Trends in Philosophy by Word Count

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.

The script that generates this page is covered by

Dr. Peter Bradley

Assistant Professor of Philosophy
McDaniel College

Office: BMC 110
Hours: MW 1-3.

Email: pbradleyATmcdaniel.edu

Specializes in Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Science

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Erkenntnis

Source RSS Feed

Erkenntnis overall word count:
Details RSS

Rank	Word	Count
1	causal	17
2	rules	15
3	theory	10
4	epistemic	8
5	objection	8
6	laws	8
7	linguistic	8
8	model	7
9	causation	7
10	activity	7

Journal for the General Philosophy of Science

Source RSS Feed

Journal for the General Philosophy of Science overall word count:
Details RSS

Rank	Word	Count
1	climate	13
2	scientific	11
3	research	8
4	theory	7
5	science	7
6	realism	7
7	accounting	7
8	realist	6
9	change	5
10	problem	5

Journal of Logic Language and Information

Source RSS Feed

Journal of Logic Language and Information overall word count:
Details RSS

Rank	Word	Count
1	logic	23
2	hybrid	17
3	logics	15
4	language	12
5	truth	11
6	ifml	11
7	model	10
8	tautologies	9
9	languages	8
10	mary	8

Journal of Philosophic Logic

Source RSS Feed

Journal of Philosophic Logic overall word count:
Details RSS

Rank	Word	Count
1	logic	84
2	natural	71
3	rules	69
4	semantics	69
5	model	69
6	logics	69
7	readings	69
8	relevant	67
9	deduction	66
10	inference	65

Linguistics And Philosophy

Source RSS Feed

Linguistics And Philosophy overall word count:
Details RSS

Rank	Word	Count
1	semantics	16
2	predicates	11
3	names	10
4	properties	9
5	mood	9
6	theory	9
7	modals	8
8	proper	8
9	modal	8
10	interpretation	7

Minds and Machines

Source RSS Feed

Minds and Machines overall word count:
Details RSS

Rank	Word	Count
1	turing	12
2	artificial	11
3	representation	11
4	test	9
5	brain	8
6	concept	8
7	cognitive	7
8	areas	7
9	dispositionalism	6
10	semantic	6

Philosophical Review

Source RSS Feed

Philosophical Review overall word count:
Details RSS

Rank	Word	Count
1	kant	8
2	facts	6
3	affection	6
4	humean	5
5	noumenal	4
6	theory	4
7	doctrine	4
8	early	4
9	persistence	4
10	relations	3

Philosophical Studies

Source RSS Feed

Philosophical Studies overall word count:
Details RSS

Rank	Word	Count
1	do	16
2	responsible	14
3	effect	11
4	moral	10
5	baldwin	9
6	holding	9
7	responsibility	9
8	theory	7
9	will	7
10	know	6

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

Source RSS Feed

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research overall word count:
Details RSS

Rank	Word	Count
1	nan	7
2	visual	6
3	reference	6
4	natural	5
5	experience	5
6	parochial	3
7	virtue	3
8	ssi	3
9	semantic	3
10	systems	2

Studies in Philosophy and Education

Source RSS Feed

Studies in Philosophy and Education overall word count:
Details RSS

Rank	Word	Count
1	education	17
2	thinking	13
3	bullying	11
4	review	9
5	self	9
6	theory	8
7	human	7
8	capital	6
9	heidegger	6
10	steiner	6

Synthese

Source RSS Feed

Synthese overall word count:
Details RSS

Rank	Word	Count
1	truth	11
2	philosophy	10
3	philosophical	7
4	p	7
5	reality	6
6	culture	6
7	fol	6
8	adjectives	5
9	knowledge	5
10	paradox	5

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:

Overall word count

Full overall word count:

Rank	Word	Count
1	theory	71
2	logic	65
3	truth	47
4	semantics	45
5	their	42
6	model	39
7	based	37
8	been	37
9	language	35
10	other	34
11	show	33
12	problem	33
13	knowledge	33
14	natural	32
15	first	32
16	do	32
17	logics	31
18	rules	30
19	will	30
20	semantic	30
21	new	28
22	both	28
23	way	28
24	philosophy	27
25	notion	27
26	order	26
27	all	26
28	modal	26
29	arguments	26
30	should	26
31	languages	25
32	properties	25
33	theories	24
34	cognitive	24
35	concept	24
36	terms	23
37	philosophical	23
38	while	23
39	science	23
40	epistemic	22
41	present	22
42	cannot	22
43	education	22
44	causal	22
45	world	21
46	models	21
47	does	21
48	meaning	21
49	argued	21
50	possible	21
51	when	21
52	different	21
53	analysis	20
54	however	20
55	certain	20
56	particular	20
57	research	20
58	sense	19
59	approach	19
60	e	19
61	hybrid	19
62	who	19
63	only	19
64	relevant	19
65	number	19
66	shown	19
67	information	18
68	human	18
69	responsible	18
70	systems	18
71	provide	18
72	question	18
73	into	18
74	moral	18
75	called	18

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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

Last updated 11/07/09 03:11:26

Trends in Philosophy: by word count