This is phenomenal.

January 28, 2009 5:19 PM

Dave Chalmers has just launched PhilPapers, a directory of nearly 200,000 online papers in philosophy. This is a jawdropping and amazing resource for philosophical research. For evidence of the scope of this project and the care that has been given to it, see the taxonomy of philosophy that was developed for the site.
posted by painquale (28 comments total)

Holy crap! Thanks.
posted by Iridic at 5:42 PM on January 28, 2009

Um, why is Philosophy of Science lumped in with Logic and Mathematics? Can someone explain that?
posted by oddman at 5:45 PM on January 28, 2009

AMAZING

i will be using this in the next few days.
posted by auralcoral at 5:48 PM on January 28, 2009

Philosophy of science is not science, so it actually fits in well with the other two: they are all areas of philosophy that focus on the nature of models, theories, induction & deduction, etcetera.
posted by mek at 5:49 PM on January 28, 2009

Cool, thanks for the heads-up on this.
posted by joe lisboa at 6:01 PM on January 28, 2009

Also: nice title. I'd vote for "This is epiphenomenal." but that's just me :)
posted by joe lisboa at 6:01 PM on January 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

I finally found the answer!

Q. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
A. I ate the chicken, and then I ate his leg.

posted by mullingitover at 6:17 PM on January 28, 2009

God damn. Excellent resource, thanks.
posted by middleclasstool at 6:19 PM on January 28, 2009

Wow. Thanks.
posted by eclectist at 6:23 PM on January 28, 2009

First, thanks ever so much for bolding the "of" for me.
posted by oddman at 6:25 PM on January 28, 2009

Excellent. Thanks for posting this.
posted by homunculus at 6:38 PM on January 28, 2009

This is going to diminish the amount of time involved in my research by about one-fourth, which is incredibly significant. Chalmers, I hated the zombie stuff, but this is fantastic.
posted by voltairemodern at 6:38 PM on January 28, 2009

Um, why is Philosophy of Science lumped in with Logic and Mathematics? Can someone explain that?

Mek is actually about right.

The other day I was at a job talk for someone who studies scientific models of cognitive systems (like using different configurations of networks to model face recognition, that sort of thing), trying to analyze how such models work and whether they can really be said to explain the systems they model. About two minutes into the Q&A session, the discussion turned to whether or not mathematical models were "real" or merely linguistic constructions, and whether that would make a difference in their explanatory power...but this is exactly the sort of question asked in philosophy of mathematics. After that question was resolved, the conversation quickly turned to whether or not it mattered that the domain of the models be finite, or whether they could conceivably be infinite without any philosophically adverse effects. But this is just a slight modification of the sorts of questions asked in logic.

The point is that these three fields converge on questions of models, theories, and inference, though these topics are dealt with more formally in some contexts than in others.
posted by voltairemodern at 6:59 PM on January 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Yay, my brother's on there!

(Note to MeFi-reading brother: Sorry...)
posted by mykescipark at 7:18 PM on January 28, 2009

This is good, thanks painquale!
posted by carter at 7:39 PM on January 28, 2009

Thanks, this is good.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:38 PM on January 28, 2009

mykescipark, I've met your brother. (around the time he was applying to Wash U; brief meeting; he wouldn't remember me) Small world.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:40 PM on January 28, 2009

oddman, also logic/ phil math/ phil science have a very tightly connected history in the 20th century. Think of the positivists or the deductive-nomological account of scientific explanations; they thought the undesirably "metaphysical" parts of science could be wrung out if sufficient logical rigor was applied (they thought this because they were PRO-science), and they set about working the logic.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:54 PM on January 28, 2009

Hmm, it offered me a 2 page article by Deleuze for US$34, electronic only.

Chalmers is an old friend of my brother's, they did Honours Maths together. Chalmers won the Rhodes, brother won 2nd place and a quantity of fresh air.
posted by Wolof at 9:56 PM on January 28, 2009

amazing resource. thanks!

Every few months i see another wellspring of thought bubbling up on the net. the odds (or the gods) (or bob dobbs) seem to be in favor of me spending the rest of my waking days reading up on the great questions of life without ever venturing out my front door....

In fact- with Amazon delivering groceries in my neighborhood, I can stay put in the bedroom forever. (provided i rig some sort of lift system: a basket out my window)
posted by vantam at 10:03 PM on January 28, 2009

But how do you know it really exists?
posted by MuffinMan at 3:00 AM on January 29, 2009

Nothing to say other than this is very cool, and should prove very useful. Thanks!
posted by palimpsest at 3:59 AM on January 29, 2009

But the metaphysical parts are the best parts.

Sigh, stupid positivists.
posted by oddman at 5:40 AM on January 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

Wow. Simply wow. The choice is overwhelming, I don't know where to start.
posted by Hactar at 12:18 PM on January 29, 2009

minor niggling point: i wish that taxonomy was hypertext.
posted by noway at 1:13 PM on January 29, 2009

I enjoyed the salvo in the vi/emacs wars on the about page.
posted by Kwine at 9:08 PM on January 29, 2009

Fantastic! How did I miss this post the first time? Wow wow wow.
posted by tickingclock at 12:52 AM on January 30, 2009

I like how the captcha on the registration page is labelled "a kind of Turing test."
posted by tickingclock at 1:02 AM on January 30, 2009