What Google Thinks People Think About Philosophers

What Google Thinks People Think About Philosophers


Enter a word or two into Google and its guesses about what you’re looking for, based on what most other people have looked for using similar words, will appear.

So what do people think of philosophers? Hmmm….

Google on Philosophers 2

How does Google autocomplete other philosophy-related searches? If you find one worth sharing, take a screenshot, send it to [email protected], and I’ll post it here.


from Craig Bacon:

google philosophers want to


from Tomas Bogardus:

google on philosophers never

 


from HK Anderson, who notices that Google’s answers depend on how you ask:

google on all are phil


Jeff Sebo and Danielle Wenner both sent in versions of this:

google philosophy is


from Jeff Heikkinen, who notes how the results change with the addition of a single letter:

google why do philosophers trio


from Chris Hinchcliffe:

google does philosophy

 


 

Disputed Moral Issues - Mark Timmons - Oxford University Press
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Lisa
Lisa
9 years ago

It seems that there is a significant linguistic variation. Try typing in ‘la philosophie’. I got this:
la liberte philosophie
la definition de la philosophie
la verite philosophie
la raison philosophie
Of course, if I typed things in a bit differently, I also got la philosophie de la boudoir.

HK Andersen
HK Andersen
9 years ago

Depending on how you ask, philosophers may be wise depressed mortal mathematicians, or perhaps smart happy intelligent atheist introverts.

Regina Rini
Regina Rini
9 years ago

For comparison, I tried inputting various other academic sorts into the “___ are…” Google function. Here is what the digital zeitgeist thinks of our colleagues:

Mathematicians are lazy
Sociologists are the worst bullies
Chemists are gangsters
Geologists are the kardashians of science

Michael Kremer
Michael Kremer
9 years ago

Philosophy is…
dead
pointless
bullshit

and, last but not least

a walk on a slippery rock (an Edie Brickell song from 1988)

Jeff Heikkinen
Jeff Heikkinen
9 years ago

What would constitute animal testing of philosophy products? Discussing a paper with your cat?

alethia. m
alethia. m
Reply to  Jeff Heikkinen
9 years ago

There’s a cosmetic line called “philosophy.”

In undergrad, one of my professors learned about this company during a discussion about Kant; he was so appalled/bemused/horrified we spent the rest of the class time listening to him ranting as he attempted to understand why that would make sense and later, attempting to come up with mock-names for products. It was a fun break.