Henry Buhl Library: Medieval Studies: Philosophy

Background Reading

The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
Call Number: Ref B 41 .C35 2015
This is the leading, full-scale comprehensive dictionary of philosophical terms and thinkers to appear in English in more than half a century.
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Call Number: Ref B 51 .E53 2005 v.1-10
Provides valuable background information on Confucianism, as well as a bibliography of primary and secondary sources.
Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy
Publication Date: 2016
Now, eminent philosopher Simon Blackburn offers the most authoritative and up-to-date dictionary of philosophy available in a single volume, packed with helpful information for the novice and with astute observations for the expert.

Find Books & eBooks

Highlighted eBook Collections

Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, Religion and Culture This link opens in a new window eBook collection of 260+ volumes offering essays on key figures, movements, and topics in the history of philosophy, religion, and culture.
Past Masters This link opens in a new window Primary source eBook collection of important texts and translations in the history of philosophy and thought.

Find free online books

eBooks & Online Books page
Provides access to thousands of eBooks and online books. Use the tabs at the top to locate eBooks by discipline.

Helpful Series:

Simply copy and paste one of the terms bold terms below into the Library Catalog search box and change the drop-down box to Series to begin searching.

Some of the highlighted titles in each series are listed below.

Blackwell Companions to Philosophy:

A Companion to Aesthetics
A Companion to Analytical Philosophy
A Companion to Epistemology
A Companion to Ethics
A Companion to Metaphysics
A Companion to the Philosophy of Religion

Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, Religion, and Culture (also available online)

TIPS:

Use subjects to locate more books on your topic.
Use bibliographies to expand your search (tips for determining if a citation is for a book, a journal article, or a chapter in an edited book).

Search synonyms (ex: Genghis Khan and Chinggis Khan).
Try our list of E-Books & Online Books.

Need a book the library does not own?

You can request the book through Interlibrary Loan. Info and a downloadable form are available here!

To search for books available in other libraries, try using

WorldCat -- Search the holdings of more than 10,000 libraries to locate books and identify citation information.

Library of Congress -- Access to the Library of Congress catalog and other online collections.

NOTE: Users do not need to identify a library that owns the book. Simply provide the appropriate information on the form and library staff will do the rest!

Journal Article Databases

Philosopher's Index This link opens in a new window
Contains citations and abstracts of scholarly journal articles and books in all major fields of philosophy.
Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Covers a wide range of subject matter in both popular and scholarly periodicals.
Academic Search Complete is a comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 4,600 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,500 journals and nearly 10,000 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. This scholarly collection offers unmatched full text coverage of information in many areas of academic study including: animal science, anthropology, area studies, astronomy, biology, chemistry, civil engineering, electrical engineering, ethnic & multicultural studies, food science & technology, general science, geography, geology, law, materials science, mathematics, mechanical engineering, music, pharmaceutical sciences, physics, psychology, religion & theology, veterinary science, women's studies, zoology, and many other fields. Academic Search Complete offers critical information from many sources unique to this massive collection. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for 1,000 journals.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Archival Database of full text scholarly journal articles. Journal issues are typically added to JSTOR 3 to 5 years after publication.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
Large collection of full-text scholarly articles and books supporting research in the humanities and social sciences.

Journal articles are very specific.

Finding articles is easier after you have read up on your topic.

Use more than one article database.

No database searches everything.
For thorough research, use more than one database and try different search terms.

A to Z List of Journals
Always check the A to Z list to see if we have access to the journal title and date of publication you need!

Need an article that isn't full text? Access the request form below.

Document Delivery Forms

Remember, scholarship is international.

You may come across some great articles in which the titles (and thus the articles) are not in English.

So, when you can, it is a good idea to limit your searches to articles in English.