Many people seem to think that the Stanford Encyclopaedia of philosophy, the online website, is a compendium of knowledge and truth. But is it?
In philosophy, as in life, it is important to distinguish between what is relevant and important from that which is fictitious.
The Stanford Encyclopaedia of philosophy contains very little that fits with the facts of the world and hence much of it is indistinguishable from fiction.
It is similar to other things too: for it is analogous to art history., for it contains opinions about what others have written in the same way that art historians write opinions about what others have painted.
It is also analogous to the art of stamp collecting - philately. For it contains many obscure and ultimately meaningless words that are arranged so as to look nice, in the same way that philatelists arrange rare stamps in their stamp collections.
It also has similarities to religion. For it reveres the wisdom and truth of ancient writings in the same way that religionists revere their ancient scriptures.
But, most of all it is analogous to a great novel, albeit one with not much of a plot nor character development. In places it is factual and historical in the same that Tolstoy's 'War and peace' contains some facts and history. In other places it describes little more than a fantasy world like that of Tolkien's 'Lord of the rings'. Its claims of truth are no more convincing than the claims of truth made by Daniel Defoe at the start of many of his novels, such as 'Robinson Crusoe'. And its account of logic is so convoluted and hand-waving that it would not be out of place in Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland'.
So the Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy is best treated as a work of fiction; it has some interesting ideas, some of which fit the facts, but these need to be tested against the facts of the world before they can be accepted as non-fiction.
So I suggest that extreme caution should be taken before applying any of it to real world decisions.
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