6 ms·

After 20 years, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy thrives on the web

150 points by zt 11y ago

ececconi 11y ago
I read a random introduction to an article every single day. I was a philo undergrad and use it to keep up to date with high-level philosophical concepts. It's great.
dvt 11y ago
I love the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; even though I don't use it as much as I did while I was in school, it's still something I read on a semi-regular basis (especially when I need to look something up). I'm personally a much bigger fan of curated/academic encyclopedias like SEP as opposed to open encyclopedias (Wikipedia, etc.) so it's good to see it thrive.
- andreasvc 11y ago
  I agree but are there any other sites such as SEP which are clearly better than Wikipedia in their subject area? I think the level of curation and peer review of SEP is unique. Scholarpedia has the right idea but is not comprehensive.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - snori74 11y ago
    I hadn't heard of this, so on a whim looked at one article at random - "Nordtvedt effect", then compared to the same on Wikipedia. Here's the first three lines of each: Scholarpedia In the years just prior to Einstein's publication of his Special Relativity theory Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz showed using Maxwell's equations for the electric fields within an object of distributed charge density that the fields would produce inertia in proportion to the object's electric potential energy content... Wikipedia In theoretical astrophysics, the Nordtvedt effect refers to the relative motion between the Earth and the Moon which would be observed if the gravitational self-energy of a body contributed differently to its gravitational mass and inertial mass. If observed, the Nordtvedt effect would violate the strong equivalence... The complete Wikipedia article is much smaller than many, but while the Scholarpedia version is much more complete, it takes a long while to get anywhere. Edit: expanded, changed format.
    - duncanawoods 11y ago
      Looking at just those two fragments, I prefer the wikipedia style by a country mile. To me, the scholarpedia style is excessively wordy e.g. "in the years just prior to" and has a tortured sentence construction. Its the type of pretension that stings as you read it whereas I find the wiki style is straight-forward and easy to absorb.
    - andreasvc 11y ago
      I don't think it's helpful to pick a single article from either Wikipedia or Scholarpedia and judge the site on that. I do think that the SEP/Scholarpedia model of trusted experts has significant advantages over the Wikipedia model. With Wikipedia it is sometimes painfully obvious that the text is a compromise between different editors.
shahryc 11y ago
this was the best resource for Philosophy 101!
drallison 11y ago
Kudos where kudos are due. I find the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy clear, concise, and readable even when dealing with the most complex and controversial of ideas.
ruffrey 11y ago
Wow! During my philosophy undergrad this was pretty much the only internet site from which we had readings.
quinndupont 11y ago
What I find so amazing is that the SEP isn't for the faint of heart---it is rigorous and challenging to a fault, and rarely ever holds the reader's hand. Amazing it has had so much success, really.
jchomali 11y ago
Maybe now I will get a decent mark in Philosophy :P
avivo 11y ago
This is a fascinating example of the academic status quo being incentivized into creating valuable freely accessible knowledge. I'm curious how being invited or accepted to write an article on topic affects academic prestige and tenure decisions. Is Brian Orend who wrote http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/ considered the canonical living expert on the philosophy of war? I'd love to know more about the incentives and culture around this. I'm sure there are many insights one can draw about building valuable evolving repositories of knowledge from recognized exports.
- avivo 11y ago
  I'd guess there have been attempts to do something like this in most fields, and this is one of the few that worked. Why? One hint may be in http://plato.stanford.edu/info.html#policies http://plato.stanford.edu/info.html#policies "Contributions to the Encyclopedia are normally solicited by invitation from a member of the Editorial Board. However, qualified potential contributors may send to the Principal Editor or an appropriate member of the Editorial Board a proposal to write on an Encyclopedia topic, along with a curriculum vitae." "By qualified, we mean those persons with accredited Ph.D.s in Philosophy (or a related discipline) who have published refereed works on the topic of the proposed entry..." Also perhaps http://plato.stanford.edu/info.html#copyright http://plato.stanford.edu/info.html#copyright . I don't know how much non-cs academics think about copyright and licensing, but as most accomplished academics are authors, I am guessing it may matter to them that they keep ownership. "Copyright Notice. Authors contributing an entry or entries to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, except as provided herein, retain the copyright to their entry or entries. By contributing an entry or entries, authors grant to the Metaphysics Research Lab at Stanford University an exclusive license to publish their entry or entries..." This is just one facet of course. I'm sure there are many other factors such as possibly the stature of the Stanford lab, and particular personal relationships and technical skill of those involved, good timing, etc. I'd be very curious to hear from those with personal knowledge of the details.
- leot 11y ago
  See also: http://blog.scholarpedia.org/2013/11/04/wikifying-scholarly-canons/ http://blog.scholarpedia.org/2013/11/04/wikifying-scholarly-...
hackuser 11y ago
It's sad how rare authoritative, free resources are on the web. It's cliche to say how incredible an opportunity the Internet presents to share the world's knowledge, but the most valuable knowledge, the serious scholarship, is effectively withheld from the public. Imagine how some debates would change if more authoritative resources were easily accessible (I don't want to exaggerate the value of 'authority', but it's a much better starting point than Wikipedia) and cited with a link, such as in HN discussions. Partly as a result the Internet is mostly rumor and popular notions, not knowledge. I've even turned to SEP for mathematical concepts (to the extent it covers math), for example, because there is no free authoritative resource in that field.
- furyofantares 11y ago
  > I've even turned to SEP for mathematical concepts (to the extent it covers math), for example, because there is no free authoritative resource in that field. Does http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ not do the trick for what you were looking into?
  - hackuser 11y ago
    I use MathWorld too but it's limited for my purposes, which includes conceptual understanding: Its articles tend toward strict definitions and not concepts, some terms I lookup are omitted, and unless you already are familiar with the term defined then it can be hard to comprehend. Compare, for example: * http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ModelTheory.html http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ModelTheory.html * http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/model-theory/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/model-theory/ EDIT: Replaced the examples with better ones
    - brobdingnagian 11y ago
      Scholarpedia is another good and authoritative source. The articles are typically written by the person who created the concept, or an active authority: http://www.scholarpedia.org http://www.scholarpedia.org
tomlock 11y ago
Flat-out the most useful resource in my Philosophy undergraduate work. Any new concept I encountered would be investigated on this website.
muricula 11y ago
A wonderful resource, but unfortunately it lacks an entry on feminism. I find this rather telling about the authors.
- eru 11y ago
  For what it's worth, it also lacks an entry on ice cream.
- tlb 11y ago
  There are many, including: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-topics/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-topics/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-liberal/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-liberal/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/femapproach-pragmatism/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/femapproach-pragmatism/

150 points by zt 11y ago

I read a random introduction to an article every single day. I was a philo undergrad and use it to keep up to date with high-level philosophical concepts. It's great.

dvt 11y ago

I love the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; even though I don't use it as much as I did while I was in school, it's still something I read on a semi-regular basis (especially when I need to look something up). I'm personally a much bigger fan of curated/academic encyclopedias like SEP as opposed to open encyclopedias (Wikipedia, etc.) so it's good to see it thrive.

andreasvc 11y ago
I agree but are there any other sites such as SEP which are clearly better than Wikipedia in their subject area? I think the level of curation and peer review of SEP is unique. Scholarpedia has the right idea but is not comprehensive.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- snori74 11y ago
  I hadn't heard of this, so on a whim looked at one article at random - "Nordtvedt effect", then compared to the same on Wikipedia. Here's the first three lines of each: Scholarpedia In the years just prior to Einstein's publication of his Special Relativity theory Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz showed using Maxwell's equations for the electric fields within an object of distributed charge density that the fields would produce inertia in proportion to the object's electric potential energy content... Wikipedia In theoretical astrophysics, the Nordtvedt effect refers to the relative motion between the Earth and the Moon which would be observed if the gravitational self-energy of a body contributed differently to its gravitational mass and inertial mass. If observed, the Nordtvedt effect would violate the strong equivalence... The complete Wikipedia article is much smaller than many, but while the Scholarpedia version is much more complete, it takes a long while to get anywhere. Edit: expanded, changed format.
  - duncanawoods 11y ago
    Looking at just those two fragments, I prefer the wikipedia style by a country mile. To me, the scholarpedia style is excessively wordy e.g. "in the years just prior to" and has a tortured sentence construction. Its the type of pretension that stings as you read it whereas I find the wiki style is straight-forward and easy to absorb.
  - andreasvc 11y ago
    I don't think it's helpful to pick a single article from either Wikipedia or Scholarpedia and judge the site on that. I do think that the SEP/Scholarpedia model of trusted experts has significant advantages over the Wikipedia model. With Wikipedia it is sometimes painfully obvious that the text is a compromise between different editors.

shahryc 11y ago

this was the best resource for Philosophy 101!

drallison 11y ago

Kudos where kudos are due. I find the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy clear, concise, and readable even when dealing with the most complex and controversial of ideas.

ruffrey 11y ago

Wow! During my philosophy undergrad this was pretty much the only internet site from which we had readings.

quinndupont 11y ago

What I find so amazing is that the SEP isn't for the faint of heart---it is rigorous and challenging to a fault, and rarely ever holds the reader's hand. Amazing it has had so much success, really.

jchomali 11y ago

Maybe now I will get a decent mark in Philosophy :P

avivo 11y ago

This is a fascinating example of the academic status quo being incentivized into creating valuable freely accessible knowledge. I'm curious how being invited or accepted to write an article on topic affects academic prestige and tenure decisions. Is Brian Orend who wrote http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/ considered the canonical living expert on the philosophy of war? I'd love to know more about the incentives and culture around this. I'm sure there are many insights one can draw about building valuable evolving repositories of knowledge from recognized exports.

avivo 11y ago
I'd guess there have been attempts to do something like this in most fields, and this is one of the few that worked. Why? One hint may be in http://plato.stanford.edu/info.html#policies http://plato.stanford.edu/info.html#policies "Contributions to the Encyclopedia are normally solicited by invitation from a member of the Editorial Board. However, qualified potential contributors may send to the Principal Editor or an appropriate member of the Editorial Board a proposal to write on an Encyclopedia topic, along with a curriculum vitae." "By qualified, we mean those persons with accredited Ph.D.s in Philosophy (or a related discipline) who have published refereed works on the topic of the proposed entry..." Also perhaps http://plato.stanford.edu/info.html#copyright http://plato.stanford.edu/info.html#copyright . I don't know how much non-cs academics think about copyright and licensing, but as most accomplished academics are authors, I am guessing it may matter to them that they keep ownership. "Copyright Notice. Authors contributing an entry or entries to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, except as provided herein, retain the copyright to their entry or entries. By contributing an entry or entries, authors grant to the Metaphysics Research Lab at Stanford University an exclusive license to publish their entry or entries..." This is just one facet of course. I'm sure there are many other factors such as possibly the stature of the Stanford lab, and particular personal relationships and technical skill of those involved, good timing, etc. I'd be very curious to hear from those with personal knowledge of the details.
leot 11y ago
See also: http://blog.scholarpedia.org/2013/11/04/wikifying-scholarly-canons/ http://blog.scholarpedia.org/2013/11/04/wikifying-scholarly-...

hackuser 11y ago

It's sad how rare authoritative, free resources are on the web. It's cliche to say how incredible an opportunity the Internet presents to share the world's knowledge, but the most valuable knowledge, the serious scholarship, is effectively withheld from the public. Imagine how some debates would change if more authoritative resources were easily accessible (I don't want to exaggerate the value of 'authority', but it's a much better starting point than Wikipedia) and cited with a link, such as in HN discussions. Partly as a result the Internet is mostly rumor and popular notions, not knowledge. I've even turned to SEP for mathematical concepts (to the extent it covers math), for example, because there is no free authoritative resource in that field.

furyofantares 11y ago
> I've even turned to SEP for mathematical concepts (to the extent it covers math), for example, because there is no free authoritative resource in that field. Does http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ not do the trick for what you were looking into?
- hackuser 11y ago
  I use MathWorld too but it's limited for my purposes, which includes conceptual understanding: Its articles tend toward strict definitions and not concepts, some terms I lookup are omitted, and unless you already are familiar with the term defined then it can be hard to comprehend. Compare, for example: * http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ModelTheory.html http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ModelTheory.html * http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/model-theory/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/model-theory/ EDIT: Replaced the examples with better ones
  - brobdingnagian 11y ago
    Scholarpedia is another good and authoritative source. The articles are typically written by the person who created the concept, or an active authority: http://www.scholarpedia.org http://www.scholarpedia.org

tomlock 11y ago

Flat-out the most useful resource in my Philosophy undergraduate work. Any new concept I encountered would be investigated on this website.

muricula 11y ago

A wonderful resource, but unfortunately it lacks an entry on feminism. I find this rather telling about the authors.

eru 11y ago
For what it's worth, it also lacks an entry on ice cream.
tlb 11y ago
There are many, including: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-topics/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-topics/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-liberal/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-liberal/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/femapproach-pragmatism/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/femapproach-pragmatism/