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Sites - General
Under the above heading I give a series of links to sites that concern
philosophy in general.
It should be noted that -
in spite of this general aim - my general perspective and background is
Western, non-religious and non-political.
These limitations are in part due to my own background (I am Dutch),
limitations (I only read Western languages) and interests (I am neither
religious nor a volontary member of any political organization);
and in part due to the fact that either more philosophy was done in the West
or more was published and researched in universities.
For non-Western, or religiously or politically motivated philosopy see
Sites - Special. And note there are no
clear, simple and clean divisions here: Western Medieval philosophy was
Christian; published philosophy in 20th Century socialist countries was
Marxist. Also, there are no value-judgements: Very interesting and valuable
work was done in Christian, Islamic, Hinduistic, Buddhistic and Chinese
backgrounds.
The other entries in the left panel -
Ancient, Medieval,
Modern and
20thC - all concern Western philosophy.
And here is a link to
books concerned with philosophy in
general.
Known limitation:
Finally, it should be said that though I have
access to the internet since 1996 I have
not spend much time on it, or at least far less
than many others, and I do not plan to have many links to other sites on my
own site, though among the sites I will refer the reader to there will be some
sites made by persons who seemed to have spend a lot of time on the internet.
And I also cannot give any guarantee the links will work - all I am certain of
is that they did work at some time in the past, and I have visited the sites I
provide links to.
A. Encyclopedias of
philosophy on the net
Both are useful, though neither is as good
or as complete as the paper Encyclopedia of Philosphy edited by Paul
Edwards (1967). The Stanford EoP is more
academical and longer than the Internet EoP, and probably was inspired by the
Encyclopedia of Philosphy.
B. Sites with many philosophical links
This is not necessarily the same as (indeed:
usually different from) sites with interesting philosophical content.
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Philosophical
time-line: This is a site where philosophers and philosophies get an
explicit date. This is often helpful to help compare them and have some
basic context for them.
-
Tel Aviv
University: This is a good basic site with many links to al manner
of philosophical subjects and philosophers, and also with the pleasing
property that most links worked when I tried them. (I have visited quite a
few philosophy sites with many links, many of which didn't work.)
-
History of Philosophy:
This links to Dr. Kelley Ross's site, section History. This is well-done and
clearly written, though I suppose many readers may be - like me - a bit
skeptical about Dr. Ross's ideas about the virtues of Kant and Fries. (But
unlike many philosophers, he tends to write clear enough to be refutable.)
This site also has the merit of containing many maps and other background
matter.
-
Wikipedia: This is
a free encyclopedia made by people on the internet. It is supposed to be
quite good, and contains many articles on many subjects.
- The Internet Classics Archive
- The Great Books of Western Civilization
C. Sites of philosophical interest
The listing of sites of philosophical
interest is rather difficult for three related reasons plus an extra one that
is obvious when stated:
(1) I disagree with most philosophy and most
philosophers I read, whether in bookform or on the internet, and often my
disagreements are deep.
(2) I dislike the largest part of academic philosophy for various reasons, and the fact that it is mostly not serious philosophy but an easy
way to make a career.
(3) Even so, the approaches to philosophy I like best (and think are the best
approximations of the truth) are scientific, logical and realistic.
(4) In any case I have not much health, not much money (and a telephone
modem), and have found since I am on the internet since 1996 that it takes a
lot of time and trouble to find a site that is more than superficially
interesting in content.
So here are a few sites that I found
interesting, including some ot the reasons why I think so. Two reasons that
apply to all sites I list is that they contain a lot of text and links and
that their authors write at least a tolerably clear English:
-
David Chalmers: This is actually an
academic philosopher. He studied mathematics but works mostly in philosophy
of mind. Apparently, he spends a lot of time on the internet, and his site
contains many useful links, especially related to his own specialism.
-
Roger Bishop Jones: This is someone who worked in the field of
proofchecking by computer. He has a large site called 'Factasia'
which has a lot of material related to logic and much about philosophy
besides.
-
John McCarthy: This is the inventor
of the programming language Lisp, and is a computer scientist, who is presently professor emeritus of
Stanford University. His site is especially interesting if you are concerned
with logic, articial intelligence or computing, but has some stuff that is
also of general interest.
- Kelley Ross:
Among other things, he is the Libertarian candidate for California and a
tenured instructor of philosophy in an L.A. College. I found his site - or
most of it, that I had missed before - recently, and was pleasantly
surprised to find a contemporary quite a few of whose opinions I mostly
share. This may not hold for his deeper metaphysics, but Dr. Ross knows a
lot about and relating to philosophy, maintains an extensive site with lots
of material, and writes a clear prose. Also, as his Libertarianism shows
(which is for a European a bit difficult to place), at least he is a
philosopher who is not afraid to stick out his own neck.
-
Commens Peirce
site: This is a very well done Finnish site with lots of well chosen
quotations from Peirce, that give descriptions and definitions in Peirce's
own words of his most important terms, concepts and ideas.
-
The Online Library of
Liberty: I do not know what sort of liberty this library is
dedicated to, though I agree with their self-stated end "...to encourage
study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals", but I
do know that they present a fine collection of 1046 classical texts in good
html or pdf-editions that may be hard to find elsewhere, and that are in
many cases also fine scholarly editions.
- The Skeptic's
Dictionary: This is by Robert Todd Carroll, and contains nearly 500
lemmas, mostly relating to superstitions of many kinds. The first statement
of its Introduction says: "The Skeptic’s Dictionary provides
definitions, arguments, and essays on subjects supernatural, occult,
paranormal, and pseudoscientific." It is fun, well done, clearly written,
and contains a lot of information on the subjects it is concerned with.
- Edge:
To quote from their "About" item: "The
mandate of Edge Foundation is to promote inquiry into and discussion of
intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to
work for the intellectual and social achievement of society."
There is an interesting series with responses by many well-known scientists,
mostly American and English "What you believe is true even though you
cannot prove it?"
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