8.1 High-Confidence Articles
The model is fairly confident about where some of the articles belong. Other articles it is more confused by. Let’s start by looking at those extremes. First, here are the articles where the model is most sure of a classification. That is, they are the articles where the probability of being in one particular category is highest.
| Article | Subject |
|---|---|
| Anthony Brueckner, 2005, “Contextualism, Hawthorne’s Invariantism and Third-Person Cases,” The Philosophical Quarterly 55:315–8. | Knowledge |
| Paul Teller, 1977, “On the Problem of Hidden Variables for Quantum Mechanical Observables with Continuous Spectra,” Philosophy of Science 44:475–7. | Quantum physics |
| Kok‐Chor Tan, 1998, “Liberal Toleration in Rawls’s Law of Peoples,” Ethics 108:276–95. | Liberal democracy |
| George Stolakis, 1986, “Against Conventionalism in Physics: Absolute Synchronisation in a Single Frame of Reference,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 37:229–32. | Space and time |
| Christopher Hughes, 1997, “An Incredible Coincidence?,” Mind 106:769–72. | Origins and purposes |
| Hillel Steiner, 1981, “Nozick on Hart on the Right to Enforce,” Analysis 41:50–0. | Duties |
| Grant Allen, 1879, “Mr. G. S. Hall on the Perception of Colour,” Mind 4:267–8. | Color/colour |
| Arthur I. Fine, 1964, “Note on Goodstein’s ‘The Significance of Incompleteness Theorems’,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 15:140–1. | Mathematics |
| Robert Rynasiewicz, 2003, “Field Unification in the Maxwell‐Lorentz Theory with Absolute Space,” Philosophy of Science 70:1063–72. | Space and time |
| Lucius Garvin, 1948, “The Problem of Ugliness in Art,” Philosophical Review 57:404–9. | Beauty |
There is a reasonable spread of topics here; nine of the ninety are represented in just these ten articles. But note that these tend to be very short articles. This might be why the model is so confident in them. What if we filter out all articles ten pages or shorter?
| Article | Subject |
|---|---|
| Kok‐Chor Tan, 1998, “Liberal Toleration in Rawls’s Law of Peoples,” Ethics 108:276–95. | Liberal democracy |
| Robert Rynasiewicz, 2003, “Field Unification in the Maxwell‐Lorentz Theory with Absolute Space,” Philosophy of Science 70:1063–72. | Space and time |
| Josef Joffe, 1985, “Nuclear Weapons, No First Use, and European Order,” Ethics 95:606–18. | War |
| Steven Galt Crowell, 1990, “Husserl, Heidegger, and Transcendental Philosophy: Another Look at the Encyclopaedia Britannica Article,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50:501–18. | Heidegger and Husserl |
| Brian Skyrms, 2002, “Signals, Evolution and the Explanatory Power of Transient Information,” Philosophy of Science 69:407–28. | Game theory |
| Terry Horgan, 2007, “Synchronic Bayesian Updating and the Generalized Sleeping Beauty Problem,” Analysis 67:50–9. | Formal epistemology |
| Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson, 1994, “A Critical Review of Philosophical Work on the Units of Selection Problem,” Philosophy of Science 61:534–55. | Evolutionary biology |
| Lyle V. Anderson, 1985, “Moral Dilemmas, Deliberation, and Choice,” Journal of Philosophy 82:139–62. | Moral conscience |
| Eugene Earnshaw-Whyte, 2012, “Increasingly Radical Claims About Heredity and Fitness,” Philosophy of Science 79:396–412. | Evolutionary biology |
| Arthur Pap, 1943, “On the Meaning of Universality,” Journal of Philosophy 40:505–14. | Universals and particulars |
It isn’t surprising that evolutionary biology starts to turn up a little here. It’s a very specialized topic. (I’ll come back to this question of specialization, and what it means to be a specialised topic, in section 8.10.)
We mostly get new articles if we extend the minimum length to twenty pages.
| Article | Subject |
|---|---|
| Kok‐Chor Tan, 1998, “Liberal Toleration in Rawls’s Law of Peoples,” Ethics 108:276–95. | Liberal democracy |
| Brian Skyrms, 2002, “Signals, Evolution and the Explanatory Power of Transient Information,” Philosophy of Science 69:407–28. | Game theory |
| Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson, 1994, “A Critical Review of Philosophical Work on the Units of Selection Problem,” Philosophy of Science 61:534–55. | Evolutionary biology |
| Lyle V. Anderson, 1985, “Moral Dilemmas, Deliberation, and Choice,” Journal of Philosophy 82:139–62. | Moral conscience |
| Robert Van Der Veen, 2002, “Equality of Talent Resources: Procedures or Outcomes?,” Ethics 113:55–81. | Egalitarianism |
| George H. Quester, 1985, “Substituting Conventional for Nuclear Weapons: Some Problems and Some Possibilities,” Ethics 95:619–40. | War |
| James Sully, 1890, “Mental Elaboration,” Mind 15:469–88. | Psychology |
| Samir Okasha, 2001, “Why Won’t the Group Selection Controversy Go Away?,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52:25–50. | Evolutionary biology |
| Robert J. Art, 1985, “Between Assured Destruction and Nuclear Victory: The Case for the”Mad-Plus” Posture,” Ethics 95:497–516. | War |
| Richard H. Ullman, 1985, “Denuclearizing International Politics,” Ethics 95:567–88. | War |
And note that all of these are just over twenty pages, or exactly twenty in a few cases. The model really loses confidence the longer a piece gets.
| Article | Subject |
|---|---|
| Elizabeth Ashford, 2003, “The Demandingness of Scanlon’s Contractualism,” Ethics 113:273–302. | Population ethics |
| Matteo Mameli, 2004, “Nongenetic Selection and Nongenetic Inheritance,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55:35–71. | Evolutionary biology |
| Lucas A. Swaine, 2001, “How Ought Liberal Democracies to Treat Theocratic Communities?,” Ethics 111:302–43. | Liberal democracy |
| Simon Căbulea May, 2009, “Religious Democracy and the Liberal Principle of Legitimacy,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 37:136–70. | Liberal democracy |
| Yitzhak Y. Melamed, 2013, “Spinoza’s Metaphysics of Thought: Parallelisms and the Multifaceted Structure of Ideas,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 86:636–83. | Early modern |
| Carlo Giannoni, 1978, “Relativistic Mechanics and Electrodynamics Without One-Way Velocity Assumptions,” Philosophy of Science 45:17–46. | Space and time |
| L. A. Paul, 2006, “Coincidence as Overlap,” Noûs 40:623–59. | Composition and constitution |
| Kristi A. Olson, 2010, “The Endowment Tax Puzzle,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 38:240–71. | Egalitarianism |
| Michael Redhead and Harvey Brown, 1991, “Nonlocality in Quantum Mechanics,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Supplementary Volume) 65:119–59. | Quantum physics |
| Philippe Van Parijs, 1991, “Why Surfers Should be Fed: The Liberal Case for an Unconditional Basic Income,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 20:101–31. | Egalitarianism |
Now we’re mostly looking at papers in political philosophy. But still it is mostly papers that just fall over the thirty-page limit. So for the last one, let’s look at the articles it is most confident about that are forty pages or longer.
| Article | Subject |
|---|---|
| Lucas A. Swaine, 2001, “How Ought Liberal Democracies to Treat Theocratic Communities?,” Ethics 111:302–43. | Liberal democracy |
| Yitzhak Y. Melamed, 2013, “Spinoza’s Metaphysics of Thought: Parallelisms and the Multifaceted Structure of Ideas,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 86:636–83. | Early modern |
| Michael Redhead and Harvey Brown, 1991, “Nonlocality in Quantum Mechanics,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Supplementary Volume) 65:119–59. | Quantum physics |
| Samuel Freeman, 2000, “Deliberative Democracy: A Sympathetic Comment,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 29:371–418. | Liberal democracy |
| Tad M. Schmaltz, 1992, “Descartes and Malebranche on Mind and Mind-Body Union,” Philosophical Review 101:281–325. | Early modern |
| Samuel Freeman, 1992, “Original Meaning, Democratic Interpretation, and the Constitution,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 21:3–42. | Liberal democracy |
| Rob Clifton and Hans Halvorson, 2001, “Are Rindler Quanta Real? Inequivalent Particle Concepts in Quantum Field Theory,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52:417–70. | Quantum physics |
| Douglas P. Lackey, 1982, “Missiles and Morals: A Utilitarian Look at Nuclear Deterrence,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 11:189–231. | War |
| Andrew F. March, 2006, “Liberal Citizenship and the Search for an Overlapping Consensus: The Case of Muslim Minorities,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 34:373–421. | Liberal democracy |
| Derek Parfit, 1982, “Future Generations: Further Problems,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 11:113–72. | Population ethics |
Again, normative an political philosophy cover the very top.
The articles here are also mostly fairly recent, but that doesn’t tell us much about the model. Rather, it is a sign that long articles are a relatively recent phenomenon.
Figure 8.1: Number of articles each decade that are at least forty pages long.
I’ll come back to this point in section 8.7.