A Longitudinal Analysis of a Social Network of Intellectual History

TL;DR

This paper analyzes a large, longitudinal influence network of over 12,500 intellectuals from YAGO, revealing patterns of influence, key scholars, and the evolution of intellectual impact over time.

Contribution

It introduces a longitudinal, time-sliced analysis of a large intellectual influence network, uncovering temporal influence patterns and roles of scholars across eras.

Findings

Influence was strongest on contemporaries and the following era.

Inter-era influence was most significant to the immediately subsequent period.

No evidence of Renaissance re-discovery of Antiquity, but continuous reception since Middle Ages.

Abstract

The history of intellectuals consists of a complicated web of influences and interconnections of philosophers, scientists, writers, their work, and ideas. How did these influences evolve over time? Who were the most influential scholars in a period? To answer these questions, we mined a network of influence of over 12,500 intellectuals, extracted from the Linked Open Data provider YAGO. We enriched this network with a longitudinal perspective, and analysed time-sliced projections of the complete network differentiating between within-era, inter-era, and accumulated-era networks. We thus identified various patterns of intellectuals and eras, and studied their development in time. We show which scholars were most influential in different eras, and who took prominent knowledge broker roles. One essential finding is that the highest impact of an era's scholar was on their contemporaries, as well as the inter-era influence of each period was strongest to its consecutive one. Further, we see quantitative evidence that there was no re-discovery of Antiquity during the Renaissance, but a continuous reception since the Middle Ages.