The most influential philosophers in Wikipedia: a multicultural analysis

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. Our findings suggest that while philosophers, and their associated schools of thought, do not serve as the foundational building blocks of the Wikipedia knowledge structure, they remain critical reference points within it. The top ten articles devoted to philosophers for each language edition is determined. We observe significant cultural variations in the ranking of these figures across language editions, with Western philosophers, in particular, being disproportionately represented among the most influential. Furthermore, we compare these 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. Our study demonstrates how network analysis techniques can reveal underlying structures and interactions within large-scale knowledge systems, with implications for both historical research and the understanding of knowledge dynamics in modern digital platforms.