Publish at October 10 2010 Updated September 23 2025
Edward Zaita - senior editor - and John Perry, founder of the Stanford Encyclopedia for Philosophy, say it loud and clear:"This encyclopedia is the opposite of Wikipedia".
Could this be because it's a paper book? No, it's entirely on the Internet. Does it have to be paid for? Not at all, all articles are available free of charge. Is it restricted? Yes, it's not universal, but it does include 1,200 entries on major philosophers, philosophical currents and ethical issues. Not frequently updated? On the contrary! Just visit the "What's new" section and you'll see that a new article is added every day.
The major difference between this online encyclopedia and Wikipedia lies in its editorial system: only experts are authorized to write and sign articles.
In this article from Stanford University, we learn that Larry Sanger - Wikipedia co-founder and philosopher - abandoned the famous encyclopedia to his partners precisely because he disapproved of the principle of editing by all. When asked if he knew of any examples of credible online encyclopedias, he spontaneously named the Stanford Encyclopedia for Philosophy.
Today, 1,400 authors contribute to its vast content. However, as Edward Zaita explains, these researchers are not going to publish their research on the philosophy of biology or children's rights on a platform that can be modified by just anyone. Philosophy requires rigor and thorough research.
So why adopt a virtual encyclopedia model whose content is constantly changing? After all, do we need to regularly update articles on Immanuel Kant, Plato or Aristotle, whose thoughts and theses have been known for years, if not centuries? Well, yes. These thinkers bequeathed to the world such a wealth of thought that the analyses made of them are constantly changing. So it's the interpretation that changes, and justifies regular updates. Ethical issues are even more subject to change: they regularly reappear in the news, for example in questions linked to stem cell research or the place of secularism in modes of government. The editorial flexibility not found in paper encyclopedias is a considerable advantage here. As a result, this philosophical encyclopedia has become a reference for both philosophy students and citizens interested in moral and ethical issues.
As Zaita and Perry explain in this video, this is what accounts for the 700,000 weekly visits. Visitors to this encyclopedia find comprehensive texts and extensive bibliographies, which are also regularly updated. What's more, the texts are not riddled with hyperlinks, which is an advantage in Edward Zaita's eyes. According to him, in Wikipedia,"All those internal links to further understand this or that aspect make reading zigzagging and a bit chaotic".
We did a little test to compare the two free-access encyclopedias on the Web. For example, on Socrates and his work:
Admittedly, the Wikipedia version is more illustrated, but there are at least a dozen quotations without references. What's more, the MS article provides a better understanding of the historical context of this Greek philosopher's work.
Another example, this time on a philosophical current.
The Wikipedia article is clearly not complete, since the reader is warned that it must be recycled to clarify the content. This is not the case with the MS article, which is well-structured, exhaustive and offers footnotes for further reading.
This is not to dismiss Wikipedia, which remains an essential source of first-hand information for many curious people and students. But Wikipedia should not obscure the fact that there are also specialized encyclopedias on the web that respect the academic canons of rigor and research.
It is to the credit of the editors of MS that they have succeeded in uniting so many researchers around an online encyclopedia, thereby abolishing the main criticism levelled at traditional encyclopedias, namely the slowness of their editorial and revision processes. The MS Senior Editor is surprised that similar initiatives have not yet been launched in other fields.
Our only criticism of this rigorous encyclopedia is that it only exists in English. When will we see the international philosophical community mobilize to translate the articles?
Stanford Encyclopedy of Philosophy
Wikipedia, if it were run by academic experts, would look like this, Standford University article, September 7, 2010
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