Three Essential Resources for Philosophy: Stanford Encyclopedia, Google Scholar and PhilPapers
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Three Essential Resources for Philosophy:
Stanford Encyclopedia, Google Scholar and PhilPapers
Wybo Wiersma
King’s College London
mail@wybowiersma.net
1 Introduction process: orientation, research, and publica-
tion. But also representative of the organi-
In this paper we look at three important re-
sations that initiate projects: academic, com-
sources for philosophy: the Stanford En-
mercial, and (initially) personal. In addition,
cyclopedia of Philosophy, an online ency-
as will become clearer, the resources we se-
clopaedia of philosophy, Google Scholar, a
lected, have each also become significant in
search-engine for academic literature, and the
their own (but overlapping) ways: by being
PhilPapers project, a site that allows one to
broad and traditional, by hooking into exist-
keep track of new publications. We will be ex-
ing practices and making things easy, and by
amining why exactly they are so essential for
functioning as a platform and bandwagon for
academic philosophy, and what factors con-
new researchers.
tributed to their success.
We begin by briefly explaining what made 1.2 Constraints and Limits
us choose these three resources, and by point-
The most important limitation of this paper is
ing out the limits of the approach taken in this
that it is mostly analytic in nature: E.g. con-
paper. Then we will give a short introduction
cerned with resources, their properties, and
to each of the projects, in which we explain
reasons for them being significant. It does
what they are. Following this we have a look
not have a strong empirical basis. While it
at their common, and possible use by philoso-
is known of all discussed resources that they
phers. Finally we will get to the gist of the
have at least tens of thousands of visitors a
matter and explain why these resources are,
month, exact figures are lacking. It thus is per-
and have become, essential.
fectly possible that other resources are more
1.1 Choice of Resources significant in terms of their number of (aca-
We limited our discussion to three resources demic) users and/or their integration in aca-
in order to be able to devote enough attention demic practice.
to each. Resources were selected based on Related to this is that the observations made
three general criteria: The first criterium was in this paper, and the described patterns of us-
that the resources be broad. While there are age, are mostly based on your authors own ex-
good resources on specific philosophers or pe- perience. This entails that it is written from
riods (such as EarlyModernTexts.com or Hy- the perspective of a young scholar, who is new
perNietzche), they are too narrow to have an to the field and not yet established. Therefore
appeal to the whole discipline of philosophy. this paper will be putting emphasis on aspects
Secondly, we only looked at resources that are and situations which are likely to be of less
currently important, and not at those that show concern to the erudite scholar with decades of
most potential for the future. We thus inter- experience in his field.
preted significant in the present tense. 2 Description
Thirdly we tried to choose resources that
are representative for the discipline. Repre- We will now give a short description of each
sentative of the three stages of the academic of the three resources.Wybo Wiersma
2.1 Stanford Encyclopedia within Google itself, and was subsequently
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is released to the public as a beta. It indexes
an open-access encyclopaedia of philosophy. most peer reviewed journals, theses, books
It was started in 1995 by John Perry and Ed- and conference-proceedings from Europe and
ward N. Zalta with 2 entries. Then it was the United States. The exact size and cover-
backed by Stanford University, and it cur- age of the index, however is not published (to
rently contains more than 1150 articles, each the concern of critics).
counting more than 10.000 words on average. As Acharya remarks the project aims to be
It is maintained by an editorial board of more the definite resource for finding ‘all scholarly
than 100 distinguished academics across 45 literature – across all areas, all languages, all
subjects. It solicits articles from hundreds of the way back in time’. It’s not there yet, and
experts (volunteers, mostly professors) from its coverage is even still not as extensive as
all over the world, who are not just expected that of subscription services such as Scopus or
to write an article, but who are also asked to ScienceDirect. Google Scholar is, however,
update, and maintain it. even if just a little bit, easier to use than those
The projects aims are for it to be, and to resources (even its advanced search). In addi-
remain, an up-to-date resource on all philo- tion, Google Scholar, using Googles expertise
sophical topics. And while it uses a tradi- at ranking, tries to rank articles as an expert in
tional editorial approach, as opposed to for ex- the field would have.
ample Wikipedia, it has fully automated this Google Scholar often does not provide the
process. Because of this streamlining it is ca- whole article. In many cases articles are be-
pable of keeping its operating costs relatively hind paywalls such as JStor or IngentaCon-
low ($200,000 per year). And this, as well as nect. For those at institutions which have li-
its endowment of around four million, allows censes to the content and support library links
it to operate independently, and remain freely (XML mechanism for this), links to the full
available for end-users. article are provided by Google Scholar. Arti-
It offers search and advanced search (full cles on private (authors) websites are also in-
text, title or author) across its articles. In ad- dexed. In addition Google Scholar (similarly
dition it offers search through Google. It has to CiteSeerX, Scirus and Scopus) allows one
an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed, and to see what papers are cited by, or citing a pa-
also offers an IPhone reader, and a search plu- per.
gin for the browser. It also has a table of con-
2.3 PhilPapers
tents, a list of articles that are currently being
written, and archives. The archives are quar- PhilPapers is an interactive database of (refer-
terly snapshots meant for stable citation (quite ences to) writings in philosophy supported by
a dated way of providing versioning). Be- the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian
sides this, it offers information about the ed- National University and the Institute of Phi-
itorial process of the Stanford Encyclopedia, losophy in the School of Advanced Study at
and about how one can support the project. the University of London. It includes journal-
articles, books, and (unpublished) articles by
2.2 Google Scholar students, amateurs and professional philoso-
Google Scholar by Google Inc. is a search- phers. PhilPapers was created in 2008 as a
engine for scholarly articles in any field, not merger of the MindPapers (2007) project, by
just philosophy. It started in 2004, when David Bourget and David Chalmers, and the
Anurag Acharya and Alex Verstak took a sab- ‘Online Papers in Philosophy’ tool, by Wolf-
batical from working on the Google search- gang Schwarz. These projects had already
index. Their internally developed prototype proven to be effective on the web before gain-
of Google Scholar quickly became popular ing substantial backing: making it more of
2Wybo Wiersma
a grassroots project instead of traditional or because the site only has about 1150 entries,
commercial. other sites such as Wikipedia, have to be con-
PhilPapers aims to ‘facilitate the exchange sulted. Comparatively, the English Wikipedia
and development of philosophical research has more than 3.1 million articles, of which
through the internet’. It gathers most of its tens of thousands will likely relate to philoso-
data by crawling the sites of Academic jour- phy.
nals. This is a process by which it automat- Both of these uses are those typical of an
ically extracts the bibliographic information encyclopaedia or reference work. Such works
and abstracts from their websites. Besides are usually not read from cover to cover,
these, it also visits the library of congress site, which reduces the need for the easy readabil-
open access repositories, and various personal ity that a printed encyclopaedia would pro-
homepages. For categorizing articles and re- vide. Getting to the required entries quickly,
viewing unpublished ones, it uses automatic through search, or a cross-reference, are much
means, as well as editors (volunteers). more important. Hypertext shines under these
The PhilPapers site allows users to see circumstances, and that, as well as it being
(new) issues of journals, and new unpublished open access, is why the Stanford Encyclo-
articles. In addition it allows one to browse pedia has been so useful, and been able to
articles using a very detailed taxonomy of achieve such a large user-base.
philosophical subdisciplines (hundreds of cat-
egories): down to topics so specific as ‘re- 3.2 Google Scholar: Research
sponsibility in applied ethics’. Besides this, Once a topic has been set, the most rele-
it allows people to perform both simple and vant and interesting papers have to be found.
advanced searches. Searches can also be A very helpful resource for this is Google
stored. And for searches, as well as for cat- Scholar. Using a search-engine to find impor-
egories, alerts of new entries can be e-mailed, tant papers is an use that is common for those
or shown in an RSS feed. In addition it pro- new to a field or topic. To them the literary
vides web-forums, to-read lists, and a blog. landscape is less known. Google Scholar is
Thus also offering things typical of the web. not only about finding papers however, also
about locating them: finding out what on-line
3 Usage
storage system, such as JStor, IngentaCon-
The usage of the resources is the topic of this nect, and so on (or library if library links are
section. Examples of common uses are pro- supported), holds a paper or a book.
vided as well. Google Scholar is also increasingly useful
for obtaining articles, the files, themselves.
3.1 Stanford Encyclopedia: Orientation This because many researchers post their arti-
The Stanford Encyclopedia is especially use- cles on their homepages (or others post them
ful in the orientation stage of research: prob- online for various reasons, such as giving a
ing for, and exploring, interesting topics. Ad- class). Thus, often, paywalls and/or institu-
mittedly, this is an usage that is more com- tional logins can be evaded by getting such
mon for graduate students and those just get- papers directly through Google Scholar, sav-
ting into the discipline, than it is for people ing a lot of time (and money). An additional
who have been active in a sub-field for thirty thing that Google Scholar may be used for by
years. But it nevertheless is an important use. researchers, is getting bibliographic informa-
Another use case is that of, while reading, tion to import into Endnote or Zotero (or to
coming across a name or a philosophical is- retrieve it for unclear references).
sue that seems unfamiliar. Here the Stanford Most of these uses are replacing the indices
Encyclopedia can offer a relatively quick ex- of libraries and/or the help of librarians. And
planation of the issue. Though in many cases, sometimes even (together with online collec-
3Wybo Wiersma
tions such as JStor) the libraries themselves and alerts, are aspiring to the notification-role
(when the .pdf can directly be obtained). Li- of journals. Similarly to the aims of the Liq-
braries often offer well-thought out, exten- uidPub project, it does this in the quite radi-
sive indices to their own collections, and ac- cal way of providing every reader with a per-
cess to even more elaborate subscription ser- sonalized journal: based on the categories and
vices. But none of them, regardless of library- search-terms he is interested in. Thereby po-
scientists, tries and (moderately) succeeds at, tentially beating journals at their own game.
ranking articles as an expert would. This, in
addition to Googles way of presenting search 4 Significance
as simple and fast, has quickly made it very Now we will discuss the significance of the
popular among scholars at all levels of exper- resources. Not just their face-value relevance,
tise. but also the factors that played a role in their
rise to importance.
3.3 PhilPapers: Publication
PhilPapers comes into view after an essay or 4.1 Stanford Encyclopedia: Broad and
paper has been completed. If an article is not Traditional
published by other means, it can, first of all, The Stanford Encyclopedia is significant for
be ‘published’ on PhilPapers. Here it will the discipline because it provides a broad
normally be briefly reviewed by a subsection reference-work in philosophy. That is, first of
expert. This usage is again most useful for all, it addresses the whole audience. It does
beginning authors. A different use of PhilPa- not divide it by being devoted to a specific
pers, however, is useful for all philosophers: theme or philosopher. Secondly it provides a
the tracking of new journal-papers. The RSS reference-work, which is the kind of work that
feeds and/or e-mail notification services make benefits most from hypertext and search. And
this task into a very easy process. And as thirdly, it is of a very high quality, and kept up
noted, notifications can select both for cate- to date, unlike most other encyclopaedias and
gories and for customized search-terms. resources.
In addition to this, the site offers other in- An important factor for success related to
teractive possibilities. One can, for example, that of its quality, is that, while being an on-
take part in the PhilPapers forums. These fo- line resource, it otherwise is totally traditional
rums currently contain about three hundred in its approach. The review and editing of arti-
discussion-threads (which is quite a lot as phi- cles is done by experts, and through a process
losophy fora go). They are categorized ac- that is similar to that of encyclopaedias of a
cording to the same taxonomy that is used for hundred years ago, except for the fact that it
the papers. But in addition to this, and sim- happens on-line, and articles are thus edited,
ilarly to discussion-pages on Wikipedia, ev- and passed back and forth, using computer-
ery paper has it’s own sub-forum as well (43 software. This makes that it can be deemed
threads in total currently). This allows phi- trustworthy by even the most conservative of
losophy students, and other people who don’t researchers.
have the time, or the want, to write full-sized An additional advantage of having human
papers in response, to discuss the claims and editors is that they not just do the editing, but
arguments put forth in publications. will also feel involved with the project. This
PhilPapers seems to be aiming for some of makes them likely to act as its ambassadors,
the roles that journals currently fulfil. The us- helping with publicity and the recruitment of
ages related to the publication of new mate- authors and funds. And their task is made a
rial, and, to a lesser extent, with the catego- lot easier by the Stanford Encyclopedia being
rization, contend with that of reviewing. And backed by Stanford, a well-connected univer-
those related to tracking, and providing feeds sity with a very high status in the field. In
4Wybo Wiersma
addition, its four million endowment allows it 4.3 PhilPapers: Bandwagon
to operate independently and remain free, thus
PhilPapers, though relatively small compared
reaching the widest possible audience.
to the other projects, is relevant for philoso-
4.2 Google Scholar: Hassle-less Carriage phers because it allows them to stay abreast
of new developments in their respective sub-
Google Scholar is an important resource for fields. It aims for the notification-role of
philosophers (and other academics) because it academic journals, and because of its fine-
simply saves a lot of time. It is a lot easier to grained system of categories, and searches, is
use for getting hold of an article, than under- likely to be more effective at it. Especially as
taking a trip to the library, or even reaching both the increasing number of journals, and
for a journal while already in the library. But the increasing specialization over the last few
besides being easy to use, Google being good decades, have dimished the usefulness of jour-
at web-search, and it being a Google project, nals as notifiers.
also helped it to be trusted. As a student and a new scholar in the field,
Another important reason for the success I, for example, have never even held, or leafed
of Google Scholar is that it hooks into ex- through, an edition of a journal to look for
isting practices. Instead of changing them, new articles. The only journals I touched
it simply makes them a lot faster and/or eas- were those archived in the library. And I han-
ier. Changing peoples practices such as dis- dled them because I needed to make a copy
tributing journal-papers as .pdfs, or locking of a specific article not otherwise available.
them behind paywalls, is exremely difficult. In addition PhilPapers is especially useful for
Arranging indexing-access to restricted mate- young, upcoming philosophers, because it al-
rials, and making finding articles in unstruc- lows them to publish unpublished articles, and
tured formats possible, let alone much eas- to participate in the forums. And as it happens
ier, might pose organizational, financial and to be, those philosophers are also most likely
technical challenges. But the hardest thing, to be the more tech-savvy ones. Which makes
the change of social practices, can be circum- them a suitable audience for any type of digi-
vented when existing practices are (mostly) tal resource.
left untouched. It is for these reasons that PhilPapers can
The downside of the existing practices ap- be seen as an effective bandwagon resource.
proach is that, apart from making things a lot What I mean by this is that by hooking
faster, projects such as Google Scholar do not into existing practices (notifications of new
go beyond being an horseless carriage: not journal-papers), and going beyond them at
using a new medium to its fullest potential, the same time (direct publishing, web-fora,
because its use is being limited to the terms and more), it can allow/lure philosophers to
of the previous (such as for example only hop onto the bandwagon of the internet. It
using film to record theatre-plays). Though bridges the gap between journals and the in-
Google Scholar might nevertheless become ternet, demonstrating its advantages to a large
an implicit force of change. It, for example, academic audience.
likely will favour open access simply by mak-
ing open-access articles easier to find and get 5 Conclusion
(and to use and cite, and thus their authors
more prominent). Finally the fact that Google To conclude, the Stanford Encyclopedia,
Scholar is a commercial project, and Google Google Scholar, and PhilPapers are each very
Inc. had millions to spend on it (and its adver- different projects. The first is a reference
tising on the Google main page) helped it to work, backed by a high-status university, and
become a pragmatic, good, and widely-used most useful for the orientation phase of re-
product. search. The second is a search-engine for aca-
5Wybo Wiersma
demic papers founded by a corporation which cations Meet the Web”. In: LiquidPub Site
makes getting hold of literature a lot easier. (2009).
And the third is a tracker for new academic CiteSeerX. URL: http : / / citeseerx .
literature, which has its roots in small projects ist.psu.edu/.
by individual researchers, and is indispens- Early Modern Texts. URL: http://www.
able for keeping up with an increasing amount earlymoderntexts.com/.
of increasingly specialized publications. EndNote - Bibliographies Made Easy. URL:
They are all, nevertheless, important re- http://www.endnote.com/.
sources to philosophy. The Stanford Encyclo- Google Scholar Library Links. URL: http:
pedia is because it is of high quality, useful / / scholar . google . com / intl /
to a broad audience, and trustworthy thanks en/scholar/librarylinks.html.
to its traditional peer-review-procedures. The Google Scholar. URL: http://scholar.
second, Google Scholar, is useful because it google.com/.
skilfully hooks into existing practices, and Hammer, Eric M. and Edward N. Zalta. A
makes these a lot easier and faster. Finally, Solution to the Problem of Updating En-
PhilPapers, uses all three strategies to some cyclopedias. URL: http : / / plato .
extent. By combining existing practices with stanford.edu/pubs/solution/.
new possibilities, and broad appeal to upcom- Hughes, Tracey. An interview with Anurag
ing scholars, it can function as their band- Acharya, Google Scholar lead engineer.
wagon for the web. A bandwagon that may URL : http : / / www . google . com /
slowly, but steadily, be turning up the ramp of librariancenter / articles / 061
the information superhighway... 2_01.html.
With digital resources there is often HyperNietzsche. URL: http : / / www .
a dilemma between being successful, but hypernietzsche.org/base.html.
changing not much, or innovating and being IngentaConnect. URL: http : / / www .
ignored. But these resources have shown that, ingentaconnect.com/.
by bringing a small change to a large number JSTOR. URL: http : / / www . jstor .
of philosophers, one may be bringing a signif- org/.
icant change for the discipline of philosophy, MindPapers. URL: http://consc.net/
and an important one for its view of digital re- mindpapers.
sources. Online Papers in Philosophy. URL: http://
opp.weatherson.org/.
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