Getting Started
Reference Sources are used to locate general factual information on a particular topic. They usually are read for specific pieces of information, rather than from beginning to end. Reference sources can refer to encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs, handbooks, indexes, atlases, and bibliographies. We have tried to link primarily to reference sources available digitally in this section. You can also browse reference sources through the IUB Virtual Reference Room or in the Wells Reference Reading Room. Materials in the Reference Room cannot be checked out, and thus must be consulted in-house.
Printing
In the Wells Library, you can find Toshiba printers in the Scholars' Commons and the Learning Commons on the first floor, as well as on the second, fourth, and fifth floors of the West Tower. For printing assistance and plotter printers, patrons should go to the fourth floor of the West Tower. Patrons with an IU login can use the My Print Center website to upload documents for printing. Please see the Printers and Technology page for more information.
Scanning and Photocopying
You can make photocopies on the first and ninth floors of the East Tower, or scan documents to save in digital format in several locations in the East and West Towers. Government Information, Maps and Microform Services (East Tower, 2nd floor) has microform machines that can scan images from microfilm, microfiche, and microopaques.
The Scholars' Commons Digitization Lab is a high-end multimedia, multidisciplinary self-service lab dedicated to the digital conversion of materials, and the management and migration of born-digital objects in support of research needs and interests of Indiana University Bloomington's faculty and students. The Lab provides both large format high-speed flatbed and sheet-fed scanners for text documents and large-format flatbeds with transparency capability for photographs, slides, and negatives. It also includes ABBYY Fine Reader (a high-end OCR software). See more on the library website.
Resources for Philosophy
- Brill Online Books and Journals
An index to journals and e-books published by Brill with full text access to content licensed by Indiana University, Bloomington Libraries. Subject areas include the humanities, international law, and biology.
- Google Scholar
Special version of Google's index to scholarly content on the web. Connects to full-text resources available to IU users.
- JSTOR
Provides searchable full-text of historical runs of important scholarly journals in the humanities, arts, sciences, ecology, and business.
- Oxford Handbooks Online: Philosophy
Access to texts in the Oxford handbooks series on philosophy, covering various philosophers, schools of thought, and sub-fields.
- Oxford Academic
Access to Oxford University Press e-books, journals, and other content. Includes access to license to Oxford Scholarship content, as well as University Press Scholarship, and Oxford Handbooks. Covers the areas of classics, economics and finance, history, law, linguistics, literature, philosophy, political science, psychology, and religion.
- PhilPapers
PhilPapers is a comprehensive index and bibliography of philosophy maintained by the community of philosophers.
- Philosopher's Index
A bibliographic database with abstracts covering scholarly research in philosophy since 1940. Cites works in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese and Japanese.
- ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world, including millions of works from thousands of universities. Each dissertation published since July, 1980 includes a 350-word abstract written by the author. Master's theses published since 1988 include 150-word abstracts. Simple bibliographic citations are available for dissertations dating from 1637.
- Religion and Philosophy Collection
Full-text database for theology and philosophy research. Includes hundreds of journals and magazines covering many religious and philosophical topics, including world religions, religious history, political philosophy and philosophy of language.
- WorldCat
Thousands of libraries may be searched from this one catalog; Interlibrary Loan requests can also be made.
- PhilPeoplePhilPeople is an online directory of philosophers, a social network for philosophers, and a tool for keeping up with everything in the philosophical profession. Use this resource to keep up to date with philosophers and relevant publications in the field.
General Philosophy
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy by ISBN: 0415073103Publication Date: 1998-05-26The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy is the most ambitious international philosophy project in many years. Edited by Edward Craig and assisted by thirty specialist subject editors, the REP consists of ten volumes of the world's most eminent philosophers writing for the needs of students and teachers of philosophy internationally. The REP is a project on an unparalleled scale: Over 2000 entries ranging from 500 to 15,000 words in length - thematic, biographical and national 10 volumes consisting of over 5 million words of text plus considerable bibliographic material.
Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy by Welcome to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), which as of Summer 2023, has nearly 1800 entries online. From its inception, the SEP was 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, our 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 our Archives (every entry contains a link to its complete archival history, identifying the fixed edition the reader should cite). The Table of Contents lists entries that are published or assigned. The Projected Table of Contents also lists entries which are currently unassigned but nevertheless projected.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy The purpose of the IEP is to provide detailed, scholarly, peer-reviewed information on key topics and philosophers in all areas of academic philosophy. A critical feature of the IEP is its status as a freely accessible and not-for-profit resource, which the General Editors, present and future, will seek to perpetuate.
Ethics
Encyclopedia of Ethics by ISBN: 0415936721Publication Date: 2001-08-31The editors, working with a team of 325 renowned authorities in the field of ethics, have revised, expanded and updated this classic encyclopedia. Along with the addition of 150 new entries, all of the original articles have been newly peer-reviewed and revised, bibliographies have been updated throughout, and the overall design of the work has been enhanced for easier access to cross-references and other reference features.
Encyclopedia of Bioethics by ISBN: 0028657748Publication Date: 2004-06-01This new edition is a complete revision of the Dartmouth Medal-winning set last revised in 1995. Covering a wealth of topics on the ethics of health professions, animal research, population control and the environment, the set helps researchers to consider the impact of new scientific knowledge and its potential to harm or benefit present and future generations.
The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics by ISBN: 9780199372263Publication Date: 2018-02-05Academic food ethics incorporates work from philosophy but also anthropology, economics, the environmental sciences and other natural sciences, geography, law, and sociology. Scholars from these fields have been producing work for decades on the food system, and on ethical, social, and policy issues connected to the food system. Yet in the last several years, there has been a notable increase in philosophical work on these issues - work that draws on multiple literatures within practical ethics, normative ethics and political philosophy. This handbook provides a sample of that philosophical work across multiple areas of food ethics: conventional agriculture and alternatives to it; animals; consumption; food justice; food politics; food workers; and, food and identity.
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability by ISBN: 9780190622879Publication Date: 2020-06-23Disability raises profound and fundamental issues: questions about human embodiment and well-being; dignity, respect, justice and equality; personal and social identity. It raises pressing questions for educational, health, reproductive, and technology policy, and confronts the scope and direction of the human and civil rights movements. Yet it is only recently that disability has become the subject of the sustained and rigorous philosophical inquiry that it deserves.The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability is the first comprehensive volume on the subject. The volume's contents range from debates over the definition of disability to the challenges posed by disability for justice and dignity; from the relevance of disability for respect, other interpersonal attitudes, and intimate relationships to its significance for health policy, biotechnology, and human enhancement; from the ways that disability scholarship can enrich moral and political philosophy, to the importance of physical and intellectual disabilities for the philosophy of mind and action.
Aesthetics
Encyclopedia of Aesthetics by ISBN: 0195113071Publication Date: 1998-08-20The first reference of its kind surveys the full breadth of critical thought on art, culture, and society--from classical philosophy to contemporary critical theory. Featuring 600 original articles by distinguished scholars from many fields and countries, it is a comprehensive survey of major concepts, thinkers, and debates about the meaning, uses, and value of all the arts--from painting and sculpture to literature, music, theater, dance, television, film, and popular culture. Of special interest are in-depth surveys of Western aesthetics and broad coverage of non-Western traditions and theories of art. The work includes cross references, bibliographies, and an index.
Continental Aesthetics by ISBN: 0631216103Publication Date: 2001-08-08This comprehensive anthology provides a collection of classic and contemporary readings in continental aesthetics. Spanning Romanticism through Modernism to Postmodernism, the volume includes landmark texts that have sparked renewed interest in aesthetics, including works by Schiller, Kant, Nietzsche, Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre, Luk'cs, Habermas, Foucault, Kristeva, and Derrida.
Logic
The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic by ISBN: 0631206930Publication Date: 2001-08-22This volume presents a definitive introduction to twenty core areas of philosophical logic including classical logic, modal logic, alternative logics and close examinations of key logical concepts.
Philosophy of Mind
The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind by ISBN: 0631217746Publication Date: 2003-01-17Comprising a series of specially commissioned chapters by leading scholars, this comprehensive volume presents an up-to-date survey of the central themes in the philosophy of mind. It leads the reader through a broad range of topics, including Artificial Intelligence, Consciousness, Dualism, Emotions, Folk Psychology, Free Will, Individualism, Personal Identity and The Mind-Body Problem.
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind by ISBN: 9780199262618Publication Date: 2009-03-15The study of the mind has always been one of the main preoccupations of philosophers, and has been a booming area of research in recent decades, with remarkable advances in psychology and neuroscience. Oxford University Press now presents the most authoritative and comprehensive guide ever published to the philosophy of mind. An outstanding international team of contributors offer 45 specially written critical surveys of a wide range of topics relating to the mind. The first two sections cover the place of the mind in the natural world: its ontological status, how it fits into the causal fabric of the universe, and the nature of consciousness. The third section focuses on the much-debated subjects of content and intentionality. The fourth section examines a variety of mental capacities, including memory, imagination, and emotion. The fifth section looks at epistemic issues, in particular regarding knowledge of one's own and other minds. The volume concludes with a section on self, personhood, and agency.
Epistemology
Epistemology: an anthology by ISBN: 0631197230Publication Date: 2000-02-29This volume represents the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of canonical readings in theory of knowledge. It is ideal as a reader for all courses in epistemology.
Non-western Philosophy
The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion by ISBN: 0877739803Publication Date: 1994-05-10With more than four thousand entries and over one hundred illustrations, this encyclopedia offers a complete survey of the four major religious traditions of Asia. It is designed not only for students and scholars but also to help general readers find their way through the thicket of unfamiliar words and concepts that are often encountered today in various fields such as the health professions, psychotherapy, the sciences, and the media.
The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy by ISBN: 0199314624Publication Date: 2017-11-09The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy tells the story of philosophy in India through a series of exceptional individual acts of philosophical virtuosity. It brings together forty leading international scholars to record the diverse figures, movements, and approaches that constitute philosophy in the geographical region of the Indian subcontinent, a region sometimes nowadays designated South Asia. The volume aims to be ecumenical, drawing from different locales, languages, and literary cultures, inclusive of dissenters, heretics and skeptics, of philosophical ideas in thinkers not themselves primarily philosophers, and reflecting India's north-western borders with the Persian ate and Arabic worlds, its north-eastern boundaries with Tibet, Nepal, Ladakh and China, as well as the southern and eastern shores that afford maritime links with the lands of Theravda Buddhism. From the time of the British colonial occupation, it has also been written in English.It spans philosophy of law, logic, politics, environment and society, but is most strongly associated with wide-ranging discussions in the philosophy of mind and language, epistemology and metaphysics (how we know and what is there to be known), ethics, metaethics and aesthetics, and metaphilosophy. The reach of Indian ideas has been vast, both historically and geographically, and it has been and continues to be a major influence in world philosophy.
Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy by ISBN: 0415939135Publication Date: 2002-12-30Featuring contributions from the world's most highly esteemed Asian philosophy scholars, this important new encyclopedia covers the complex and increasingly influential field of Chinese thought, from earliest recorded times to the present day. Including coverage on the subject previously unavailable to English speakers, the Encyclopedia sheds light on the extensive range of concepts, movements, philosophical works, and thinkers that populate the field. It includes a thorough survey of the history of Chinese philosophy; entries on all major thinkers from Confucius to Mou Zongsan; essential topics such as aesthetics, moral philosophy, philosophy of government, and philosophy of literature; surveys of Confucianism in all historical periods (Zhou, Han, Tang, and onward) and in key regions outside China; schools of thought such as Mohism, Legalism, and Chinese Buddhism; trends in contemporary Chinese philosophy, and more.
Phenomenology/Existentialism
The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Phenomenology by ISBN: 9780199594900Publication Date: 2013-02-08The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Phenomenology presents twenty-eight essays by some of the leading figures in the field, and gives an authoritative overview of the type of work and range of topics found and discussed in contemporary phenomenology. The essays aim to articulate and develop original theoretical perspectives. Some of them are concerned with issues and questions typical and distinctive of phenomenological philosophy, while others address questions familiar to analytic philosophers, but do so with arguments and ideas taken from phenomenology. Some offer detailed analyses of concrete phenomena; others take a more comprehensive perspective and seek to outline and motivate the future direction of phenomenology.
A Companion to the Philosophers by ISBN: 0631223703Publication Date: 1999-01-01A who's who of philosophy.
A Companion to World Philosophies by ISBN: 0631224890Publication Date: 1999-01-01Introduction to the major non-Western philosophical traditions, particularly Chinese, Indian, Buddhist and Islamic philosophies.
The Oxford Companion to Philosophy by ISBN: 0198661320Publication Date: 1995-08-31Clear and reliable guidance to all areas of philosophy and to the ideas of all notable philosophers from antiquity to the present day.
The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy by ISBN: 9780198735304Publication Date: 2016-05-01Covers every aspect of philosophy from Aristotle to Zen with clear and concise definitions.
The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics by ISBN: 9780415782869Publication Date: 2013-05-22The third edition of the acclaimed Routledge Companion to Aesthetics contains over sixty chapters written by leading international scholars covering all aspects of aesthetics. This companion opens with an historical overview of aesthetics including entries on Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Adorno, Benjamin, Foucault, Goodman, and Wollheim. The second part covers the central concepts and theories of aesthetics, including the definitions of art, taste, the value of art, beauty, imagination, fiction, narrative, metaphor and pictorial representation. Part three is devoted to issues and challenges in aesthetics, including art and ethics, art and religion, creativity, environmental aesthetics and feminist aesthetics. The final part addresses the individual arts, including music, photography, film, videogames, literature, theater, dance, architecture and design.
The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science by ISBN: 9780415518758Publication Date: 2013-09-19The 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. It contains sixty-two specially commissioned entries by a leading team of international contributors.
A Companion to Philosophical Logic by ISBN: 0631216715Publication Date: 2002-03-20This collection of newly commissioned essays by international contributors offers a representative overview of the most important developments in contemporary philosophical logic. Presents controversies in philosophical implications and applications of formal symbolic logic. Surveys major trends and offers original insights.
A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, 2 Volume Set by ISBN: 9781118974711Publication Date: 2017-04-24Now published in two volumes, the second edition of the best-selling Companion to the Philosophy of Language provides a complete survey of contemporary philosophy of language. The Companion has been greatly extended and now includes a monumental 17 new essays - with topics chosen by the editors, who curated suggestions from current contributors - and almost all of the 25 original chapters have been updated to take account of recent developments in the field. In addition to providing a synoptic view of the key issues, figures, concepts, and debates, each essay introduces new and original contributions to ongoing debates, as well as addressing a number of new areas of interest, including two-dimensional semantics, modality and epistemic modals, and semantic relationism. The extended "state-of-the-art" chapter format allows the authors, all of whom are internationally eminent scholars in the field, to incorporate original research to a far greater degree than competitor volumes. Unrivaled in scope, this volume represents the best contemporary critical thinking relating to the philosophy of language.
A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind by ISBN: 0631179534Publication Date: 1995-09-01The philosophy of mind is one of the fastest-growing areas in philosophy, not least because of its connections with related areas of psychology, linguistics and computation. This Companion is an alphabetically arranged reference guide to the subject, firmly rooted in the philosophy of mind, but with a number of entries that survey adjacent fields of interest. All main entries have a full bibliography, and the book is indexed to the high standards set by other volumes in the Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series.
A Companion to Epistemology by ISBN: 1405139005Publication Date: 2010-02-15With nearly 300 entries on key concepts, review essays on central issues, and self-profiles by leading scholars, this companion is the most comprehensive and up-to-date single volume reference guide to epistemology.
A Companion to Metaphysics by ISBN: 9781405152983Publication Date: 2009-04-13Fully extended and revised, A Companion to Metaphysics 2nd Edition includes a section of detailed review essays from renowned metaphysicians, and the addition of more than 30 new encyclopedic entries, taking the number of entries to over 300. Includes revisions to existing encyclopedic entries Features more than 30 all-new "A to Z" entries Offers a section of in-depth, essays from renowned metaphysicians Provides the most complete and up-to-date reference guide for students and professionals alike
The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy by ISBN: 0521817439Publication Date: 2004-12-09Representing one of the great traditions of Western philosophy, philosophy written in Arabic and in the Islamic world was inspired by Greek philosophical works and the indigenous ideas of Islamic theology. This collection of essays, by some of the leading scholars in Arabic philosophy, provides an introduction to the field by way of chapters devoted to individual thinkers (such as al-Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes) or groups, especially during the 'classical' period from the ninth to the twelfth centuries.
A Companion to African-American Philosophy by ISBN: 1405145684Publication Date: 2006-01-23This wide-ranging, multidisciplinary collection of newly commissioned articles brings together distinguished voices in the field of Africana philosophy and African-American social and political thought. Provides a comprehensive critical survey of African-American philosophical thought. Collects wide-ranging, multidisciplinary, newly commissioned articles in one authoritative volume. Serves as a benchmark work of reference for courses in philosophy, social and political thought, cultural studies, and African-American studies.
A Companion to Ethics by ISBN: 0631162119Publication Date: 1993-04-01In this volume, some of today's most distinguished philosophers survey the whole field of ethics, from its origins, through the great ethical traditions, to theories of how we ought to live, arguments about specific ethical issues, and the nature of ethics itself. The book can be read straight through from beginning to end; yet the inclusion of a multi-layered index, coupled with a descriptive outline of contents and bibliographies of relevant literature, means that the volume also serves as a work of reference, both for those coming afresh to the study of ethics and for readers already familiar with the subject.
A Companion to Bioethics by ISBN: 0631197370Publication Date: 1998-09-07This volume contains all that the beginning reader or student needs to soundly grasp the ideas and issues involved in the field.
Historical Dictionary of Medieval Philosophy and Theology by ISBN: 9781538114308Publication Date: 2018-08-10This second edition concentrates on various philosophers and theologians from the medieval Arabian, Jewish, and Christian worlds. It principally centers on authors such as Abumashar, Saadiah Gaon and Alcuin from the eighth century and follows the intellectual developments of the three traditions up to the fifteenth-century Ibn Khaldun, Hasdai Crescas and Marsilio Ficino. The spiritual journeys presuppose earlier human sources, such as the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and Porphyry and various Stoic authors, the revealed teachings of the Jewish Law, the Koran and the Christian Bible. The Fathers of the Church, such as St. Augustine and Gregory the Great, provided examples of theology in their attempts to reconcile revealed truth and man's philosophical knowledge and deserve attention as pre-medieval contributors to medieval intellectual life. Avicenna and Averroes, Maimonides and Gersonides, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure, stand out in the three traditions as special medieval contributors who deserve more attention.
A Dictionary of Philosophical Logic by ISBN: 9780748625598Publication Date: 2009-03-20This dictionary introduces undergraduate and post-graduate students in philosophy, mathematics, and computer science to the main problems and positions in philosophical logic. Coverage includes not only key figures, positions, terminology, and debates within philosophical logic itself, but issues in related, overlapping disciplines such as set theory and the philosophy of mathematics as well. Entries are extensively cross-referenced, so that each entry can be easily located within the context of wider debates, thereby providing a valuable reference both for tracking the connections between concepts within logic and for examining the manner in which these concepts are applied in other philosophical disciplines.
Philosophy of Mind A-Z by ISBN: 0748620958Publication Date: 2006-07-11A comprehensive guide to the main positions, debates, key figures and problems as well as important terms in the philosophy of mind.Philosophy of Mind A-Z contains entries on historical and contemporary key figures, explaining the importance of the longstanding debates and how the contemporary field has been shaped. It covers both traditional and current topics, and even those topics that are only beginning to emerge. It includes a wide range of philosophy of mind, from Plato and Leibniz to externalism and the frame problem, from Husserl to neural Darwinism, from mental causation to the problem of consciousness. All of these issues are explained in compact clearly written entries where difficult topics are introduced with the help of numerous examples.
Epistemology A-Z by ISBN: 1403972680Publication Date: 2006-03-01Epistemology A-Z introduces undergraduate and post-graduate students in philosophy to the main problems and positions in epistemology. It shows where these problems and positions connect and where they part, providing a valuable resource both for following connections between ideas and for appreciating the place of key figures and concepts in the subject. The book includes entries on some of the most important historical and contemporary contributors to the field, and alll the entries are cross-referenced with other entries so that each item is placed within the context of the wider debate, resulting in a multi-layered treatment of all of the main epistemological positions and figures.
Dictionary of Ethics, Theology and Society by ISBN: 0415062128Publication Date: 1995-12-18This Dictionary provides a unique and groundbreaking survey of both the historical and contemporary interrelations between ethics, theology and society. In over 250 separately-authored entries, a selection of the world's leading scholars from many disciplines and many denominations present their own views on a wide range of topics. Arranged alphabetically, entries cover all aspects of philosophy, theology, ethics, economics, politics and government.
Enumerative bibliographies (also called compilative, reference or systematic) are lists of media (including books, film, etc.) which result in an overview of publications in a particular category. Enumerative bibliographies are based on a unifying principle such as creator, subject, date, or topic. Belanger (1977) distinguishes an enumerative bibliography from other bibliographic forms such as descriptive bibliography, analytical bibliography or textual bibliography in that its function is to record and list, rather than describe a source in detail or with any reference to the source's physical nature, materiality or textual transmission. The bibliographies below can help offer an overview of the scholarship in a field and assist you in identifying relevant sources.
Source: Bibliography (Wikipedia)
- An Introduction to PhilosophyA philosophy bibliography compiled by Philip A. Pecorino published by Queensborough Community College.
- Oxford Bibliographies: PhilosophyOxford Bibliographies in Philosophy is designed to provide authoritative guidance. In contrast to print bibliographies and electronic indexes that simply list citations, this innovative online reference tool will combine the best features of a high-level encyclopedia and the best features of a traditional bibliography put together in a style that responds to the way people do research online.
- International Philosophical BibliographyThe International Philosophical Bibliography / Répertoire bibliographique de la philosophie (IPB) has been published by the Institut Supérieur de Philosophie at the Université Catholique de Louvain since 1934 and remains a crucial tool for today’s philosophical research. The bibliography is updated by specialists with privileged access to the content of many scholarly books and journals, notably through regular work with publishing houses. All the data is selected according to rigorous criteria and undergoes detailed checks to ensure it is both relevant and accurate.
- LSU Ethics Institute BibliographyA bibliography with resources on ethics, collected by Louisiana State University's Ethics Institute.
- Metaphysics BibliographyA bibliography containing articles on Aristotle's Metaphysics, collected by the University of Washington.
- Metaphysics and EpistemologyA bibliography with resources on metaphysics and epistemology compiled by PhilPapers.
- Logic and Philosophy of LogicA bibliography with resources on logic and the philosophy of logic complied by PhilPapers.
- Philosophy of Science Reading ListA bibliography of resources on the philosophy of science compiled by the University of Western Ontario.
