Philosophy

The Library's collections support the research needs and curriculum of the UC Berkeley Philosophy Department and the philosophical interests of many interdisciplinary programs on campus. Multimedia and electronic materials are as actively acquired as print books and journals. Most print materials in philosophy are in the Gardner (Main) Stacks in Doe Library with additional core English language texts in the Moffitt Undergraduate Library. Materials related to mathematical logic are located in the Mathematics-Statistics Library; those related to psychology are located in the Education-Psychology Library. The East Asian Library houses all materials in East Asian languages.

To find books, journals and other media owned by the UC Berkeley Library search Berkeley's OskiCat or the UC-wide MELVYL catalog.

If you'd like to recommend an item to be added to the collection, please use the Purchase Recommendation Form.

The Electronic Resource Finder is a directory of the Library's databases and other online resources. It is organized by subject (e.g. philosophy), type of material (e.g. dissertations), or title (e.g. Past Masters). It is a useful tool to help you choose the right resources for your particular research needs.

Howison Philosophy Library 305 Moses Hall, 642-2722. The UC Philosophy Department maintains its own collection of 10,000 monographs and 60 journals. This collection is mainly non-circulating, with 2-hr loan available to UC Berkeley faculty, students and staff.

UC Berkeley students, faculty and staff can access Library resources from off campus using one of two simple methods:

Proxy Server
After you make a one-time change in your web browser settings, the proxy server will ask you to log in with a CalNet ID or Library PIN when you click on the link to a licensed resource. See the setup instructions, FAQ, and Troubleshooting pages to configure your browser.

VPN (Virtual Private Network)
After you install and run the VPN "client" software on your computer, you can log in with a CalNet ID to establish a secure connection with the campus network.

These databases index journal articles, chapters of books, (and sometimes) books, and book reviews relevant to philosophy. You can research a topic by searching for authors or subject terms relevant to your research. A few of these databases include the full text of the articles, but most of them use UC-eLinks to take you to the full-text of the article you are interested in. For articles not available online, UC-eLinks will search the Melvyl catalog for a print copy of the journal.

Article Databases for Philosophy

The Library collects both print and online philosophy journals with preference given to the online format when both are available. You can find philosophy journals in a variety of ways.

Search for a known journal title in OskiCat or Melvyl and follow the link to journal website. If the journal (or desired issue) is not available online, you will need the library location and call number to retrieve the print edition.
Choose journal titles from a list of electronic journals arranged by subject. From E-Journal Titles A-Z, choose Category: Arts & Humanities; SubCategory: Philosophy.
Use the Citation Linker to retrieve the full text if you have a citation to a specific article in a journal.

Note: Using Philosopher's Index or another article database is a more efficient way to discover articles on a particular topic than browsing through individual journals issues.

The Library's rich collection of print books covers all aspects of philosophy studied at UC Berkeley. A growing number of titles are available as digital books.

Print books and individually cataloged electronic books can be found in the Library catalogs OskiCat and Melvyl. Catalog records for print books will show the library location and call number. Links in the catalog records for digital books will take you to the full text.
Collections of philosophy e-books and texts can be browsed from the collection's website. See the listing below or in Philosophy: Books and Text Collections or the complete list for all subjects at Book and Text Collections (electronic).

E-Book Collections for Philosophy:

Past Masters (Philosophy)
Full texts of classic scholarly editions of the works of major philosophers.
Digitale Bibliothek Deutscher Klassiker
Provides electronic access to 133 volumes in the Bibliogthek Deutscher Klassiker, the premier collection of literary and non-literary German writing.
Corpus des oeuvres de philosophie en langue francaise
Contains the works of philosophers writing in the French language from the Renaissance to 1966.
Oxford Scholarship Online
Oxford University Press Books. Choose Philosophy under Subject Homepages.
Oxford Handbooks Online - Philosophy
MIT CogNet
MIT Press publications.
UC Press E-Books Collection (eScholarship Editions)
Click on Subject tag, then Philosophy.
Social Theory
Features 48,300 pages of content by such major theorists as Jean Baudrillard, Ulrich Beck, Howard Becker, Nancy Chodorow, Emile Durkheim, Norbert Elias, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Erving Goffman, Karl Marx, Robert Merton, and Talcott Parsons, Mary Wollstonecraft and others.
ebrary
A database of more than 37,000 complete e-books covering 16 key subject areas including: business and economics, computers and IT, literature and linguistics, history, political science, and more. Note : for instructions on how to install the ebrary reader see Getting started with ebrary.
Springer Electronic Book Package
Humanities E-Book Project (formerly History E-Books Project)
Access to the full-text of important and frequently-cited books in humanties.
HathiTrust
This cooperative system contains millions of books scanned from UC and other major research libraries, including those digitized by Google and the Internet Archive. Full text is available for items that are not protected by copyright.

In addition to those in the print reference collection in the Doe Reference Center, the Library has many online philosophy dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Includes the entire content of the 10-volume Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Includes links to web resources
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
A dynamic reference work in which each entry is maintained and kept up to date by an expert or group of experts in the field.
Oxford Handbooks Online - Philosophy
A collection of several Oxford Handbooks covering topics such as: Aesthetics, Bioethics, Metaphysics, Philosophy and Literature, Rationality and more.
Oxford Reference Online - Religion
Access to 12 reference sources published by Oxford University Press. Search all sources collectively or search within an individual title.
Oxford Reference Online - Classical Studies
Access to five dictionaries published by Oxford University Press on the topic of classical literature and civilization. Search sources collectively or search within an individual title.

The Library has many online English and foreign language dictionaries. Search the Electronic Resource Finder by Type: Dictionaries, Thesauri and Quotations or the relevant subject guides for more complete lists. Below is a selective list.

Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
The accepted authority on the evolution of the English language. Entries contain detailed etymological analyses that trace word development through time and are illustrated by quotations from a wide range of English-language sources.
Webster's Unabridged
Includes Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged (1961) and subsequent updates.
Le Grand Robert electronique
Based on the 12th edition of Le Grand Robert de la langue francaise (2001), it is the most complete French dictionary.
Oxford Language Dictionaries Online (OLDO)
Bilingual dictionaries (English plus French, German, Italian and Spanish) published by Oxford University Press. Online versions of the following titles: Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary, Oxford-Duden German Dictionary, Oxford-Paravia Italian Dictionary, Oxford Spanish Dictionary.

Archival print copies of UC Berkeley dissertations written before 2010 are shelved at NRLF and are available for use in the Library. Dissertations written since 2010 are available in digital format only. Search for Berkeley dissertations in OskiCat by author, title or department. The full-text of Berkeley dissertations written since 1996 is available in the databases listed below.

Dissertations and Theses (Dissertation Abstracts)
Indexes graduate dissertations from over 1,000 North American, and selected European, graduate schools and universities. Dissertations published since 1980, and master's theses since 1988, include brief abstracts written by the authors. UC dissertations since 1996 are free for downloading. Other titles can be borrowed through interlibrary loan or purchased online in a variety of formats.

Use these resources to find reviews of philosophy books.

Philosopher's Index
Includes book reviews beginning in 1970. In Advanced Search, type "book review" in a search box and choose "Publication Type" from the drop down menu.
IBR Online - Internationale Bibliographie der Rezensionen
1985-present. German and English search interfaces.
Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Web of Knowledge)
1975-present. Choose "Document Type" from one of the drop down menus, then choose "Book Review" from the list of options.
Periodicals Index Online (formerly PCI)
1770-1995.