Hildesheim Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sources (HePS)
Ongoing Database Initiative
Currently in Development
Coordinated by Leon Krings
A Philosophical Encyclopedia
for a Polycentric World
As part of the ongoing efforts of our Center to explore global intellectual histories and philosophies beyond established Eurocentric canons, the Database Initiative aims to build an open-access digital infrastructure for the documentation, interconnection, and visualization of philosophical sources and traditions from around the world. The initiative operates from 2025 to 2028 as a core sub-project of the Center and brings together an interdisciplinary team of philosophers, digital humanists, and data scientists. Its central goal is to create the Hildesheim Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sources (HePS) — a dynamic knowledge graph that models and contextualizes sources of philosophizing across cultures, languages, and historical periods.
The central aim of the Hildesheim Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sources (HePS) is to create an open-access, multilingual database and associated platform designed to map the richness and diversity of modes of philosophizing worldwide. Instead of presenting a fixed canon, HePS offers a dynamically growing knowledge graph that brings together sources, thinkers, traditions, practices, concepts, places, and institution, together with the historical, systematic and cultural relations that connect them.
Our goal is to make marginalized and underrepresented traditions visible—from African and Latin American philosophies to Indigenous knowledge systems worldwide, women philosophers, oral traditions, and embodied practices such as meditation. In doing so, HePS challenges the long-standing Eurocentrism of conventional references and contributes to the decolonization of knowledge.
HePS is built on the principles of open science and knowledge commons: all data will be freely accessible, openly licensed, and linked to other public knowledge bases. This ensures that the encyclopedia is not an isolated archive but part of a wider, collaborative ecosystem.
At its core, HePS fosters intercultural and polylogical dialogue. By enabling readers to encounter ideas from traditions beyond their own, the platform creates a open space of interconnection where diverse approaches can coexist, overlap, and sometimes diverge, thereby expanding our collective understanding of what it means to philosophize in a globalized and polycentric world.
Objectives
- Documentation of Philosophical Sources:
The database focuses primarily on philosophical sources — oral, written, or embodied — that can either be considered as philosophical works in themselves or as sources for philosophizing, each accompanied by detailed metadata, summaries, and scholarly commentary. Wherever possible, we link the source entry to digitized text corpora and information in other databases. - Global and Polycentric Perspective:
The database emphasizes underrepresented traditions, including African, South American, South East Asian, Caribbean, Indigenous, and diasporic philosophies, providing a basis for mapping a truly global understanding of philosophical practices. - Interlinked Knowledge Structures:
Sources, authors, schools, concepts, practices, and institutions are treated as interconnected entities within a semantic network. This structure enables the tracing of influences, historical continuities, thematic parallels, and conceptual affinities across time and space. - Attribution and Scholarly Credit:
Contributions from researchers are individually attributed and linked to persistent identifiers (e.g., ORCID, DOI), making scholarly input visible and citable. Every scholar involved in the project is given due credit for the contributions they provide. - Compatibility and Interoperability:
The database is designed for compatibility with international metadata standards (e.g., VIAF, Wikidata) and is developed with tools such as OpenRefine, Wikibase, and knowledge graph infrastructures. - Open Science and Ethical Access:
All data is published under open licenses, prioritizing common access, transparency, and global scholarly participation.
Technical and Strategic Development
Project Coordinator
Room: Main Campus, H.0.09
Tel.: +49 5121 883-21118
E-Mail: krings001[at]uni-hildesheim.de
The project is currently in the planning and prototyping phase. In collaboration with the Open Science Lab at the TIB Hannover, we are exploring the deployment of Wikibase4Research Framework for Linked Open Data (LOD) and other technologies for data modeling, version control, and automated visualizations.
A pilot dataset is already under construction, focusing on sources from various linguistic backgrounds as a testing ground for multilingual metadata structuring. Further data will be incorporated from our partner project Histories of Philosophy in a Global Perspective (Hi:Phi), and from the Philosophie-Atlas by Elmar Holenstein, which is currently being translated into English by our team member Jordan Kynes and whose detailed register and cartographic representations offer a valuable basis for the modelling of geo-historical relations. Additionally, we are working on mapping sociological network graphs between philosophers in the vein of Randall Collin’s The Sociology of Philosophies, as well as gathering more data in cooperation with our fellows.
Image taken from Holenstein, Elmar: Philosophie-Atlas
Image taken from Collins, Randall: The Sociology of Philosophies
Visualization & User Interface
One of the distinctive features of the Hildesheim Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sources (HePS) is its emphasis on intuitive and interactive exploration. Instead of presenting philosophy as a static collection of texts and authors, the platform enables users to navigate the material dynamically, revealing patterns, interconnections, and contexts at a glance.
The platform will allow users to navigate philosophical works and their relations via:
- Tabular Interfaces
Spreadsheet-like views allow users to filter, sort, and compare works, authors, traditions, or concepts. These tables serve as the entry point for precise queries, for example, finding all works composed in a particular language or identifying philosophers active in a given century. - Relational Graphs
Network diagrams visualize the web of historical and conceptual connections: who influenced whom, which works cite each other, how concepts migrate across traditions. - Geographical Maps
Interactive maps situate philosophical sources in space, showing places and institutions of origin, transmission, and reception, showing entanglements in global intellectual history. - Timelines
Chronological views trace the unfolding of philosophical ideas, figures and schools over time, with synchronicities, interrelations and divergences. - Researcher Networks
Network graphs of scholarly networks trace academic lineages and rivalries, showing how different philosophers influenced each other.
All of these modes are interconnected: selecting a philosopher in a table can highlight their personal connections on a graph, locate them on a map, show the conceptual space they worked with, or place them within a timeline. This responsive interplay of views makes it possible to pursue both highly targeted questions and open-ended explorations—supporting researchers, students, and the wider public alike in discovering polycentric histories and networks of philosophizing.
Governance and Quality Control
HePS combines the openness of a collaborative platform with the rigor of academic publishing. An international editorial board, initially formed by the Center’s core team and fellows with specific regional and linguistic expertise, oversees submissions, sets standards, and ensures balance across traditions.
All entries undergo a review process for factual accuracy and scholarly quality. Contributions are credited by name, linked to ORCID where possible, and assigned timestamps and DOIs for stable citation.
The board is designed to expand and rotate, ensuring diverse participation and transparent decision-making. Through this process, HePS remains both a trusted academic resource and a living, evolving commons of global philosophy.
