The Valve - A Literary Organ | Malformed Philosophical Request

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Sunday, November 26, 2006

Malformed Philosophical Request

Posted by Adam Roberts on 11/26/06 at 02:40 PM

Earlier today I was looking something-or-other up (in fact some stuff on Adorno and identity) on the Online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – a very useful web-resource for philosophical neophytes such as myself. But this is the message their search-engine flashed up:

Your request appears to be malformed.
Please try another search.

There’s something simultaneously so elegant and so insulting about the particular styling of that error-message. I’m abashed, and a tad annoyed, and strangely thrilled by it. Malformed? Malformed? Was the software to this programme written by an actual philosopher, or by somebody with a grudge against philosophers? Do the thinkers of Stanford realise they’re being parodied like this? What’s wrong with a simple “No results found”?

It’s things like this give philosophy a bad name amongst hoi polloi, you know. (‘MALFORMED? I’ll malform you, philosophy boy --’)

Comments

What they mean is “Not a wff.”

By John Emerson on 11/26/06 at 11:13 PM | Permanent link to this comment

I typed in the single word ‘identity’. How is that not a wff for a search engine?

By Adam Roberts on 11/27/06 at 04:29 AM | Permanent link to this comment

"Identity” could apply to any possible article the search engine found. You’d need some less general properties if you wanted help finding some article in particular.

By Daniel on 11/27/06 at 06:58 AM | Permanent link to this comment

Did you say “Captain, may I?” Did you say “If you please, sir?” Did you say “Humbly request, sir?”

Philosophers are sticklers all the way up and down the line, and they’re punctilious too. They never relax their vigilence at any point, not even search engine design.

By John Emerson on 11/27/06 at 07:29 AM | Permanent link to this comment

John: yes. I like the “...appears to be malformed ...” As if they can’t commit themselves with certainty on this matter in this, our sublunary world.

By Adam Roberts on 11/27/06 at 11:25 AM | Permanent link to this comment

Is this Malformed cousin to Deformed?

Much Ado About Nothing, III, iii:

Borachio

Tush! I may as well say the fool’s the fool. But
seest thou not what a deformed thief this fashion
is?

Watchman

[Aside] I know that Deformed; a’ has been a vile
thief this seven year; a’ goes up and down like a
gentleman: I remember his name.

By Bill Benzon on 11/27/06 at 11:44 AM | Permanent link to this comment

The reason that search engines sometimes return a syntax error rather than “no results found” is that some of them, like this one, allow more advanced searching. The “malformed request” or “syntax error” clues you in that you used reserved words or syntax in a way that’s not parseable by the search engine, so if you rewrite your query, you may get results.

I thought at first that maybe “identity” was a reserved word for this search engine, but after testing I notice that all queries are returning a syntax error, so there’s probably an issue with their python search script.

By on 11/27/06 at 01:35 PM | Permanent link to this comment

There is no identity without The Other, which you forgot to mention, so what could the search-engine do?

By John Emerson on 11/27/06 at 03:42 PM | Permanent link to this comment

A search engine returning error messages to all possible requests sounds very philosophical indeed.

By John Emerson on 11/27/06 at 06:03 PM | Permanent link to this comment

A Beckett-engine?

By Bill Benzon on 11/27/06 at 06:37 PM | Permanent link to this comment

An anti-Turing machince?

By John Emerson on 11/27/06 at 06:40 PM | Permanent link to this comment

Sounds like a Douglas Adams joke to me.

By Conrad on 11/27/06 at 09:41 PM | Permanent link to this comment

You know how to hurt a guy, C.