The 253 Most Cited Works in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Last summer, Jordan Jackson and I scraped the bibliographies of all the main-page entries of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the leading source of review articles in mainstream Anglophone philosophy. Since 2010, I've been analyzing citation patterns in the SEP. Generally, I find SEP citation rates to more plausibly measure of influence in mainstream Anglophone philosophy than other bibliometric measures, such those derived from Web of Science or Google Scholar. (For example, by the SEP method the top five most cited philosophers born 1900 or later are David Lewis, W.V.O. Quine, Hilary Putnam, John Rawls, and Saul Kripke.)

Most of my SEP-based analyses aggregate by author, but it's also revealing to aggregate by work cited, for a couple of reasons. First, my author-based analyses probably overstate the influence of authors with moderate impact across many fields compared to authors with transformative impact in just one or a few fields. Second, tracking influential works is an interesting project in its own right.

Before proceeding to the list, notes and caveats.

(1.) Each work counts once per main-page bibliographic entry in the SEP. Thus, a work with a total of 33 is cited in 33 different main page entries. Subpage entries are not included.

(2.) What counts as the "same work"? The distinction admits vague and contentious cases, and implementing it mechanically raises further problems. Here's what I did: To count as the same work, the work had to begin with exactly the same title words (excluding punctuation marks, "a", "an", or "the"). Later editions were counted as the same work as earlier editions (including a few cases of "such-and-such revisited" or the like) and articles republished in collections were counted as the same work if the particular article rather than the collection as a whole was cited. Also, works that appeared first as articles then later were expanded into books with the same or similar title were counted as the same work. Multi-volume works counted as the same work, unless the title was "Complete Works" or similar.

(3.) I only included works with publication dates from 1900-2024. Older works tend not to be cited in a consistent, easily scraped format, so results for those works are inaccurate and potentially misleading.

(4.) I did not attempt to match works cited both in English and in their original language. Some translated works make the list simply in virtue of citation under their English-language title; and some untranslated works make the list simply in virtue of citation under their original-language title. Obviously, this systematically undercounts works that are cited under both their English and original-language titles.

(4.) Citations in the role of editor are not included.

(5.) Please excuse the haphazard cut-and-paste formatting. Dates are sometimes first appearance, sometimes later appearance or edition or translation.

(6.) Technical details: The matching algorithm looked for matches in the first four letters of the author's name and the first five letters of the first text appearing after numbers, punctuation marks, "the", "an", or "a", which for standardly formatted entries is the title. I then alphabetically sorted and hand-checked all bibliographic lines with at least 15 exact matches of both of the two parameters. This took several hours and was probably imperfect, but was not as difficult as it might seem. Note also: The scrape was conducted last summer, so recent entries and recent updates won't figure into the totals.

(7.) Corrections welcome, as long as they are consistent with the principles above and don't constitute a general revision, unsystematically applied on one author's behalf, of the method described in the technical details.

(8.) I'll follow up, probably in the next week or two, with some reflections on the list.

(9.) You can see the 2020 results here.

ETA Apr 9: Two follow-up posts:

The Gender and Race/Ethnicity of Authors of the Most-Cited Works of Mainstream Anglophone Philosophy (Mar 31)

Further Reflections on the Most-Cited Works in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Underranked Works and Concentration Percentage (Apr 8)

[cover of Rawls'sA Theory of Justice]

1. (127 citing entries) Rawls, John, 1971, A Theory of Justice
2. (92) Kripke, Saul, 1972, Naming and Necessity
3. (79) Parfit, Derek, 1984, Reasons and Persons
4. (72) Nozick, Robert, 1974, Anarchy, State, and Utopia
5. (71) Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1953 [2001], Philosophical Investigations
6. (70) Lewis, David, 1986, On the Plurality of Worlds
7. (69) Quine, W. V. O., 1960. Word and Object
8. (67) Scanlon, T. M., 1998, What We Owe to Each Other
9. (58) Kuhn, Thomas S., 1962, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
10. (57) Rawls, John, 1996, Political Liberalism
11. (54) Chalmers, David J., 1996, The Conscious Mind
12. (49) Russell, Betrand, 1903, The Principles of Mathematics
13. (48) Lewis, David, 1973. Counterfactuals
13. (48) Sidgwick, Henry, 1907, The Methods of Ethics
13. (48) Williamson, Timothy, 2000, Knowledge and its Limits
16. (47) Kaplan, David, 1977, Demonstratives
16. (47) Moore, G.E., 1903, Principia Ethica
18. (45) Putnam, Hilary, 1975, The Meaning of "Meaning"
18. (45) Quine, W.V.O., 1951, Two Dogmas of Empiricism
20. (43) Jackson, Frank, 1998, From Metaphysics to Ethics
21. (41) Ayer, A.J., 1936, Language, Truth and Logic
22. (39) Carnap, Rudolf, 1956, Meaning and necessity
22. (39) Ross, W.D., 1931, The Right and the Good
22. (39) Ryle, Gilbert, 1949. The Concept of Mind
22. (39) van Fraassen, Bas C., 1980, The Scientific Image
26. (37) Dummett, Michael, 1973, Frege: Philosophy of Language
26. (37) Evans, Gareth, 1982, The Varieties of Reference
26. (37) Mackie, J. L., 1977, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong
26. (37) Russell, Bertrand, 1905, On Denoting
26. (37) Whitehead, Alfred North and Bertrand Russell, 1910-1913, Principia Mathematica
31. (36) Goodman, Nelson, 1954. Fact, Fiction and Forecast
32. (35) Popper, Karl R., 1959, The Logic of Scientific Discovery
32. (35) Wittgenstein, L., 1922, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
34. (34) Fodor, Jerry A., 1987, Psychosemantics
34. (34) Korsgaard, Christine M., 1996, Sources of Normativity
34. (34) Lewis, David K., 1969, Convention: A Philosophical Study
34. (34) Nozick, Robert, 1981, Philosophical Explanations
34. (34) Raz, Joseph, 1986, The Morality of Freedom
34. (34) Woodward, James, 2003, Making Things Happen
40. (33) Gauthier, David, 1986, Morals by Agreement
40. (33) McDowell, John, 1994, Mind and World
40. (33) Nagel, Thomas, 1986, The View from Nowhere
40. (33) Russell, Bertrand, 1912, The Problems of Philosophy
44. (32) Parfit, Derek, 2017, On What Matters
44. (32) Williams, Bernard, 1985, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy
46. (31) Davidson, Donald, 1980, Essays on Actions and Events
46. (31) Gibbard, Allan, 1990, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings
46. (31) Strawson, P.F., 1959. Individuals
49. (29) Finnis, John. M, 1980, Natural Law and Natural Rights
49. (29) Fricker, Miranda, 2007, Epistemic Injustice
49. (29) Longino, Helen E., 1990, Science as Social Knowledge
52. (28) Anscombe, G. E. M., 1957, Intention
52. (28) Brandom, Robert B., 1994, Making It Explicit
52. (28) Jackson, Frank, 1982, Epiphenomenal Qualia
52. (28) Pearl, Judea, 2000, Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference
52. (28) Plantinga, Alvin, 1974, The Nature of Necessity
52. (28) Quine, W. V. O., 1948, On What There Is
52. (28) Rawls, John, 2001, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement
52. (28) Sellars, Wilfrid, 1956, Empiricism and the philosophy of mind
52. (28) van Inwagen, Peter, 1990, Material Beings
61. (27) Armstrong, David M., 1997, A World of States of Affairs
61. (27) Butler, Judith, 1990, Gender Trouble
61. (27) Dennett, Daniel C., 1991, Consciousness Explained
61. (27) Dretske, Fred I., 1981, Knowledge and the Flow of Information
61. (27) Hare, R.M., 1952, The Language of Morals
61. (27) Lewis, David, 1983, New Work for a Theory of Universals
61. (27) Millikan, Ruth Garrett, 1984, Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories
61. (27) Nagel, Thomas, 1974, What is It Like to Be a Bat?
61. (27) Smith, Michael, 1994, The Moral Problem
61. (27) Young, Iris Marion, 1990, Justice and the Politics of Difference
71. (26) Carnap, Rudolf, 1950, Logical Foundations of Probability
71. (26) Frankfurt, Harry, 1971, Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person
71. (26) Grice, Herbert Paul, 1989, Studies in the Way of Words
71. (26) Jeffrey, Richard C., 1965 [1983], The Logic of Decision
71. (26) Kripke, Saul, 1982, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language
71. (26) Nussbaum, Martha C., 2006, Frontiers of Justice
71. (26) Searle, John R., 1983, Intentionality
78. (25) Anderson, Elizabeth S., 1999, What Is the Point of Equality?
78. (25) Armstrong, David M., 1968, A Materialist Theory of Mind
78. (25) Dworkin, Ronald, 1977, Taking Rights Seriously
78. (25) Fodor, Jerry A., 1975, The Language of Thought
78. (25) Hart, H.L.A., 1961, The Concept of Law
78. (25) Hempel, Carl G., 1965, Aspects of Scientific Explanation
78. (25) Kneale, William and Martha Kneale, 1962. The Development of Logic
78. (25) MacIntyre, Alasdair, 1984. After Virtue
78. (25) Nagel, Ernest, 1961, The Structure of Science
78. (25) Ramsey, Frank P., 1931, Truth and Probability
78. (25) Rawls, John, 1999, The Law of Peoples
78. (25) Russell, Bertrand, 1918/1919, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism
78. (25) Stalnaker, Robert, 1984, Inquiry
78. (25) Williamson, Timothy, 2007, The Philosophy of Philosophy
92. (24) Blackburn, Simon, 1998, Ruling Passions
92. (24) Brink, David O., 1989. Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics
92. (24) Burge, Tyler, 1979, Individualism and the Mental
92. (24) Dupré, John, 1993, The Disorder of Things
92. (24) Fine, Kit, 1994, Essence and Modality
92. (24) Hare, R.M., 1981, Moral Thinking
92. (24) Lewis, D., 1986, Philosophical Papers
92. (24) Quine, W. V. O., 1970, Philosophy of Logic
100. (23) Carnap, Rudolf, 1950, Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology
100. (23) Cartwright, Nancy, 1983, How the laws of physics lie
100. (23) Gilligan, Carol, 1982, In a Different Voice
100. (23) Griffin, James, 1986, Well-Being: its Meaning, Measurement, and Moral Importance
100. (23) Kitcher, Philip, 1993, The Advancement of Science
100. (23) Putnam, Hilary, 1981, Reason, Truth and History
100. (23) Savage, Leonard J., 1954, The Foundations of Statistics
100. (23) Searle, John R., 1969, Speech Acts
100. (23) Shafer-Landau, Russ, 2005, Moral Realism
100. (23) Spirtes, Peter, Clark Glymour, and Richard Scheines, 1993, Causation, Prediction, and Search
100. (23) Stalnaker, Robert C., 1968, A Theory of Conditionals
100. (23) Turing, Alan M., 1936 [1965], On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem
112. (22) Davidson, Donald, 1963. Actions, Reasons, Causes
112. (22) Dretske, Fred, 1995, Naturalizing the Mind
112. (22) Fodor, Jerry A., 1983, Modularity of Mind
112. (22) Machamer, Peter, Lindley Darden, and Carl F. Craver, 2000, Thinking about Mechanisms
112. (22) Street, Sharon, 2006, A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value
112. (22) van Fraassen, Bas C., 1989, Laws and Symmetry
112. (22) Zalta, Edward N., 1983, Abstract Objects
119. (21) Alcoff, Linda Martin, 2006. Visible Identities
119. (21) Brandt, Richard B., 1979, A Theory of the Good and the Right
119. (21) Cartwright, Nancy, 1999, The Dappled World
119. (21) Dawkins, Richard, 1976, The Selfish Gene
119. (21) Dworkin, Ronald, 1986, Law's Empire,
119. (21) Field, Hartry, 1989, Realism, Mathematics and Modality
119. (21) Fodor, Jerry A., 1974, Special Sciences (or: The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis)
119. (21) Gettier, Edmund L., 1963, Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?
119. (21) Longino, H. 2001, The Fate of Knowledge
119. (21) Nussbaum, Martha C., 2000. Women and Human Development
119. (21) Okin, Susan Moller, 1989, Justice, Gender, and the Family
119. (21) Sober, Elliott and David Wilson, 1998, Unto Others
119. (21) Strawson, Peter F., 1962, Freedom and Resentment
119. (21) Tye, Michael, 1995, Ten Problems of Consciousness
119. (21) Walzer, Michael, 1983, Spheres of Justice
119. (21) Wiggins, David, 1980, Sameness and Substance
135. (20) Austin, J.L., 1962, How to Do Things with Words
135. (20) Chisholm, Roderick M., 1957, Perceiving
135. (20) Dancy, Jonathan, 2004, Ethics Without Principles
135. (20) Darwall, Stephen, 2006. The Second-Person Standpoint
135. (20) Davidson, Donald, 1984, Inquiries into truth and interpretation
135. (20) Dennett, Daniel C., 1987, The Intentional Stance
135. (20) Dworkin, Ronald, 2000. Sovereign Virtue
135. (20) Feyerabend, Paul K., 1975, Against Method
135. (20) Gödel, Kurt, 1931, Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I
135. (20) Husserl, Edmund, 1900-01, Logische Untersuchungen
135. (20) Quine, Willard Van Orman, 1953, From A Logical Point of View
135. (20) Reichenbach, Hans, 1938, Experience and Prediction
135. (20) Rorty, Richard, 1979, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
135. (20) Rosen, Gideon, 2010, Metaphysical Dependence
135. (20) Wright, Crispin, 1983, Frege's Conception of Numbers as Objects
135. (20) Zalta, Edward N., 1988, Intensional Logic and the Metaphysics of Intentionality
151. (19) Anderson, Alan and Nuel Belnap, 1975, Entailment: The logic of relevance and necessity
151. (19) Blackburn, Simon, 1984. Spreading the Word
151. (19) Blackburn, Simon, 1993, Essays in Quasi-Realism
151. (19) Chisholm, Roderick M., 1976, Person and Object
151. (19) Craver, Carl F., 2007, Explaining the Brain
151. (19) Fischer, John Martin and Ravizza, Mark, 1998. Responsibility and Control
151. (19) Grice, H. P., 1975, Logic and Conversation
151. (19) Hintikka, Jaakko, 1962, Knowledge and Belief
151. (19) Keynes, John Maynard, 1921, A Treatise on Probability
151. (19) Lewis, David, 1979, Attitudes De Dicto and De Se
151. (19) Parsons, Terence, 1980, Nonexistent Objects
151. (19) Pogge, Thomas, 2002 [2008], World Poverty and Human Rights
151. (19) Priest, Graham, 1987, In Contradiction
151. (19) Salmon, Nathan, 1986, Frege's Puzzle
151. (19) Sider, Theodore, 2001, Four-Dimensionalism
151. (19) Tarski, A., 1983, Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics
151. (19) Thomasson, Amie L., 1999, Fiction and Metaphysics
151. (19) Williamson, Timothy, 2013. Modal Logic as Metaphysics
169. (18) Armstrong, D., 1989, Universals: An Opinionated Introduction
169. (18) Barnes, Jonathan, 1982, The Presocratic Philosophers
169. (18) Chisholm, Roderick M., 1966, Theory of Knowledge
169. (18) Fodor, J., 1992, A Theory of Content and Other Essays
169. (18) Gibbard, Allan, 2003, Thinking How to Live
169. (18) Goodman, Nelson, 1968, Languages of Art
169. (18) Hacking, Ian, 1983, Representing and Intervening
169. (18) Harman, Gilbert, 1986, Change in View
169. (18) Hilbert, David and Wilhelm Ackermann, 1928, Grundzüge der Theoretischen Logik
169. (18) Kahneman, Daniel, 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow
169. (18) Kittay, Eva Feder, 1999, Love's Labor
169. (18) Lewis, David K., 1991, Parts of Classes
169. (18) Lewis, David, 1973, Causation
169. (18) Moore, G. E., 1912. Ethics
169. (18) Noë, Alva, 2004, Action in Perception
169. (18) Prior, Arthur N., 1967, Past, Present and Future
169. (18) Salmon, Wesley, 1984, Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World
169. (18) Schaffer, Jonathan, 2009, On What Grounds What
169. (18) Searle, John R., 1992, The Rediscovery of the Mind
169. (18) Stich, Stephen P., 1983, From folk psychology to cognitive science
169. (18) Taylor, Charles, 1989, Sources of the Self
169. (18) Walton, Kendall, 1990, Mimesis as Make-Believe
169. (18) Wright, Crispin, 1992, Truth and Objectivity
192. (17) Annas, Julia, 1993, The Morality of Happiness
192. (17) Anscombe, G.E.M., 1958, Modern Moral Philosophy
192. (17) Benacerraf, Paul, 1973, Mathematical Truth
192. (17) Carnap, Rudolf, 1928. Der logische Aufbau der Welt
192. (17) Davidson, Donald, 1970, Mental Events
192. (17) Dretske, Fred, 1988, Explaining behavior
192. (17) Field, Hartry, 1980, Science Without Numbers
192. (17) Goldman, Alvin, 1979, What is Justified Belief?
192. (17) Graham, Angus C., 1989, Disputers of the Tao
192. (17) Grice, H. P., 1957, Meaning
192. (17) Guthrie, W.K.C., 1962-1981, A History of Greek Philosophy
192. (17) Hooker, Brad, 2000, Ideal Code, Real World
192. (17) Howson, Colin and Peter Urbach, 2006, Scientific Reasoning
192. (17) Hull, David L., 1988, Science as a Process
192. (17) Kagan, Shelly, 1989, The Limits of Morality
192. (17) Kim, Jaegwon, 1998, Mind in a Physical World
192. (17) Kleene, Stephen Cole, 1952, Introduction to Metamathematics
192. (17) Lewis, David, 1980, A Subjectivist's Guide to Objective Chance
192. (17) List, Christian and Philip Pettit, 2011, Group Agency
192. (17) MacKinnon, Catherine, 1989, Towards a Feminist Theory of the State
192. (17) Marr, David, 1982, Vision
192. (17) Peacocke, Christopher, 1992, A Study of Concepts
192. (17) Plantinga, Alvin, 2000, Warranted Christian Belief
192. (17) Ross, W.D., 1939, Foundations of Ethics
192. (17) Russell, B., 1914, Our Knowledge of the External World
192. (17) Schneewind, J. B., 1998. The Invention of Autonomy
192. (17) Tarski, Alfred, 1935, The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages
192. (17) van Inwagen, Peter, 1983. An Essay on Free Will
192. (17) Von Neumann, John and Oskar Morgenstern, 1944, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior
221. (16) Adams, Robert Merrihew, 1994, Leibniz
221. (16) Armstrong, D. M., 1978, Universals and Scientific Realism
221. (16) Axelrod, Robert and William D. Hamilton, 1981, The Evolution of Cooperation
221. (16) Butler, Judith, 1993. Bodies That Matter
221. (16) Churchland, Paul M., 1981, Eliminative materialism and the propositional attitudes
221. (16) Clark, Andy and David J. Chalmers, 1998, The Extended Mind
221. (16) Dummett, Michael, 1991, The Logical Basis of Metaphysics
221. (16) Fine, Kit, 2001, The Question of Realism
221. (16) Frankfurt, Harry, 1988. The Importance of What We Care About
221. (16) Frege, Gottlob, 1918/1956, The Thought: A Logical Inquiry
221. (16) Geach, Peter, 1962, Reference and Generality
221. (16) Gödel, Kurt, 1944, Russell's Mathematical Logic
221. (16) Hare, R. M., 1963. Freedom and Reason
221. (16) Horgan, Terence and John Tienson, 2002, The Intentionality of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Intentionality
221. (16) Irwin, Terence. H., 2008, The Development of Ethics
221. (16) Joyce, James M., 1999, The Foundations of Causal Decision Theory
221. (16) Kane, Robert, 1996, The Significance of Free Will
221. (16) Lipton, Peter, 1971 [2003], Inference to the Best Explanation
221. (16) Lloyd, Genevieve, 1984, The Man of Reason
221. (16) McMahan, Jeff, 2002, The Ethics of Killing
221. (16) Mellor, D.H., 1981, Real Time
221. (16) Perry, John, 1979, The Problem of the Essential Indexical
221. (16) Popper, Karl, 1962. Conjectures and refutations
221. (16) Raz, J., 1990. Practical reason and norms
221. (16) Russell, Bertrand, 1927, The Analysis of Matter
221. (16) Sandel, Michael J., 1982. Liberalism and the Limits of Justice
221. (16) Scheffler, Samuel, 1982, The Rejection of Consequentialism
221. (16) Stalnaker, Robert, 1978, Assertion
221. (16) Stevenson, Charles L., 1944, Ethics and Language
221. (16) Swinburne, Richard, 1977, The Coherence of Theism
221. (16) Tye, Michael, 2000, Consciousness, Color, and Content
221. (16) Williams, Bernard, 1981, Moral Luck
221. (16) Williams, George C., 1966, Adaptation and Natural Selection