Encyclopedia of Philosophy available online

Great News! We now have the Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2nd edition online as part of the Gale Virtual Reference Library.

Containing over 450 new articles and over 1000 biographical entries, this is an update of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy edited by Edwards nearly 40 years ago. In some cases 1st edition entries have been simply republished, like H.B. Acton’s entry on “Idealism”. In other cases entries have been entirely rewritten and in others the 1st edition entries have been supplemented by additional entries. As an example of the latter, the 1st edition entry on John Dewey remains, but there is a new article entitled “Dewey, John [Addendum]”. Among the many topics covered are African, Islamic, Jewish, Russian, Chinese, and Buddhist philosophies; bioethics and biomedical ethics; art and aesthetics; epistemology; metaphysics; peace and war; social and political philosophy; the Holocaust; feminist thought; and much more. This is a great place to begin your research on individual philosophers or a specific topic area. The articles on individuals usually have bibliographies that include primary and secondary sources. You can do a Basic Search which searches the article record and full-text, or you can limit your search in different ways using the Advanced Search.

--Fred Rowland