Comments on: This is phenomenal.

This is phenomenal.

painquale — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:19:36 -0800

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.

By: Iridic

Iridic — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:42:52 -0800

Holy crap! Thanks.

By: oddman

oddman — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:45:54 -0800

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

By: auralcoral

auralcoral — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:48:47 -0800

AMAZING i will be using this in the next few days.

By: mek

mek — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:49:04 -0800

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.

By: joe lisboa

joe lisboa — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:01:18 -0800

Cool, thanks for the heads-up on this.

By: joe lisboa

joe lisboa — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:01:41 -0800

Also: nice title. I'd vote for "This is epiphenomenal." but that's just me :)

By: mullingitover

mullingitover — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:17:18 -0800

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.

By: middleclasstool

middleclasstool — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:19:38 -0800

God damn. Excellent resource, thanks.

By: eclectist

eclectist — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:23:56 -0800

Wow. Thanks.

By: oddman

oddman — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:25:20 -0800

First, thanks ever so much for bolding the "of" for me.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:38:17 -0800

Excellent. Thanks for posting this.

By: voltairemodern

voltairemodern — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:38:36 -0800

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.

By: voltairemodern

voltairemodern — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:59:52 -0800

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.

By: mykescipark

mykescipark — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:18:18 -0800

Yay, my brother's on there! (Note to MeFi-reading brother: Sorry...)

By: carter

carter — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:39:59 -0800

This is good, thanks painquale!

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:38:44 -0800

Thanks, this is good.

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:40:22 -0800

mykescipark, I've met your brother. (around the time he was applying to Wash U; brief meeting; he wouldn't remember me) Small world.

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:54:18 -0800

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.

By: Wolof

Wolof — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:56:05 -0800

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.

By: vantam

vantam — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:03:20 -0800

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)

By: MuffinMan

MuffinMan — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:00:57 -0800

But how do you know it really exists?

By: palimpsest

palimpsest — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:59:49 -0800

Nothing to say other than this is very cool, and should prove very useful. Thanks!

By: oddman

oddman — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 05:40:40 -0800

But the metaphysical parts are the best parts. Sigh, stupid positivists.

By: Hactar

Hactar — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:18:16 -0800

Wow. Simply wow. The choice is overwhelming, I don't know where to start.

By: noway

noway — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:13:18 -0800

minor niggling point: i wish that taxonomy was hypertext.

By: Kwine

Kwine — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:08:47 -0800

I enjoyed the salvo in the vi/emacs wars on the about page.

By: tickingclock

tickingclock — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:52:20 -0800

Fantastic! How did I miss this post the first time? Wow wow wow.

By: tickingclock

tickingclock — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:02:03 -0800

I like how the captcha on the registration page is labelled "a kind of Turing test."