Philosophy Web Resources

General Reference:

  • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is highly recommended as an academic aid and resource. All articles are authoritative and written by professional academic philosophers. This academic standard is matched by a degree of rigor and difficulty that may render certain articles inaccessible to undergraduate students.
  • Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy tends to be more accessible in terms of difficulty than the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy while also succeeding in providing scholarly material. Articles are written by professional academic philosophers.
  • Logic of Arguments: Nativlang.com contains a light introduction to fundamental concepts of logic and argumentation in both text form and videos. While not very thorough in detail, this site may help with an understanding of the basics.
  • 100 Basic Philosophic Terms: 100 Basic Philosophic Terms provides accessible definitions for many basic terms used in philosophy. Useful for a quick and convenient reference to common philosophical concepts.
  • Philosophical Jargonology: This list provides very accessible definitions to some perhaps otherwise arcane philosophical concepts. The meanings provided should not be taken as authoritative, but rather supplemental.
  • Josh May: Philosophy Basics: Joshua May, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama, provides a useful guide to the fundamentals of reasoning, covering mainly the basics of logic and argumentation. While not very thorough, this site may prove beneficial to beginners in philosophy.
  • A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names: A more thorough dictionary style reference resource for philosophical terminology and names relevant to the history of philosophy.

Databases:

  • The Philosopher’s Imprint: The Philosophers Imprint is a free-to-access archive of academic philosophical articles. Their selection is both extensive and scholarly.
  • Phil Papers. org: From the site: “PhilPapers is a comprehensive index and bibliography of philosophy maintained by the community of philosophers. Using advanced trawling techniques and large scale crowdsourcing, we monitor all sources of research content in philosophy, including journals, books, open access archives, and personal pages maintained by academics. We also host the largest open access archive in philosophy” .

Audio-Visual Material:

  • Bryan Magee’s Men of Ideas: Bryan Magee’s Men of Ideas video series is available on youtube; this series provides a wealth of introductory information on the ideologies of many of philosophy’s most prominent figures. Magee interviews and holds discussions with many of the twentieth century’s leading experts in the field, including Quine, Ayer, Searle, Putnam, and Coplestone.
  • Philosophy Talk: Philosophy Talk is a series of forty-five minute discussions with experts on the full range of philosophical topics. The hosts are John Perry and Ken Taylor of Stanford. Available as podcasts, but for a charge.
  • Philosophy Bites: Philosophy Bites is a series of fifteen- to twenty-minute podcasts that come out a couple of times a month. The interviews are with leading philosophers in all fields.
  • In Our Time, BBC Radio 4: Interviews with three academic experts on a wide range of topics, including a good deal of philosophy. Available as a podcast.

Philosophical Texts:

  • Open Culture: This is an archive of many classical philosophical texts available for download. Including Aristotle, Kant, Descartes, Rousseau, Hegel, etc.
  • University of Oxford Text Archive: “The OTA [University of Oxford Text Archive] collects, catalogues, preserves and distributes high-quality digital resources for research and teaching. We currently hold thousands of texts in more than 25 different languages, and are actively working to extend our catalogue of holdings” (from site). Excellent and extensive archive for research purposes.

Forums:

  • Philosophy Forums: While information obtainable from this forum is not authoritative, Philosophy Forums provides a general medium for philosophical discussion. This may serve to both clarify concepts and exercise argumentation.

Humor:

  • Existential Comics: Existential Comics is mostly for entertainment, but the jokes are based on occurrences within the history of philosophy and there is an available explanation for the meaning to each joke. While the explanations aren’t very thorough, they may be useful for a light acquaintance with certain prominent philosophical figures and their ideas.
  • The Philosophical Lexicon: The Philosophical Lexicon is a detailed list of satirical definitions for many common words pertaining to philosophy and its history.   For example, the given definition of a priori: “A. Priori, n. A species of undeniable truth first discovered in New Zealand.”
  • Three Minute Philosophy: Humorous, short, cartoonish “introductions” to various famous philosophers. Not scholarly.