Philosophy

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Articles

  • Philosopher's Index is a comprehensive resource for articles from all areas of philosophy. Includes analysis and reviews of major classical works. References go back to approximately 1940. Please click here for a list of journal titles indexed in this database.

  • JSTOR is a multidisciplinary collection of the top journals in many fields. The default is to search across all fields of knowledge but to restrict your results to Philosophy journals, use the Advanced Search option. Select Philosophy and perhaps also, Classical Studies, Religion, and/or Political Science, etc., depending on the area of philosophy in which you are interested. Coverage includes content from the first issue of a journal to approximately five (5) years ago, due to a rolling embargo period. For a listing of titles included in JSTOR's Philosophy collection, please click here.

  • Periodicals Archive Online is an archive of hundreds of digitised journals published in the arts, humanities and social sciences. It provides researchers with access to more than 200 years of scholarship, spread across a wide variety of subject areas, direct from their computer. Select open access journal content is also included here. 

  • The Religion & Philosophy Collection is a comprehensive database covering such topics as world religions, major denominations, biblical studies, religious history, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy and the history of philosophy. This database offers hundreds of full text journals, including more than 250 peer-reviewed titles, making it an essential tool for researchers and students of religion and philosophical studies. In addition to the full text, indexing and abstracts are provided for all journals in the database. Examples of titles offered in the Religion & Philosophy Collection include: Archaeology, Biblical Interpretation, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Ethics, Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy, Metaphilosophy, Philosophical Perspectives, Religion & Theology, and many more. The majority of full text titles are available as PDFs. Full text information in this database dates as far back as 1975.  

  • While this is not a database covering just philosophy, Humanities Abstracts contains a wealth of material relevant for this discipline as well as articles in related humanities fields such as history, culture,. theory & criticism, etc..  It is not as complete as  Philosopher's Index nor does it extend as far back but it is a good first step and appropriate for undergraduate students of Philosophy.

  • DOAJ covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. It aims to cover all subjects and languages. There are thousands of journals in the entire DOAJ directory, some of which are searchable at article level. There are approximately one hundred open access journals in Philosophy.

  • PhilPapers is a comprehensive directory of online philosophy articles and books by academic philosophers. It monitors journals in many areas of philosophy, as well as archives and personal pages. PhilPapers also accepts articles directly from users, who can provide links or upload copies. Some features require that you sign in first, but creating an account is easy and free.

  • PhilSci Archive is an electronic archive for preprints in the philosophy of science. It is offered by the University of Pittsburgh as a free service to the philosophy of science community. The goal of the PhilSci Archive is to promote communication in the field by the rapid dissemination of new work. Papers can be browsed by year, conference, or by subject area, or can be keyword searched.

  • Globethics.net is a worldwide ethics network based in Geneva, with an international Board of Foundation of eminent persons. It provides an electronic platform for ethical reflection and action. Its central instrument is the internet site www.globethics.net. The aim of Globethics.net is to ensure that people in all regions of the world are empowered to reflect and act on ethical issues. In order to ensure access to knowledge resources in applied ethics, Globethics.net has developed its Globethics.net Library, the leading global digital library on ethics. There is no cost involved in using the library. Individuals only need to register (free of charge) as participants on the Globethics.net web site to get access to all the full text journals, encyclopedias, e-books and other resources in the library.

Biographies

  • "World Philosophers and Their Works examines, in 231 alphabetically arranged chapters, 226 of the greatest world philosophers of all time, plus 5 of the most influential ancient works of indeterminable authorship-from ancient Greek and Chinese thinkers such as Pythagoras and Confucius to contemporary philosophers such as Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and feminist Alison M. Jaggar. Each chapter contains a 2,000-word biographical essay...followed by one or more 2,000-word overviews of representative works and ending in an annotated bibliography providing suggestions for Additional Reading." From the publisher's web site. Available in print, DBW reference B104.W67 2000.

  • Fifty Major Philosophers (Second Edition) provides about five or six pages on each of the following philosophers with bibliograhic suggestions for further reading: Thales of Miletus, Pythagoras, Heraclitus of Ephesus, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Socrates, Democritus of Abdera, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine of Hippo, Moses Maimonides, St. Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Machiavelli, Francis Bacon, Galileo, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Bentham, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Mill, Kierkegaard, Marx, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, Nietzsche, Gottlob Frege, Edmund Husserl, John Dewey, Russell, George Edward Moore, Wittgenstein, Robin George Collingwood, Heidegger, Karl Popper, Willard van Orman Quine, Merleau-Ponty, Alfred Jules Ayer, John Rawls, and Sartre. Available in print, DBW reference B72.C59 2006

  • Fifty Key ContemporaryThinkers: From Structuralism to Post-Humanism is similar to Fifty Major Philosophers (see above) but with the emphasis on modern philosophers, psychiatrists, sociologists, linguists, literary figures, etc. who have had an impact on modern and post-modern thought. Available in print, DBW reference B804.L37 2008.

  • The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers, which contains 1082 entries by over 500 authors, provides an account of philosophical thought in the United States and Canada between 1860 and the present. Each entry begins with biographical and career information in the opening paragraphs. The main body of each entry discusses the subject’s writings, teaching, and thought.  A cross-referencing system refers the reader to other entries and each entry has a concluding bibliography.  These four volumes are available in print, DBW reference B935 .D494 2005

Encyclopedias

  • The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a print and online encyclopedia, covering an unparalleled breadth of subject matter,including Anglo-American, ethical and political, cross-cultural,interdisciplinary, continental and contemporary philosophy with over 25,000 hot-linked cross-references between articles and new links to other editorially reviewed websites. It is an invaluable resource for all levels of users; students and general readers gain a rapid orientation with accessiblesummaries at the beginning of every in-depth article. This resource is regularly upgraded with new material, revisions, and bibliographic updates, providing access to the latest scholarship and major developments in philosphical inquiry worldwide. Aso available in print, DBW reference B51.R68 1998.

  • Ever since its first appearance in 1960, the Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy (the most current is the 2005 edition) has been recognised as a classic, providing not only a guide to philosophy at its best, but some remarkable samples of it, too, with entries on newly emerging philosophers and on themes as diverse as aesthetics, 'African philosophy', gender, translation and philosophy of mind. The Concise Encyclopedia offers a lively, readable, comprehensive and authoritative treatment of Western philosophy as a whole, incorporating articles by many leading philosophical authors. It serves not only as a convenient reference work, but also as an engaging introduction to philosophy. -- Edited from the book jacket  Available in print, DBW reference B41.C66 2005.

  • The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) has been created by a non-profit organization run by the editors. The IEP receives no funding, and operates through the volunteer work of the editors, authors, and technical advisors. Most of the articles in the IEP are original contributions by specialized philosophers around the Internet, others are are temporary, or "proto articles," and have largely been adapted from older sources. These are identifiable by the inclusion of the initials IEP at the close, and will in time be replaced by original articles. The IEP is updated regularly.

  • This is the second edition of the classic Encyclopedia of Philosophy from the 1960s with hundreds of new articles and updated entries, all with updated bibliographies.  Along with the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, this is one of the two important multi-volume encyclopedias in this large field.  This 10-volume set emphasizes Western philosophy but covers all aspects of the discipline.  Available in print, DBW reference B41.E5 2006.

  • The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) is an online-only encyclopedia, designed so that each entry is maintained and kept up to date by an expert or group of experts in the field. All entries and substantive updates are refereed by the members of a distinguished editorial board before they are made public. Consequently, this dynamic reference work maintains academic standards while evolving and adapting in response to new research. You can cite fixed editions that are created on a quarterly basis and stored in the SEP Archives (every entry contains a link to its complete archival history, identifying the fixed edition the reader should cite).

  • This six-volume set of The Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas (2005) is the first revision in thirty years of the classic Dictionary of the History of Ideas, one of the most important reference works ever published on "what we think" -- philosophical and theoretical concepts, historical, scientific, social, and critical issues, etc. A PDF copy of the table of contents of the new edition is available here. The newer edition reflects three decades of newer scholarship and as such has many more entries than its predecesor, which is available online. The 2005 edition is availabl in print, DBW reference CB5.D52 2005.

  • The Cambridge Histories of Philosophy are now easily accessible online. The unique content along with the enhanced usability and functionality is extremely beneficial to those studying Philosophy. The resource allows unlimited concurrent users 24 hours a day and is a dynamic resource, being continually updated with new volumes taken from the print series as soon as they become available.  The set contains the following and is expected to expand to include more content as time passes:

Handbooks

  • The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science is an indispensable reference source and guide to the major themes, debates, problems and topics in philosophy of science, containing fifty-five specially commissioned entries by a leading team of international contributors. Organized into four parts it covers: historical and philosophical context; debates; concepts; and the individual sciences. This book covers everything students of philosophy of science need to know - from empiricism, explanation and experiment to causation, observation, prediction and more - and contains many helpful features including: a section on the individual sciences; chapters on the philosophy of biology, chemistry, physics and psychology; and further reading and cross-referencing at the end of each chapter. Available in print, DBW stack Q175.R68 2008.

  • Philosophy: A Guide to the Reference Literature is an excellent place to get a list of the most important sources in each of about twenty areas of philosophy including non-western philosophy, western philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of art and of art criticism, epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind, ethics, logic and the philosophies of mathematics, science, and social sciences, etc. Available in print, DBW reference B72.B97 2006.

  • World Philosophy: Essay-Reviews of 225 Major Works is a five volume set that contains critical summary essays of major works in Philosophy, critiques by modern scholars, and extensive, although somewhat dated, bibliographies for further study.  The five volumes are as follows:  v. 1. Sixth century BCE.-third century BCE. -- v. 2. Third century BCE.- 1713 CE -- v. 3. 1726-1896 -- v. 4. 1896-1932 -- v. 5. 1932-1971. Available in print, DBW reference B29.W68 1982 or DBW stack B29.W68 1982.

  • The Oxford Reference Online Premium includes, among many other titles, The Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, and dictionaries and companions to individual religions and religion in general from the Oxford University Press. These can be searched individually, as a Philosophy and Religion subject grouping, or with all other Oxford dictionaries, companions, encyclopedias, and guides in this very large collection of reference tools.

Primary Resources

  • Prepared by staff in the Research & Instructional Services department of The D.B. Weldon Library, The Primary Resources Resesarch Guide provides an annotated listing of primary research resources available via Western Libraries and arranged by geographic region (e.g. Canada, America, Britain, etc). Western Libraries provides access to thousands of primary documents in print, microform and electronic format.  Consult the primary sources pages, which are listed by geographic region in the Table of Contents of the Guide to find resources appropriate to your topic.  Listed on each page are selected online resources that provide access to comprehensive collections of primary sources for specific regions, time periods, and topic areas.

  • Past Masters provides access to the complete editions of philosophy texts originally published in the print series. Generally, these are the complete works of philosophers such as Saint Anselm, Aristotle, Berkeley, Descartes, Hume, Leibniz, and Locke, and correspondence and other writings of people such as Boyle, Hobbes, Ockham, Plato, and Wittgenstein. Also included are several dictionaries including the Oxford Classical Dictionary.  Western Libraries provides access to the complete collection of texts.

  • The Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts is a collection of public domain and open access articles, books, and other documents with a focus on American and English literature as well as Western philosophy.

Web Sites

  • With over 10,000 members, the American Philosophical Association, founded in 1900, is one of the largest philosophical societies in the world and the only American philosophical society not devoted to a particular school or philosophical approach.The American Philosophical Association web site provides information on grants, prizes and awards, conferences, publications as well as news in the field (appointments, deaths, etc).

  • The Canadian Philosophical Association is a learned society, founded in 1958 to promote philosophical scholarship and education across Canada, and to represent the interests of the profession in public forums. To these ends, it organizes scholarly meetings at annual gatherings sponsored by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, publishes a Bulletin and a quarterly journal Dialogue, maintains contact with sister organizations in Canada and other countries, and intervenes in policy issues pertaining to the profession.

  • Founded in 1975, the Philosophy of Science Association promotes research, teaching, and free discussion of issues in the philosophy of science from diverse standpoints. To this end, the PSA engages in activities such as: the publishing of periodicals, essays and monographs; sponsoring conventions and meetings; and awarding prizes for distinguished work in the field.

  • EpistemeLinks.com includes over 19,000 categorized links to philosophy resources on the Internet and has several additional features. Online since early 1997, this site is free to use and doesn't require user registration of any kind. Begin browsing the site by using the Philosophers or Topics on the main page, or by using the link category or special feature links found there. See also the new (early 2007) Custom Search Engines for philosophy.