Structure and Dynamics of Analytic Philosophy

In this chapter, we investigate by different types of citation analysis the structure and dynamics of Late Analytic Philosophy in order to shed light on the processes of fragmentation and specialization. We try to answer questions such as: When did these processes begin? What is their pace? How did they carve the overall structure of the field? The key notion of documental space is introduced to guide the analyses: the documental space is defined as the universe of documents that are cited by the articles published in the five analytic philosophy journals that form our bibliographic representation of Late Analytic Philosophy. The first set of analyses investigates the structure of Late Analytic Philosophy using a co-citation map. The next set of analyses focuses instead on the dynamics of the field. Patterns in the citation trends of the most cited documents are examined, a data-driven periodization of the documental space is introduced, and, lastly, longitudinal co-citation maps are analyzed. The chapter concludes with a theoretical reflection on the meaning of citation counts and co-citation clusters.