This applies to philosophy because articles tend to mention the general categories they fall under. The classification of knowledge generally falls under the purview of philosophy, so naturally following links upwards will lead to it eventually.

Not quite the same but fun nonetheless.

Philosophy -> Reality -> Existence -> Ontology -> Philosophy

Perhaps philosophy lets you add additional constraints (e.g. click the first link of a certain form) or obtain slightly lower numbers?

Historical figures have the advantage that you don't have to navigate up through layers of classification, you just have to get to a date link (there were better tricks -- date links were the "last resort").