We write to announce the public beta testing launch of PhilPeople, a directory and social network for philosophers developed by the PhilPapers Foundation with support from the American Philosophical Association.

PhilPeople’s main features include:

1. Personalized profiles for every philosopher, including customizable publication lists and graphical elements.

2. A comprehensive directory of departments offering an array of department-wide statistics.

3. A powerful search engine for searching PhilPeople’s database of philosophers based on topics, location, demographics, and other criteria.

4. The news feed, a social networking system that allows you to follow the publications, appointments, updates, paper recommendations, blog posts, and other activities of philosophers.

5. The radar, a tool to discover people traveling near you, and for announcing your own travels.

6. A discussion sessions feature allowing you to share a paper for discussion among as many or as few people as you want, with extensive on-screen commenting and group discussion features.

PhilPeople replaces the social and profile features of PhilPapers. Your PhilPapers profile has automatically been converted into a PhilPeople profile. Your login on PhilPeople is the same as on PhilPapers.

In order to make sure that your profile is complete and reflects your preferences, please follow the following link, which will take you through a simple transition wizard:

https://philpeople.org/wizard

We especially encourage you to complete the demographics section of the wizard. This information will be usable by philosophers searching for members of demographic groups, and will also help us gather better information on the demographics of the profession worldwide. You may choose between different levels of privacy in how various aspects of your demographic information are used: e.g. included in your profile, used in determining search results, or used only in overall demographic statistics.

We also encourage you to make sure that of all your papers are included on your profile and are categorized in the appropriate topic areas. This will ensure that your name shows up when people are searching for philosophers who work on those topics. Finally, we encourage you to upload a cover picture for your profile.

PhilPeople remains in beta testing. The database is still incomplete and not every feature has been tested thoroughly. If you notice any problems, please notify us using the Feedback button on the site. Alternatively, you can contact us at this address (do not reply to this email): [email protected]. We strongly encourage everyone to submit their data to the directory.

We would like to take the opportunity to thank all of those who have contributed to this project. To mention some contributors that stand out: The Committee for the Status of Women in philosophy of the American Philosophical Association provided the initial impetus by asking us some years ago if we could make a tool to help find members of under-represented groups. The American Philosophical Association provided seed funding for the project. The editors of the Philosophical Gourmet Report shared the faculty lists they compiled for the 2018 report. The Department of Philosophy at Western provided generous research assistant support. Cecilia Li and Mark Dunlop did excellent data collection. Last but not least, our outstanding team at the Centre for Digital Philosophy did a superb job. Many thanks to Steve Pearce, Jen McKibbon, Mavrick Laakso, Ryan Augustynowicz, Craig Weston, and Chris Brogly.

Centre for Digital Philosophy / PhilPapers Foundation
Department of Philosophy, Western University
1151 Richmond St, London ON, N6A 5B8, Canada