In the spring of '09, I was reading a Brian Leiter blog post about recent trends in Philosophy, and I became irritated at the complete and his total lack of data. Philosophers often behave that the discipline itself is knowable a priori, and can't be (or shouldn't be) studied using empirical methods.
I decided to do something about it. This page runs a simple word-count script that hauls in the RSS feeds from various Philosophical journals. Each of these contains abstracts from some set of recent papers (usually the past issue or so). The abstracts are broken up, common words ignored*, and the results tallied. Click 'Details' to see the specifics of which articles are included, their abstracts and even excerpts of where the words occur in those abstracts. Click 'RSS' to subscribe to the feed (one item, updated nightly) of the top ten words for that journal.
The word count for the entire set of abstracts is totaled in a table at the bottom of this page. It isn't as informative as you might think.
If you know of any journals with RSS feeds I've missed, email me (pbradley AT mcdaniel DOT edu) and I'll add them to the process. Journals with no wordcount do not publish their abstracts on the RSS feed - some of Wiley's journals do, and some don't. I'm including all here so they will 'turn on' as Wiley releases more abstracts.
The script that generates this page is covered by 
Dr. Peter Bradley
Associate Professor of Philosophy
McDaniel College
Director of the First Year Seminar
McDaniel College - Class of 2016
Chair, Philosophy and Religious Studies Department
McDaniel College - Philosophy and McDaniel College - Religious Studies
Office: BMC 110
Hours: TTh 12:40-2:40.
Email: pbradleyATmcdaniel.edu
Specializes in Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Science
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Just because I'm sure someone is going to ask, here's the top ten of the overall count--i.e. all the abstracts in one big pot. As you can see, it isn't very interesting:
Full overall word count:
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| The common words ignored are: |
| a about account also an and are argue argument as as at be between but by can class for from has have he he her his how i if in is it its me more more most much no non not of on one or our paper s she so some such than that the then there these they this to two us very view was we were what which with you |
Wordles:
| 2009-2010 Overall: |
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| 2010-2011 Overall: |
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| 2011-2012 Overall: |
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