a very clear majority of professional academic philosophers, with the percentages ranging from 69.4 to 83.3. When it comes to distribution into other academic disciplines, Wikipedia takes the middle position between SEP and IEP for both humanities and social sciences, but includes a somewhat lower rate of individuals from mathematics and the natural sciences. The most striking contrast between Wikipedia and the others is that Wikipedia contains a number of individuals (though a fairly small percentage) in the “spiritual” category, which does not normally interact with academic philosophy. However, referring to such individuals as philosophers reflects a fairly widespread popular usage of the word. It might still indicate that Wikipedia might also be a challenge to disciplinary boundaries as defined by professional communities. Similarly, we can see that Wikipedia contains a slightly higher percentage of “writers” and a somewhat lower proportion of individuals from the category “mathematics and natural sciences,” which might again suggest that the aggregated picture of philosophy emerging in Wikipedia is somewhat more general, and less technical, than what has been the norm in professional philosophy.
National backgrounds
Philosophers were categorized not according to official nationality (which is usually not available), nor according to country of birth, but according to where the bulk of their academic work has been carried out. This approach was chosen because the main purpose of the exercise was to find what academic cultures are being presented, rather than where individual philosophers hail from. Adherence to such a culture cannot, of course, be exactly measured, and some entries are borderline cases, where individuals have had considerable careers in more than one country, but the overall picture should still give an idea of the respective cultural profiles of the resources. Individuals who had divided their careers roughly equally (according to available information) over several countries, where classified as belonging to the one that represented the highest overall number of individuals on the list, on the hypothesis that their being listed in the encyclopaedias was more likely as an effect of belonging to a hegemonic academic culture than a smaller one. Thus, for instance, Julia Kristeva was classified as being French, and Carl Gustav Hempel as being American. Since information is often incomplete, however, and this is ultimately a matter of discretion, the classifications are in some cases probably somewhat arbitrary, and it is likely that similar cases have in some instances been classified differently. Since these faults are unlikely to be systematic, however, this should not prevent us from getting the general picture roughly right.
Table 4: National backgrounds of twentieth century philosophers in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP),
Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (SEP) and Wikipedia.Nationalities SEP IEP Wikipedia U.S. 17
28.3%13
26.5%185
34.6%U.K. 13
21.7%8
16.3%108
20.2%Germany 10
16.7%7
14.3%35
6.6%France 11
18.3%13
26.5%55
10.3%Italy 0 0 17
3.2%Other European 6
10%5
10.2%71
13.3%Canada 0 1
2.0%13
2.4%South America 0 0 6
1.1%Oceania 1
1.7%1
2.0%10
1.9%Asia 2
3.3%1
2.0%31
5.8%Africa 0 0 3
0.6%
The results (see Table 4) show that the trend towards Anglo–American dominance or, more specifically, the hegemony of English–speaking countries is reinforced rather than weakened in Wikipedia. The reinforcement is due especially to the increasing proportion of American philosophers. The lower number of French and — especially — German philosophers listed in Wikipedia is probably to some degree a reflection of how the centre of the international philosophical community has shifted over the last few decades, and as such partly a consequence of the inclusion of a number of younger philosophers on the list. Wikipedia also has a slightly stronger representation of smaller European countries and other continents, but on the whole, there is no fundamental contrast to the IEP and SEP, to suggest that Wikipedia gives an alternative image of the geographical distribution of the world’s noteworthy philosophical thought. The picture presented in Wikipedia is a continuance of rather than a break with the picture of philosophical communities presented elsewhere, and does not shift the international “power balance” in philosophy.
Conclusions
This study seems to support the previous research that suggests:
- that Wikipedia is heavily skewed towards Western values, ideas and perceptions; and,
- that Wikipedia does not, on the whole, represent alternative voices or points of view.
On this background, we might say that Wikipedia does not represent the field of philosophy in a way that is fundamentally different from more traditional resources (though there might be a slight tendency toward a more “popular” understanding of the discipline). It is, however, extremely different in two respects: when it comes to the sheer number of entries, and where the age of the individuals listed is concerned. Thus, it does not present an image of an iconic, autonomous, and frozen philosophical history, but instead locates the philosophers in a messier, dynamic world, where the insides and outsides are not as clear as in traditional encyclopaedias. This happens through the inclusion of living philosophers, and “minor” philosophers, as well as a few individuals who are not universally acknowledged as being philosophers.
If a user tries to learn about philosophy from Wikipedia then, it is likely that the impression gained will be somewhat different from what would happen if the other resources were consulted. Philosophy would seem to be more of an ongoing process, and less of an established fact. As the number of entries in Wikipedia is steadily growing, this tendency is likely to become much more pronounced in the future, turning Wikipedia into a rather different kind of beast from other encyclopaedias; one that does not sit in judgment of greatness in the same way.
The very success of Wikipedia then, is also likely to mean that it is parting ways ever more visibly from more traditional sources of information. In many ways, this probably leads to what we might see as a more representative understanding of current philosophy, but it also leads to an understanding that is, in both senses of the word, less disciplined. The “quality” of Wikipedia as a reference work can therefore also be seen as a function of the entries included; or rather, its lack of exclusions. With Wikipedia, the student cannot take the mere fact of the existence of an entry as an indication of significance. Sifting through the articles in order to make a qualified assessment on the importance of the individuals and their work would take considerable time and effort. Wikipedia, then, might seem to be turning into a resource which is extremely handy for information, but that does not necessarily offer much in the way of guidance.
About the author
Beate Elvebakk is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Technology, Innovation and Culture at the University of Oslo. Her current research focuses on the roles of digital publications in the humanities and natural sciences.
E–mail: beate [dot] elvebakk[at] tik [dot] uio [dot] no
Notes
1. Wilkinson and Huberman, 2007, p. 12.
2. Several of the philosophers on the list are listed as “nineteenth century philosophers” in Wikipedia, but with the exception of Josiah Royce, they are all also listed as twentieth century philosophers.
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Appendix
Twentieth century philosophers covered in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP),
Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (SEP) and Wikipedia.Wikipedia SEP IEP Year of birth Nationality Discipline Hans Achterhuis X 1942 Europe Philosophy Marilyn McCord Adams X 1943 U.S. Philosophy Robert Merrihew Adams X 1937 U.S. Philosophy Jane Addams X X 1860 U.S. Philosophy Mortimer Adler X 1902 U.S. Philosophy Theodor W. Adorno X X X 1903 German Philosophy Giorgio Agamben X 1942 Italy Philosophy Virgil Aldrich X 1903 U.S. Philosophy Aleksandr Danilovich Aleksandrov X 1912 Europe Philosophy Samuel Alexander X 1859 U.K. Philosophy A.H. Almaas X Asia Spiritual William Alston X 1921 U.S. Philosophy Louis Althusser X 1918 France Philosophy Alice Ambrose X 1906 U.S. Philosophy Günther Anders X 1902 Germany Philosophy Alan Ross Anderson X 1925 U.S. Philosophy G.E.M. Anscombe X 1919 U.K. Philosophy Hannah Arendt X X 1906 U.S. Social sciences David Malet Armstrong X 1926 Oceania Philosophy Sri Aurobindo X 1872 Asia Spiritual J.L. Austin X 1911 U.K. Philosophy Alfred Ayer X X 1910 U.K. Philosophy Kent Bach X U.S. Philosophy Gaston Bachelard X 1884 France Philosophy Élisabeth Badinter X 1944 France Philosophy Max Baginski X 1864 U.S. Writer Archie J. Bahm X 1907 U.S. Philosophy Annette Baier X 1929 Oceania Philosophy Kurt Baier X 1979 U.K. Philosophy Thomas Baldwin X 1947 U.K. Philosophy Étienne Balibar X 1942 France Philosophy Jonathan Barnes X 1942 U.K. Philosophy Brian Barry X 1936 U.K. Philosophy Roland Barthes X 1915 France Humanities Jacques Barzun X 1907 France Humanities Georges Bataille X 1897 France Writer Diderik Batens X Europe Philosophy Jean Baudrillard X X 1929 France Social sciences Valentin A. Bazhanov X 1953 Europe Philosophy Monroe Beardsley X 1915 U.S. Philosophy Jean Beaufret X 1907 France Philosophy Simone de Beauvoir X X X 1908 France Philosophy Hamdija Begovic X Europe Philosophy Nuel Belnap X 1930 U.S. Philosophy Seyla Benhabib X 1950 U.S. Philosophy Walter Benjamin X 1892 Germany Humanities A.W. Benn X 1843 U.K. Philosophy Jonathan Bennett X 1930 U.K. Philosophy Geoffrey Bennington X U.K. Humanities Nikolai Berdyaev X 1874 Europe Philosophy Gustav Bergmann X 1906 U.S. Philosophy Henri Bergson X X 1859 France Philosophy Isaiah Berlin X X 1909 U.K. Philosophy Marshall Berman X 1940 U.S. Social sciences Robert Bernasconi X U.K. Philosophy Andrew Bernstein X 1949 U.S. Philosophy Homi K. Bhabha X 1949 Asia Humanities Harry Binswanger X 1944 U.S. Philosophy Simon Blackburn X 1944 U.K. Philosophy Maurice Blanchot X 1907 France Writer Brand Blanshard X 1892 U.S. Philosophy Ned Block X 1942 U.S. Philosophy Maurice Blondel X 1861 France Humanities Howard Bloom X 1943 U.S. Other Andy Blunden X 1945 Oceania Philosophy Hilary Bok X U.S. Philosophy Egon Bondy X 1930 Europe Philosophy Dietrich Bonhoeffer X 1906 Germany Humanities Laurence BonJour X U.S. Philosophy Bernard Bosanquet X 1848 U.K. Philosophy Pierre Bourdieu X 1930 France Social sciences F.H. Bradley X X 1846 U.K. Philosophy Robert Brandom X 1950 U.S. Philosophy Michael Bratman X 1945 U.S. Philosophy Geoffrey Brennan X Oceania Philosophy Franz Brentano X X 1848 Germany Philosophy Stephen Bronner X 1947 U.S. Social sciences L.E.J. Brouwer X 1881 Europe Science James Robert Brown X Canada Philosophy Martin Buber X X 1848 Europe Philosophy Tyler Burge X 1946 U.S. Philosophy Judith Butler X 1956 U.S. Philosophy J. Baird Callicott X 1941 U.S. Philosophy Albert Camus X X 1913 France Writer Hanneke Canters X 1969 Europe Philosophy Georg Cantor X 1845 Germany Science Rudolf Carnap X X 1891 Germany Philosophy Nancy Cartwright X 1943 U.S. Philosophy Ernst Cassirer X X 1874 Germany Philosophy Hector–Neri Castañeda X 1924 South America Philosophy Cornelius Castoriadis X 1922 France Philosophy David Chalmers X 1966 Oceania Philosophy Paul Chamberlain X Canada Philosophy Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya X 1918 Asia Philosophy G.K. Chesterton X 1874 U.K. Writer Roderick Chisholm X 1916 U.S. Philosophy Noam Chomsky X 1928 U.S. Humanities Andrea Christofidou X U.K. Philosophy Patricia Churchland X 1943 Canada Philosophy Paul Churchland X 1942 Canada Philosophy Emil Cioran X 1911 Europe Philosophy Hélène Cixous X 1937 France Humanities Kenneth Clatterbaugh X U.S. Philosophy Gerald Cohen X 1941 U.K. Social sciences Joshua Cohen X 1951 U.S. Philosophy Lucio Colletti X 1924 Italy Philosophy R.G. Collingwood X 1889 U.K. Philosophy André Comte–Sponville X 1952 France Philosophy David Conway X 1947 U.K. Philosophy Ananda Coomaraswamy X 1877 U.S. Humanities Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama X 1935 Asia Spiritual Jonathan Dancy X 1946 U.K. Philosophy Arthur Danto X 1924 U.S. Humanities Surendranath Dasgupta X 1887 Asia Philosophy Donald Davidson X X X 1917 U.S. Philosophy Brian Davies X 1951 U.K. Philosophy Guy Debord X 1931 France Writer Gilles Deleuze X X 1925 France Philosophy Daniel Dennett X 1942 U.S. Philosophy Jacques Derrida X X X 1930 France Philosophy Friedrich Dessauer X 1871 Germany Science Michael Devitt X Oceania Philosophy John Dewey X X X 1859 U.S. Philosophy Peter Dews X 1952 U.K. Philosophy Sousa Dias X 1956 Europe Philosophy Hugo Dingler X 1881 Germany Science Fred Dretske X 1932 U.S. Philosophy Michael Dummett X 1925 U.K. Philosophy Pierre Lecomte du Noüy X 1883 France Philosophy Curt John Ducasse X 1881 U.S. Philosophy William A. Earle X 1919 U.S. Philosophy Umberto Eco X 1932 Italy Humanities Albert Einstein X 1879 U.S. Science Dorothy Edgington X U.K. Philosophy Mircea Eliade X 1907 Europe Humanities Ignacio Ellacuría X 1930 Europe Philosophy Robert Ettinger X 1918 U.S. Other Gareth Evans X 1946 U.K. Philosophy Ahmad Fardid X 1939 Asia Philosophy Feng Youlan X 1895 Asia Philosophy Michael Ferejohn X U.S. Philosophy Paul Feyerabend X X 1924 U.S. Philosophy Arthur Findlay X 1883 U.K. Spiritual Arthur Fine X 1937 U.S. Philosophy Alain Finkielkraut X 1939 France Humanities Guy Finley X 1949 U.S. Spiritual John Finnis X 1940 U.S. Philosophy Antony Flew X 1923 U.K. Philosophy Pavel Florensky X 1882 Europe Humanities Luciano Floridi X Italy Philosophy Vilém Flusser X 1920 Europe Philosophy Jerry Fodor X 1935 U.S. Science Philippa Foot X 1920 U.K. Philosophy Michel Foucault X X X 1926 France Humanities Gary L. Francione X 1954 U.S. Social sciences Charles Frankel X 1917 U.S. Philosophy Harry Frankfurt X 1929 U.S. Philosophy Oliver Franks X 1905 U.K. Philosophy Gottlob Frege X X X 1848 Germany Science Sigmund Freud X X 1856 Europe Social sciences Sadayoshi Fukuda X 1917 Asia Philosophy Hans–Georg Gadamer X X 1900 Germany Philosophy Mahatma Gandhi X 1869 Asia Writer Rodolphe Gasché X Germany Humanities David Gauthier X 1932 U.S. Philosophy Peter Geach X 1916 U.K. Philosophy Ernest Gellner X 1925 U.K. Social sciences Giovanni Gentile X 1875 Italy Philosophy Edmund Gettier X 1927 U.S. Philosophy Raymond Geuss X 1946 U.S. Philosophy Sholom Gherman X 1920 Europe Philosophy Allan Gibbard X 1942 U.S. Philosophy Juozas Girnius X 1915 Europe Philosophy Jonathan Glover X U.K. Philosophy Kurt Gödel X X 1906 Europe Science Ivan O. Godfroid X 1971 Europe Social sciences Alvin Goldman X 1938 U.S. Philosophy Nelson Goodman X X 1906 U.S. Philosophy Lewis Gordon X 1962 U.S. Philosophy Allan Gotthelf X 1942 U.S. Philosophy Antonio Gramsci X 1891 Italy Social sciences George Grant X 1918 Canada Philosophy John N. Gray X 1948 U.K. Philosophy A.C. Grayling X 1949 U.K. Philosophy Celia Green X 1935 U.K. Philosophy Kurt Grelling X 1886 Germany Philosophy Paul Grice X X 1913 U.K. Philosophy Richard Grossman X U.S. Social sciences Jean Guitton X 1901 France Humanities D.V. Gundappa X 1887 Asia Writer Aron Gurwitsch X 1901 U.S. Philosophy Susan Haack X 1945 U.K. Philosophy Jürgen Habermas X 1929 Germany Philosophy Ian Hacking X 1936 Canada Philosophy Paul Haeberlin X 1878 Europe Philosophy David F. Haight X 1941 U.S. Philosophy Werner Hamacher X 1948 Germany Humanities Norwood Russell Hanson X 1924 U.S. Philosophy R.M. Hare X 1919 U.K. Philosophy Gilbert Harman X 1938 U.S. Philosophy Horace Romano Harré X 1927 Oceania Philosophy Errol Harris X 1908 Africa Philosophy H.L.A. Hart X 1907 U.K. Philosophy Robert S. Hartman X 1910 U.S. Philosophy Charles Hartshorne X X 1897 U.S. Philosophy Jacques Hassoun X 1936 France Philosophy Seiichi Hatano X 1877 Asia Philosophy John Haugeland X 1945 U.S. Philosophy John Hawthorne X U.S. Philosophy Friedrich Hayek X 1899 U.K. Science Martin Heidegger X X 1889 Germany Philosophy Erich Heller X 1911 U.K. Humanities Carl Gustav Hempel X 1905 U.S. Philosophy Vincent F. Hendricks X 1970 Europe Philosophy Michel Henry X 1922 U.S. Philosophy Finngeir Hiorth X 1928 Europe Philosophy Jerry Hobbs X 1942 U.S. Science Shadworth Hodgson X 1832 U.K. Philosophy Eric Hoffer X 1902 U.S. Writer Douglas Hofstadter X 1945 U.S. Science Richard Hönigswald X 1875 Europe Philosophy Max Horkheimer X 1895 Germany Social sicences Jennifer Hornsby X 1951 U.K. Philosophy Vernon Howard X 1918 U.S. Spiritual Edmund Husserl X X X 1859 Germany Philosophy Jean Hyppolite X 1907 France Philosophy Ivan Ilyin X 1883 Europe Philosophy Roman Ingarden X X 1893 Europe Philosophy Inoue Tetsujiro X 1855 Asia Philosophy Muhammad Iqbal X 1877 Asia Writer Luce Irigaray X X 1930 Europe Humanities Frank Cameron Jackson X 1943 Oceania Philosophy William James X X 1842 U.S. Philosophy Karl Jaspers X 1883 Germany Philosophy Jin Yuelin X 1895 China Philosophy C.E.M. Joad X 1891 U.K. Philosophy Subhash Kak X 1947 U.S. Science Bhau Kalchuri X 1926 Asia Writer Eugene Kamenka X 1928 Oceania Philosophy Milan Kangrga X 1923 Europe Philosophy David Kaplan X 1933 U.S. Philosophy Aron Katsenelinboigen X 1927 U.S. Social sciences Walter Kaufmann X 1921 U.S. Philosophy Gopinath Kaviraj X 1887 Asia Spiritual Sam Keen X U.S. Philosophy Anthony Kenny X 1931 U.K. Philosophy Jaegwon Kim X 1934 U.S. Philosophy Yasuhiko Kimura X 1954 U.S. Spiritual Peter J. King X 1956 U.K. Philosophy Mark Kingwell X 1963 Canada Philosophy Philip Kitcher X 1947 U.K. Philosophy Ladislav Klíma X 1878 Europe Philosophy Hans Köchler X 1948 Europe Philosophy Sarah Kofman X 1934 France Philosophy Alexandre Kojève X 1902 France Philosophy David Kolb X 1941 U.S. Philosophy Christine Korsgaard X 1952 U.S. Philosophy Saul Kripke X 1940 U.S. Philosophy Jiddu Krishnamurti X 1895 U.S. Spiritual Julia Kristeva X 1941 France Philosophy Georg Kühlewind X 1924 Europe Spiritual T.S. Kuhn X 1922 U.S. Philosophy Deepak Kumar X U.S. Social sciences Leo Kuper X 1908 U.S. Social sciences Jacques Lacan X X 1901 France Social sciences Philippe Lacoue–Labarthe X 1940 France Philosophy Imre Lakatos X 1922 U.S. Philosophy Susanne Langer X 1895 U.S. Philosophy Stephen Laurence X U.K. Philosophy Michèle Le Dœuff X 1948 France Philosophy Jean–Louis Le Moigne X 1931 France Philosophy Ernest Lepore X U.S. Philosophy Henri Lefebvre X 1901 France Social sciences Claude Lefort X 1924 France Philosophy Brian Leiter X 1963 U.S. Philosophy Robin LePoidevin X U.K. Philosophy Claude Lévi–Strauss X 1908 France Social sciences Emmanuel Lévinas X X 1906 France Philosophy Clarence Irving Lewis X X 1883 U.S. Philosophy David Kellogg Lewis X 1941 U.S. Philosophy Suzanne Lilar X 1901 Europe Writer Alphonso Lingis X 1933 U.S. Philosophy Theodor Lipps X 1851 Germany Philosophy Peter Lipton X 1954 U.K. Philosophy Knud Ejler Løgstrup X 1905 Europe Humanities Loren Lomasky X U.S. Philosophy Bernard Lonergan X 1944 Canada Humanities Helen Longino X 1944 U.S. Philosophy Paul Lorenzen X 1915 Germany Philosophy Carlo Lottieri X 1960 Italy Philosophy John Lucas X 1929 U.K. Philosophy Peter Ludlow X 1957 U.S. Philosophy Rosa Luxemburg X 1870 Germany Writer William Lycan X 1945 U.S. Philosophy Jean–François Lyotard X X 1924 France Humanities Tibor R. Machan X 1939 U.S. Philosophy Alasdair MacIntyre X X 1929 U.K. Philosophy John Macmurray X 1891 U.K. Philosophy J.M.E. McTaggart X 1866 U.K. Philosophy Tony McWalter X 1945 U.K. Other Penelope Maddy X U.S. Philosophy Ramana Maharshi X 1879 Asia Spiritual David B. Malament X U.S. Philosophy Ernst Mally X 1879 Europe Philosophy Paul de Man X 1919 Europe Humanities Gabriel Marcel X X 1889 Germany Philosophy Ruth Barcan Marcus X 1921 U.S. Philosophy Herbert Marcuse X 1898 U.S. Philosophy Ludwig Marcuse X 1894 Germany Philosophy Jacques Maritain X X 1882 France Philosophy Richard Milton Martin X 1916 U.S. Philosophy Julián Marías X 1914 Europe Philosophy Reinhart Maurer X 1935 Germany Philosophy Ali Mazrui X 1933 U.S. Philosophy Herbert McCabe X 1926 U.K. Humanities Ron McClamrock X U.S. Philosophy John McDowell X 1942 U.K. Philosophy Colin McGinn X 1950 U.K. Philosophy Marshall McLuhan X 1911 Canada Humanities George Herbert Mead X 1863 U.S. Philosophy Alexius Meinong X 1853 Europe Philosophy Hugh Mellor X 1938 U.K. Philosophy Maurice Merleau–Ponty X X 1908 France Philosophy Thomas Metzinger X 1958 Germany Philosophy Leonard B. Meyer X 1918 U.S. Humanities Emile Meyerson X 1859 France Science Mary Midgley X 1919 U.K. Philosophy David Miller X 1942 U.K. Philosophy Ruth Millikan X 1933 U.S. Philosophy Brian J. Mistler X U.S. Social sciences William Mitchell X 1861 U.K. Philosophy Dimitrije Mitrinovic X 1887 Europe Writer Richard Montague X 1930 U.S. Philosophy William Pepperell Montague X 1873 U.S. Philosophy George Edward Moore X X X 1873 U.K. Philosophy Sidney Morgenbesser X 1921 U.S. Philosophy Edgar Morin X 1921 France Philosophy Thomas V. Morris X U.S. Philosophy Gaetano Mosca X 1858 Italy Social sciences V.Y. Mudimbe X 1941 U.S. Humanities Ferid Muhic X 1944 Europe Philosophy Max Müller X 1906 Germany Philosophy Stephen Mumford X 1965 U.K. Philosophy Iris Murdoch X 1919 U.K. Philosophy Arne Næss X 1912 Europe Philosophy Thomas Nagel X 1937 U.S. Philosophy Jean–Luc Nancy X X 1940 France Philosophy M. Nasroen X X Asia Philosophy Paul G. Natorp X 1854 Germany Philosophy Stephen Neale X X U.S. Philosophy Antonio Negri X 1933 Italy Philosophy Oskar Negt X 1934 Germany Philosophy Otto Neurath X 1882 Europe Philosophy Fred Newman X 1935 U.S. Social sciences Nishida Kitarô X 1870 Asia Philosophy Nel Noddings X 1929 U.S. Social sciences Robert Nozick X X 1938 U.S. Philosophy Martha Nussbaum X 1947 U.S. Philosophy Michael Oakeshott X 1901 U.K. Philosophy George Ohsawa X 1893 Asia Spiritual Onora O’Neill X 1941 U.K. Philosophy Michel Onfray X 1959 France Philosophy Walter J. Ong X 1912 U.S. Humanities José Ortega y Gasset X 1883 Europe Philosophy Rudolf Otto X 1869 Germany Humanities Albert Outler X 1908 U.S. Humanities Henry Pachter X 1907 U.S. Humanities Tommaso Palamidessi X 1915 Italy Spiritual Raimon Panikkar X 1918 Europe Philosophy David Papineau X 1947 Africa Philosophy Paramananda X 1884 U.S. Spiritual Vilfredo Pareto X 1848 France Social sciences James Leonard Park X 1941 U.S. Writer Christopher Peacocke X 1950 U.K. Philosophy Giuseppe Peano X 1858 Italy Science David Pearce X U.K. Philosophy Leonard Peikoff X 1933 U.S. Philosophy Charles Peirce X X X 1839 U.S. Philosophy Carlo Penco X 1948 Italy Philosophy Mario Perniola X 1941 Italy Philosophy Ralph Barton Perry X 1876 U.S. Philosophy Leon Petrazycki X 1867 Europe Philosophy D.Z. Phillips X 1934 U.K. Philosophy Jean Piaget X 1896 Europe Social sciences Giovanni Piana X 1940 Italy Philosophy Ullin Place X 1924 U.K. Philosophy Alvin Plantinga X 1932 U.S. Philosophy Thomas Pogge X U.S. Philosophy Jules Henri Poincaré X 1854 France Science Michael Polanyi X 1891 U.K. Science Georges Politzer X 1903 France Philosophy Leonardo Polo X 1926 Europe Philosophy K.J. Popma X 1903 Europe Philosophy Karl Popper X X 1902 U.K. Philosophy Graham Priest X 1948 U.K. Philosophy Arthur Prior X 1914 Oceania Philosophy Millan Puelles X 1921 Europe Philosophy Pujya Mota X 1898 Asia Spiritual Hilary Putnam X 1926 U.S. Philosophy Andrew Pyle X 1955 U.K. Philosophy Zenon Pylyshyn X 1937 Canada Science Willard Van Orman Quine X 1908 U.S. Philosophy Eduardo Rabossi X 1930 South America Philosophy James Rachels X 1941 U.S. Philosophy Janet Radcliffe Richards X 1944 U.K. Philosophy Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan X X 1888 Asia Philosophy Constantin Radulescu–Motru X 1868 Europe Philosophy Cattamanchi Ramalinga Reddy X 1880 Asia Social sciences Frank P. Ramsey X 1903 U.K. Science Ayn Rand X X 1905 U.S. Philosophy John Rawls X X 1921 U.S. Philosophy Serge Raynaud de la Ferriere X 1916 France Spiritual Carveth Read X 1848 U.K. Philosophy Edward S. Reed X 1954 U.S. Philosophy Hans Reichenbach X X 1891 Germany Philosophy Nicholas Rescher X 1928 U.S. Philosophy William J. Richardson X U.S. Philosophy Radovan Richta X 1924 Europe Philosophy Paul Ricoeur X X 1913 France Philosophy Alois Riehl X 1844 Europe Philosophy Arturo Andrés Roig X 1922 South America Philosophy Holmes Rolston III X 1932 U.S. Philosophy Francisco Romero X 1891 South America Philosophy Richard Rorty X X X 1931 U.S. Philosophy Stephen David Ross X 1935 U.S. Philosophy Tamar Ross X Asia Philosophy W.D. Ross X 1877 U.K. Philosophy Gian–Carlo Rota X 1932 U.S. Science Louis Rougier X 1899 France Philosophy Josiah Royce X 1855 U.S. Philosophy Bertrand Russell X X 1872 U.K. Philosophy Tomas Ryal X 1900 Europe Writer Alan Ryan X 1940 U.K. Philosophy Gilbert Ryle X 1900 U.K. Philosophy Mark Sainsbury X 1943 U.K. Philosophy John Sallis X 1938 U.S. Philosophy Nathan Salmon X 1951 U.S. Philosophy David H. Sanford X U.S. Philosophy Gianfranco Sanguinetti X Italy Writer Heron Santana X 1962 South America Social sciences George Santayana X X X 1863 U.S. Philosophy Jean–Paul Sartre X X X 1905 France Philosophy John Ralston Saul X 1947 Canada Writer Fernando Savater X 1947 Europe Philosophy Geoffrey Sayre–McCord X 1946 U.S. Philosophy T.M. Scanlon X 1940 U.S. Philosophy Theodore Schick X U.S. Philosophy Jonael Schickler X 1976 U.K. Philosophy Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller X 1864 U.K. Philosophy Hubert Schleichert X Europe Philosophy Moritz Schlick X 1882 Germany Philosophy Tad Schmaltz X U.S. Philosophy David Schmidtz X U.S. Philosophy Michael Scholar X 1942 U.K. Philosophy Alfred Schutz X X 1899 Europe Philosophy Roger Scruton X 1944 U.K. Philosophy John Searle X 1932 U.S. Philosophy Wilfrid Sellars X X 1912 U.S. Philosophy Semen L. Frank X 1877 Europe Humanities Michel Serres X 1930 France Philosophy Neven Sesardic X 1949 Europe Philosophy Michel Seymour X Canada Philosophy Jeremy J. Shapiro X 1940 U.S. Philosophy Stewart Shapiro X 1951 U.S. Philosophy Scott Shaw X 1948 U.S. Spiritual Vandana Shiva X 1952 Asia Social sciences Gustav Shpet X 1879 Europe Philosophy Eli Siegel X 1902 U.S. Writer Gilbert Simondon X 1924 France Philosophy Peter Simons X 1950 U.K. Philosophy Peter Singer X 1946 Oceania Philosophy B.F. Skinner X 1904 U.S. Social sciences John Skorupski X 1946 U.K. Philosophy Brian Skyrms X U.S. Philosophy J.J.C. Smart X 1920 U.K. Philosophy Barry Smith X 1952 U.K. Philosophy Michael A. Smith X 1954 Oceania Philosophy Quentin Smith X U.S. Philosophy Tara Smith X U.S. Philosophy Jan Smuts X 1870 Africa Social sciences Joseph D. Sneed X U.S. Science Alan Soble X 1947 U.S. Philosophy Philippe Sollers X 1936 France Humanities Kate Soper X U.K. Philosophy Andrew Spencer X 1936 U.S. Writer Herbert Spiegelberg X 1904 U.S. Philosophy Timothy L.S. Sprigge X 1932 U.K. Philosophy Robert Stalnaker X U.S. Philosophy Jason Stanley X 1969 U.S. Philosophy Edith Stein X 1891 U.S. Philosophy Rudolf Steiner X 1861 Europe Philosophy William Stern X 1871 Germany Social sciences Leonid Stolovich X 1929 Europe Philosophy Leo Strauss X 1889 U.S. Philosophy P.F. Strawson X 1919 U.K. Philosophy Penmetsa Subbaraju X Asia Writer Sun Yat–sen X 1866 Asia Philosophy Ivan Supek X 1915 Europe Science Patrick Suppes X 1922 U.S. Philosophy Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki X 1870 Asia Spiritual Swami Ramdas X 1884 Asia Spiritual Richard Swinburne X 1934 U.K. Philosophy Pierre–André Taguieff X 1946 France Social sciences Alfred Tarski X X 1902 U.S. Science Jacob Taubes X 1923 Germany Humanities Charles Taylor X 1931 Canada Philosophy Richard Taylor X 1919 U.S. Philosophy Ioannis Theodorakopoulos X 1900 Europe Philosophy Judith Jarvis Thomson X 1929 U.S. Philosophy Tzvetan Todorov X 1939 France Humanities Stephen Toulmin X 1922 U.K. Philosophy Sergei Nikolaevich Trubetskoy X 1863 Europe Philosophy James Hayden Tufts X 1862 U.S. Philosophy Alan Turing X X 1912 U.S. Philosophy Miguel de Unamuno X 1864 Europe Writer Erich Unger X 1887 U.K. Philosophy Hans Vaihinger X 1852 Germany Philosophy Paul Valéry X 1871 France Writer Bas van Fraassen X 1941 Europe Philosophy Philippe Van Parijs X 1951 Europe Philosophy Peter Vardy X U.K. Humanities Nicla Vassallo X 1963 Italy Philosophy Gianni Vattimo X 1936 Italy Philosophy Henry Babcock Veatch X 1911 U.S. Philosophy Karel Verleye X 1920 Europe Philosophy Swami Vivekananda X 1863 Asia Spiritual Marc de Vries X 1958 Europe Philosophy Richard Wahle X 1857 Europe Philosophy Frank R. Wallace X 1932 U.S. Writer Keith Ward X 1938 U.K. Humanities Mary Warnock X 1924 U.K. Philosophy Watsuji Tetsurô X 1889 Asia Philosophy Alan Watts X 1915 U.K. Spiritual Wei Wu Wei X 1895 U.K. Spiritual Simone Weil X 1909 France Spiritual Max Weismann X U.S. Philosophy Cornel West X 1953 U.S. Humanities Alfred North Whitehead X X X 1861 U.K. Science Phillip H. Wiebe X 1945 Canada Philosophy David Wiggins X 1933 U.K. Philosophy Bernard Williams X X 1929 U.K. Philosophy Timothy Williamson X 1955 U.K. Philosophy John Wisdom X 1904 U.K. Philosophy Ludwig Wittgenstein X X X 1889 U.K. Philosophy Herbert Witzenmann X 1905 Germany Spiritual Susan Wolf X 1952 U.S. Philosophy Robert Paul Wolff X U.S. Philosophy Nicholas Wolterstorff X 1932 U.S. Humanities David Wood X 1946 U.K. Philosophy Frederick James Eugene Woodbridge X 1867 U.S. Philosophy Crispin Wright X 1942 U.K. Philosophy Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt X 1832 Germany Social sciences Joaquin Xirau Palau X 1895 Europe Philosophy Iris Marion Young X 1949 U.S. Philosophy María Zambrano X 1904 Europe Writer Peter Wessel Zapffe X 1899 Europe Writer Ernst Zermelo X 1871 Germany Science Paul Ziff X 1920 U.S. Philosophy Aleksandr Zinovyev X 1922 Europe Philosophy Slavoj Zizek X X 1949 Europe Social sciences Volker Zotz X 1956 Europe Spiritual Estanislao Zuleta X 1935 South America Philosophy Total 534 60 49
Editorial history
Paper received 16 January 2008; accepted 22 January 2008.
Copyright © 2008, First Monday.
Copyright © 2008, Beate Elvebakk.
Philosophy democratized? A comparison between Wikipedia and two other Web–based philosophy resources
by Beate Elvebakk
First Monday, Volume 13, Number 2 - 4 February 2008
http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2091/1938
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