Mapping philosophy

"Here is an intriguing map of philosophical space... The raw data was culled from the “influenced by” section for the pages of all the philosophers listed in Wikipedia — using an algorithm. The images are startling, and the map does seem to get many of the big thinkers what seems intuitively the right size and location (though one does notice Descartes’ “star” must be too small relative to his influence). But it is unclear how effective the algorithm is at saying something meaningful about the history of philosophy and, correlatively, the history of ideas. One also wonders what a similar map drawing on the data in, say, The Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy, would look like." Stone Links: A Constellation of Philosophers - NYTimes.com