The most influential philosophers in Wikipedia: a multicultural analysis

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Rollin, Guillaume, Lages, José
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866912472136417280
author Rollin, Guillaume
Lages, José
author_facet Rollin, Guillaume
Lages, José
contents We explore the influence and interconnectivity of philosophical thinkers within the Wikipedia knowledge network. Using a dataset of 237 articles dedicated to philosophers across nine different language editions (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish), we apply the PageRank and CheiRank algorithms to analyze their relative ranking and influence in each linguistic context. Furthermore, we compare our results with entries from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, providing insight into the differences between general knowledge networks like Wikipedia and specialized philosophical databases. A key focus of our analysis is the sub-network of 21 presocratic philosophers, grouped into four traditional schools: Italic (Pythagorean + Eleatic), Ionian, Abderian (Atomist), and Sophist. Using the reduced Google matrix method, we uncover both direct and hidden links between these early thinkers, offering new perspectives on their intellectual relationships and influence within the Western philosophical tradition.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_06034
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The most influential philosophers in Wikipedia: a multicultural analysis
Rollin, Guillaume
Lages, José
Social and Information Networks
We explore the influence and interconnectivity of philosophical thinkers within the Wikipedia knowledge network. Using a dataset of 237 articles dedicated to philosophers across nine different language editions (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish), we apply the PageRank and CheiRank algorithms to analyze their relative ranking and influence in each linguistic context. Furthermore, we compare our results with entries from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, providing insight into the differences between general knowledge networks like Wikipedia and specialized philosophical databases. A key focus of our analysis is the sub-network of 21 presocratic philosophers, grouped into four traditional schools: Italic (Pythagorean + Eleatic), Ionian, Abderian (Atomist), and Sophist. Using the reduced Google matrix method, we uncover both direct and hidden links between these early thinkers, offering new perspectives on their intellectual relationships and influence within the Western philosophical tradition.
title The most influential philosophers in Wikipedia: a multicultural analysis
topic Social and Information Networks
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.06034