Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

History

The IEP was founded by philosopher James Fieser in 1995, operating through a non-profit organization with the aim of providing accessible and scholarly information on philosophy. The current general editors are philosophers James Fieser and Bradley Dowden (since 1999) with a staff of thirty faculty members as subject-area editors plus numerous volunteers. The entire website was redesigned in 2009, transitioning to the open-source content management system WordPress. In 2025, it contained about 900 articles.

Organization

The general editors supervise thirty subject-area editors, who help recruit authors and referees. The area editors supervise the blind-refereeing process. The intended audience for the IEP is philosophy students and faculty who are not specialists within the field, and thus articles are written in an accessible style. Articles consist of a brief survey or overview, followed by the body of the article, and an annotated bibliography. Articles are searchable either by an alphabetical index or through a Google-power search mechanism.

Usage

During any twelve month period, it receives 8.2 million unique viewers, making it the most visited encyclopedia of professionally written philosophy articles. Similarweb analytics and Google Analytics say 75% of this usage is through internet searches, 18% is through direct access, and 5% through referral, with the referring websites including other reference websites and university library guides.

Recognition

The IEP is included by the American Library Association in its listing of Best Free Reference Sites; listed as an online philosophy resource by the Federation of Australasian Philosophy in Schools Associations; listed by EpistemeLinks as one of the "outstanding resources" in philosophy on the internet; and listed as a reliable resource in many university philosophy guides.

References

References

1. "Oxford University ARCH Project".
2. Kooy, B.. (2015). "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy".
3. "About the IEP".
4. "Law in Free Internet Encyclopedias of Philosophy (SEP & IEP)". The University of Chicago Library.
5. "Welcome to the New IEP".
6. "About the IEP".
7. Similarweb data on IEP, at www.similarweb.com, accessed 18 September 2017.
8. (December 29, 2016). "Best Free Reference Web Sites 2016 18th Annual List RUSA Emerging Technologies Section (ETS)".
9. "Online guides to Philosophy". FAPSA.
10. "EpistemeLinks: Philosophy Resources on the Internet".
11. "Philosophy: Philosophy eresources". Cambridge University Libraries.