Research Guides: Philosophy & Ethics: Philosophy

Philosophy

Finding Articles

Use databases to find academic articles to continue your research. Below are the most helpful databases for finding relevant articles on philosophy.

Academic Search Ultimate
Academic Search Ultimate offers an enormous collection of full-text journals, providing users access to critical information from many sources unique to this database. In addition, it includes peer-reviewed full text for STEM research, as well as for the social sciences and humanities. Scholarly content covers a broad range of important areas of academic study, including anthropology, engineering, law, sciences and more.
JSTOR
An archive of important scholarly journals, eBooks and primary sources in 75 disciplines. Offers high-resolution, scanned images of journal issues and pages as originally published.
Project MUSE
Includes 400 scholarly journals in humanities, social sciences, and mathematics and over 50,000 ebooks primarily from university presses.
HeinOnline
Includes multidisciplinary and legal journals, essential government documents, state & federal case law, and international resources. Contact the Law Library if you need an alternative accessibility plan.
Contact the Law Library if you need an alternative accessibility plan.
Historic American Newspapers: Chronicling America
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
US Newsstream (Proquest Newspapers)
Full text access to 600 U.S. newspapers, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

Good Starting Journals for Philosophy

The following are links to specific academic journals which are published and peer-reviewed by experts in the field.

The Philosophical Review
In continuous publication since 1892, the Philosophical Review has a long-standing reputation for excellence and has published many papers now considered classics in the field, such as W. V. O. Quine's “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” Thomas Nagel's “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?,” and the early work of John Rawls. The journal aims to publish original scholarly work in all areas of analytic philosophy, with an emphasis on material of general interest to academic philosophers, and is one of the few journals in the discipline to publish book reviews.
The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry
In continuous publication since 1892, the Philosophical Review has a long-standing reputation for excellence and has published many papers now considered classics in the field, such as W. V. O. Quine's “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” Thomas Nagel's “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?,” and the early work of John Rawls. The journal aims to publish original scholarly work in all areas of analytic philosophy, with an emphasis on material of general interest to academic philosophers, and is one of the few journals in the discipline to publish book reviews.
Journal of the History of Philosophy
Journal of the History of Philosophy (JHP) is an international journal that publishes articles, notes, discussions, and reviews about the history of Western philosophy, broadly conceived. JHP takes its mandate from a motion passed by the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in December 1957 approving "the establishment of a journal devoted to the history of philosophy." Each issue includes refereed articles on topics ranging from ancient and medieval to nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy as well as book reviews. The Journal publishes material in English, German, and French.

Search the entire library catalog here.

Books on philosophy are generally located in these call numbers ranges on the fourth floor of the library.

B1-5802	Philosophy (General)
BC1-199	Logic
BD10-701	Speculative philosophy
BH1-301	Aesthetics
BD95-131	Metaphysics
BJ1-1725	Ethics
BD143-237	Epistemology. Theory of knowledge

Online Encyclopedias

The following links will take you to online encyclopedias and reference manuals to help you get started on your research. Here you can find general background information, definitions, and history on philosophy.

Big Ideas Simply Explained: The Philosophy Book
To the complete novice learning about philosophy can be daunting - The Philosophy Book changes all that. With the use of powerful and easy to follow images, succinct quotations, and explanations that are easily understandable, this book cuts through any misunderstandings to demystify the subject. Each chapter is organised chronologically, and covers not only the big ideas, but the philosophers who first voiced them, as well as cross-referencing with earlier and later ideas and thinkers. The Philosophy Book untangles knotty theories and sheds light on abstract concepts, and is perfect for anyone with a general interest in how our social, political, and ethical ideas are formed, as well as students of philosophy and politics.
Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
This is the leading, full-scale comprehensive dictionary of philosophical terms and thinkers to appear in English in more than half a century. Written by a team of more than 550 experts and now widely translated, it contains approximately 5,000 entries ranging from short definitions to longer articles. It is designed to facilitate the understanding of philosophy at all levels and in all fields.
A Dictionary of Philosophical Logic
Introduces undergraduate and post-graduate students to the main problems and positions of philosophical logic. Elements include crucial figures, positions, terminology, and debates within philosophical logic as well as issues that pertain to related, overlapping disciplines, such as set theory and the philosophy of mathematics. Entries are extensively cross-referenced for identification within the context of wider debates.

Ethics: questions of morality of human actions (online)
The third edition covers topics of recent interest to readers in the twenty-first century, such as Heroic medicine, Gender identity, Wealth inequality, LGBTQ issues, Female genital mutilation, Informed consent, and Transgender care. This encyclopedic work includes more than 1,000 essays organized by broad categories related to ethics issues: animal rights, arts and censorship, bioethics, business and labor, children's rights, civil rights, environmental issues, human rights, international relations, legal and judicial issues, the media, the military, personal and social ethics, political and economic ethics, psychological ethics, race and ethnicity, religion, science and technology, sex and gender, theory, and wealth.

Print Reference

The library also has a number of print encyclopedias that can be found in the Reference section on the second floor of the library. Reference books cannot be checked out of the library but there are scanners available on the second floor that can be used to scan information from these texts into a PDF which you can email to yourself.

Internet Resources

Online texts, sites, and sources on various philosophy topics.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy organizes scholars from around the world in philosophy and related disciplines to create and maintain an up-to-date reference work.
Philpapers
Index and Bibliography of philosophy scholars and scholarship