A defence of free-thinking in mathematics
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Berkeley/Defence/
'A Defence of Free-Thinking in Mathematics' is an e-text version of a reply by the eighteenth century empiricist philosopher George Berkeley, originally published in 1735, in response to various criticisms that had been made of his earlier tract in the philosophy of mathematics, 'The Analyst'. Berkeley (1685-1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley, is most famous for 'A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge', and 'Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous'. In 'The Analyst', he argued that much of the mathematical reasoning of his day was conducive to anti-Christian practice and thought. In particular, he was keen to argue against the notion of fluxions (fluxion: the velocity of the motion that produces lines, planes, and solids). 'The Analyst' spawned a number of replies from mathematicians at the time, and in 'A Defence of Free-Thinking in Mathematics', Berkeley responds to two of them: the main body of the text tackles issues raised by James Jurin (writing as Philalethes Cantabrigiensis) in 'Geometry no friend to Infidelity', whilst the appendix contains a short reply to J. Walton's 'Vindication of Sir Isaac Newton's Principles of Fluxions'. The resource is available in 4 formats (HTML, LaTeX, DVI, and PostScript). The work is presented in plain text, and there are no hyperlinks within the text itself. However, the site does provide hyperlinks to e-text versions of 'The Analyst','Geometry no friend to Infidelity', and Berkeley's further reply to Walton, 'Reasons for not replying to Mr. Walton's Full Answer'. It also includes a biography of George Berkeley, pamphlets on 'The Analyst Controversy' and a link to the 'History of Mathematics' website.
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ALEX catalogue of electronic texts
http://www.infomotions.com/alex/
For those eager to locate electronic versions of major English and American literary or Western philosophical works, a good place to look is the ALEX Catalogue of Electronic Texts. Developed by Eric Morgan (North Carolina State University), the catalogue is a substantial search engine offering access to writings from over 100 different western authors, primarily from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, but with a few Aristotelian and Augustinian works thrown in for good measure. ALEX has a collection development policy which in summary defines its scope as public domain texts (available in complete form), written in English, relevant to English, American Literature or Western Philosophy, and classed as 'great literature'. On the last point the editor is guided by the inclusion of the work within such reference works as the Oxford Companions or the Norton Anthologies. ALEX contains about 140 MB of texts (the actual number of distinct works is not easily available). The selection of works is eclectic at best, but it is difficult to imagine undergraduate students not encountering a sizable portion of these authors during their academic careers. The catalogue itself may be searched by author and/or title, date, keyword, and whole volumes (which can often be very large) instantly read. Texts can be selected, built into corpora, and then further searched. Results are in the form of records which give details about the original publication date, any subsequent copyright date, subject keywords, and its location (both original and archive locations). Morgan has also gone out of his way to include additional features that make the texts more functional and portable. A number of the works are accompanied by an electronic concordance that will be welcomed by anyone trying to locate a particular theme or sentence. It is also possible to add the text to a personalisd online bookshelf; create transferable PDF-files; or even configure files to read on Palm-based PDAs (Personal Data Assistants).
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American philosophy
http://radicalacademy.com/amphindex.htm
American Philosophy is a subsite of The Radical Academy, a privately-maintained online platform for those with a general interest in philosophy. This site will best serve students, teachers and undergraduates who are focussing on American thought from the colonial period to World War II. The site posts short explanatory and introductory essays for various themes and periods, and sourced from a variety of texts. These essays have links embedded within them to explain further the lives of philosophers and their ideas. The site also provides primary texts online, with the foundational documents of different streams of American Philosophy classified under different headings. Among these are: American Political Philosophy; the American divines (from the Puritan, Calvinist, Quaker and Anglican traditions); the Founding Fathers, with a focus on Enlightenment influences; America's Coming of Age, featuring the figures who grappled with the abolition of slavery and early civil rights debates; American Transcendentalism; Late 19th Century thinkers; Idealism in America; American Pragmatism; and Recent American Thought. Navigation of these sources is clear and straightforward. However, there is no immediate bibliography for the site, which would have been useful.
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An essay towards a new theory of vision (4th ed.) [by George Berkeley]
http://www.psych.yorku.ca/classics/Berkeley/vision.htm
An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (4th ed.) is an e-text version of the classic work by the 18th century Irish empiricist philosopher George Berkeley. (Berkeley's most famous works are A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, and Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous). The Essay was first published in 1709, with further editions published later in 1732. Whilst of seminal importance in the history of psychology, the essay is also a key text in the study of Berkeley's philosophy. Much of the Essay takes the form of philosophical argument, and Berkeley in this work introduces his theses that the things we genuinely perceive by sight do not exist beyond the mind, and that the things we perceive by sight differ in kind from the things we perceive by touch. Berkeley here also investigates the perceptual processes involved in our apprehension by sight of objects at a distance. He rejects the received view of his day, and presents an alternative theory (that we learn by experience to associate certain cues within our "flat" visual field with tactual experiences of objects existing at a distance from us). Berkeley's theory in turn became the received view in psychology for at least 150 years after the first publication of the Essay. The e-text version itself is presented in plain type, without hyperlink facilities, and it is not stated whether the text is taken from an original copy of the 4th edition, or from a more recent preparation.
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Analyst, The
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Berkeley/Analyst/
The Analyst is an e-text version of the work of the same name by the eighteenth century philosopher George Berkeley (1685-1753, also known as Bishop Berkeley), which was his main foray into the philosophy of mathematics. The resource is based on the print text contained in George Sampson's 1898 edition of Berkeley's works, albeit with a small number of minor alterations that are detailed by the compiler.Berkeley's principal works were A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, and he is most famous for his doctrine of immaterialism (immaterialism: the theory in metaphysics that only minds and the ideas they perceive exist). However, he had his fingers in many pies, and with The Analyst he deals specifically, yet philosophically, with issues in mathematics. In particular, he argues against the notion of fluxions (fluxion: the velocity of the motion that produces a line, plane, or solid), which notion propped up a great deal of mathematical theory in Berkeley's day.The Analyst is addressed to, and is an attack on the thinking of, a certain "infidel mathematician", identified in the first major biography of Berkeley (Joseph Stock's An Account of the Life of George Berkeley (1776)) as one Edmond Halley. The Analyst also spawned a number of replies from mathematicians of the time, some of which Berkeley replied to in turn. There are hyperlinks from the resource's home page to e-text versions of several of these replies and rejoinders.The e-text itself is available in 3 formats (HTML, LaTeX, and PostScript). The resource is presented in plain text, and there are useful hyperlinks to each of the 50 numbered sections of the work.
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Animus : the Canadian journal of philosophy and humanities
http://www2.swgc.mun.ca/animus/
Animus: The Canadian Journal of Philosophy and Humanities is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal which focuses on Western philosophy. It is edited by a team of 5 editors namely Ken Jacobsen, David Peddle, Neil Robertson, Kenneth Kierans and Eli Diamond. This homepage enables free access to all pieces featured in the journal since the first volume was published in 1996. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to access them but this can be downloaded from the site. Each volume of the journal supports a particular theme. Previous themes include: Postmodernism; Modernity; Hegel; Philosophy and Freedom; Political Institutions; War; and the Modern State. The site also contains guidelines for contributors and a search engine. The resource will appeal to anyone working in philosophy or literary theory.
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Antichrist, The : by Friedrich Nietzsche
http://www.fns.org.uk/ac.htm
The Antichrist is an e-text version of H.L. Mencken's 1920 English translation of the book of the same name by Friedrich Nietzsche. The resource is part of the Friedrich Nietzsche Society website, an extensive resource for Nietzsche scholars. Nietzsche himself (1844-1900) was a German philosopher, a radical thinker both in terms of his style and in terms of the content of his philosophy. Among other things, he criticised the traditional ways in which human beings come to form and justify the cultural beliefs they hold (especially our moral, religious and philosophical beliefs). In "The Antichrist", written in 1888, Nietzsche attacks the institution of Christianity and the value system that is its legacy. He also advocates the Dionysian tradition (the side of human nature characterised by creation and change, which Nietzsche names after the Greek god Dionysus) in art. The text itself is presented as a single page, though it does feature hyperlinks to the footnotes.
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Antoine Arnauld (1612-1694)
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/arnauld.html
Antoine Arnauld (1612-1694) is a resource that provides information about the life and works of the 17th century French philosopher, Antoine Arnauld. The site's webmaster and editor is Bill Uzgalis, an associate professor at Oregon State University, USA. He prepared the resource both for a past university course, and for anyone in general with an interest in the subject matter, and it forms part of Uzgalis' more general website "Great Voyages: the History of Western Philosophy from 1492 to 1776". Arnauld himself is best known as a forceful critic of other philosophers such as Descartes, Malebranche and Leibniz. The site provides an overview of Arnauld's life and works, a sourced timeline detailing important biographical and professional events in Arnauld's life, a brief bibliography, and a partly annotated list of secondary literature recommended by Uzgalis. This last is called "The Captain's choice", following the metaphor of a sea journey around the waters of the history of Western philosophy from 1492-1776, introduced on the resource's mother site. The resource is attractive to the eye, and there are occasional graphics. It is well laid-out, and there is hyperlinked access to the pages covering related philosophers elsewhere within the "Great Voyages" website.
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Association des Amis de Spinoza
http://aspinoza.com/
This is the website of the Association des Amis de Spinoza - a French organisation dedicated to furthering research on Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), and promoting communication between French scholars and others. The site contains information about recent publications, editions and translations on and by Spinoza, as well as details of conferences and colloquia (the Society's own as well as others), and other organisations concerned with Spinoza. The Society works with the Groupe de Recherches Spinozistes to produce the Bulletin Bibliographie Spinozistes, details and archived copies of which are also available on the site. The language of the site is French, though links to conference information and external sites may be in other languages.
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Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677)
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/spinoza.html
"Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677)" is a resource that provides useful introductory information about the life and works of the 17th century Dutch philosopher Benedict de Spinoza (also known as Baruch de Spinoza, or simply Benedict/Baruch Spinoza). The site's webmaster and editor is Bill Uzgalis, an associate professor of philosophy at Oregon State University, and it forms part of his more general website "Great Voyages: the History of Western Philosophy from 1492 to 1776". Spinoza's philosophy itself has been subject to various interpretations, although he is perhaps best known for identifying God with nature, and in doing so arguing that there is only one type of substance. His arguments to this end can be found in his most famous publication (albeit a posthumous one), his "Ethics". The site is split into the following parts: an overview of Spinoza's life and works; a sourced timeline detailing important biographical and professional events in Spinoza's life (including hyperlinked access to an e-text version of the declaration of Spinoza's excommunication from the Jewish faith in 1656); an unannotated bibliography of Spinoza's works (including hyperlinked access to an e-text version of Spinoza's "On the Improvement of the Understanding" hosted by the site); and linked access to other Spinoza resources hosted elsewhere on the Web. The resource is well laid-out, and attractive to the eye.
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Benedict Spinoza : on the improvement of the understanding
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Spinoza/TIE/
This website contains on online text of On the Improvement of the Understanding (Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione), by Benedict (a.k.a. Baruch) de Spinoza (1632-1677), one of the greatest of the rationalist philosophers. His Ethics are generally considered to be his masterwork. The incomplete treatise On the Improvement of the Understanding is a brief but important statement in which Spinoza sets down his reasons for turning to philosophy. The text reproduced here is from R. H. M. Elwes' 1883 translation. Footnotes are hyperlinked.
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Benedictus de Spinoza
http://www.uba.uva.nl/humanities/object.cfm/objectid=E82A97BC-8C5F-49AF-B7D
Benedictus de Spinoza, the Dutch seventeenth century philosopher, is the subject of a website by the Library of the Universiteit van Amsterdam which holds a substantial Spinoza collection. The website details information about Spinoza's major works, recent (Dutch) dissertations on Spinoza, special collections in Dutch libraries, bibliographies, details of the Spinoza House Association, and a list of further Internet resources.
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Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/pascal.html
"Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)" is a resource that provides useful introductory information about the life and works of the 17th century French scientist, mathematician, theologian and philosopher Blaise Pascal. The site's webmaster and editor is Bill Uzgalis, an associate professor at Oregon State University, and it forms part of his more general website "Great Voyages: the History of Western Philosophy from 1492 to 1776". Philosophically speaking, Pascal was in general a sceptic (one who holds that we have no better reason to believe a proposition than to believe its contrary, and thus we should suspend judgement on the matter). However, he famously proposed "Pascal's Wager", according to which, although there is no other rational justification for belief in God, we would be wise to accept his existence, since the rewards involved if we are right here far outweigh the penalties if we are wrong. Pascal's best known philosophical work is his "Pensees". The site provides an overview of Pascal's life, a sourced timeline detailing important biographical and professional events in Pascal's life, and an unannotated bibliography of Pascal's works. There is also access from the site to e-text versions of Pascal's "Pensees" and "Provincial letters", as well as to other relevant pages held elsewhere on the the "Great Voyages" site. The resource is well laid-out, and is attractive to the eye.
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C18-L : resources for 18th century studies across the disciplines
http://www.personal.psu.edu/special/C18/c18-l.htm
C18-L is an email discussion list for the study of the eighteenth century (here defined as 1660-1830). The C18-L resources site which is associated with the email list provides access to a range of online resources to assist research. Apart from maintaining a gateway to other relevant Internet resources, the substance of the site is dedicated to a collection of partially annotated bibliographies. Subject areas covered include: bibliographic tools; women writers, readers, and publishers; children's literature; journalism and the periodical press; book culture; illustration and prints; contemporary library and archive collections. The C18-L email community also publishes a series of Selected Readings, a bibliography of materials across subject areas submitted by members of the list. The entire corpus of readings may be searched via the site. The C18-L site also provides information about joining the email list and makes available the list's archives.
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Cornell University Library historical monographs collection
http://dlxs2.library.cornell.edu/c/cdl/
The Cornell University Library Historical Monographs Collection website provides free access to facsimiles of over 400 historical monographs. A number are of interest to ancient and modern history of philosophy. These include English translations of: Aristotle's (384-322 BCE) On Youth and Old Age, Life and Death, and Respiration; The Science of Ethics as Based on the Science of Knowledge, by Johann Fichte (1762-1814); The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature, by Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860); The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (1798-1857) in three volumes; and Otto Weininger's (1880-1903) Sex and Character. There is also a facsimile of Moses Maimonides' (1135-1204) Moreh Nevukhim (Guide for the Perplexed), translated into Hebrew. As this is an historical archive, the translations and texts should not be treated as definitive or up-to-date (the Comte, for instance, is recorded as being 'freely translated' and condensed by the author Harriet Martineau); the site is primarily of historical philosophical interest. The database may be browsed or searched by author/title.
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Correspondence of Francis Bacon
http://www.livesandletters.ac.uk/projects/correspondence-francis-bacon
This website, which is made available by the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, Queen Mary, University of London, is the home page of the Francis Bacon Correspondence Project. The aim of this project is to produce a new critical edition of the correspondence of the natural philosopher and politican Francis Bacon, Viscount St Alban (1561-1626). This edition will be published as part of the new Oxford edition of Bacon's works, which is supported by the British Academy. The site includes information about the project, and two papers available as PDF files: "The Design of the Francis Bacon Correspondence Project Database"; and "The Editing of Francis Bacon as a Man of all Parties". The site also makes available a calendar of Bacon's correspondence, including some 200 letters that have not previously been published. These have been located through an initial census of library and archival holdings carried out as part of the project. The catalogue can be browsed as a chronological list of letters, or using the alphabetical index of correspondents. It can also be searched by name. Each entry contains information in the following fields: date; author; recipient; first line; summary; manuscript reference; and references to printed versions of the letter. This material will be of great value to researchers working on Bacon or on the intellectual world of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, especially as it collects material that has previously been scattered.
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Critique of pure reason
http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/cpr/toc.html
"Critique of Pure Reason" is an e-text version of the book of the same name, first published in 1781, by the eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The e-text was prepared for the web by Stephen Palmquist, an associate professor in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Hong Kong Baptist University, and it is based on an old edition of the 1929 Norman Kemp Smith translation as published by Palgrave Macmillan. The Critique of Pure Reason is Kant's best known work, and in it his main concern is to determine the ways in which knowledge can be established beyond the realm of human experience. The Kemp Smith translation itself is for many the authoritative rendering of the text in English. The resource features black type on a white background, and navigation of the text is aided by hyperlinks to the start of each of the eight main sections of the book. The site would be of use to anyone wanting online access to this canonical philosophy text in English.
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David Hume
http://www.davidhume.org/
The David Hume website provides free access to scholarly online editions of works by or about the Scottish philosopher David Hume. At the time of review, three texts were available: A Treatise of Human Nature; the Abstract of the Treatise; and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. These are accompanied by notes on the editions used and on how the texts have been prepared for online use. The site is still under development, and there are plans to expand the collection to include other texts in the future. The project is directed by the Hume scholar Peter Millican, who also offers a selection of secondary resources on Hume: an extensive annotated bibliography (this was compiled in 2000, so may not include the most recent works), and a collection of talks and papers, some accompanied by slides. Finally, the website offers links to further versions of Hume's works available online, and to other online papers about him. This is a well presented website which should prove a valuable resource to students and researchers alike.
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David Hume (1711-1776)
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/hume.html
"David Hume (1711-1776)" is a resource that provides useful introductory information about, and access to other websites dedicated to, the life and work of the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume. The site's webmaster and editor is Bill Uzgalis, an associate professor at Oregon State University, USA. He prepared the resource both for a past university course, and for anyone in general with an interest in the subject matter, and it forms part of Uzgalis' more general site "Great Voyages: the History of Western Philosophy from 1492-1776". Hume himself was a leading figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, and wrote widely in history, politics and economics, as well as in philosophy. His main themes include the centrality of the human mind in our understanding of our world and the limits this imposes on what we can and cannot know about the world, and his view that our belief in necessary causal connections between events is not warranted by a mere observation of the world around us. The resource would be of primary use for undergraduates seeking a basic starting point for Hume research on the web. It contains a brief overview of Hume's life and work, a useful sourced timeline of important biographical and professional events in Hume's life, an unannotated bibliography, and linked access to useful Hume websites hosted elsewhere on the net. The site is well laid-out and easy to navigate.
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David Hume texts
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/david_hume/index.shtml
David Hume Texts provides online texts of three major works by Hume (1711-1776). This being part of the Internet Infidels website, the works chosen are those in which Hume's ideas on God and religion are most prominent. The Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) is the first of the three, followed by the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), and Essays On Suicide And The Immortality Of The Soul (1783). The online version of the Enquiry does not state the copy text upon which it is based, but the others do give edition details. Each work is displayed on a single page. The main Web page also provides links to information on Hume in the 'Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'.
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Descartes' meditations
http://www.wright.edu/cola/descartes/
'Descartes' Meditations' is a tri-lingual (English, French and Latin) online publication of "Meditations on First Philosophy" by Rene Descartes. It is edited by Charles S. Taylor and David B. Manley. The edition uses the John Veitch English Translation of 1901, the Original Latin Text of 1641 and the Duc de Luynes French Translation of 1647.The resource also has a brief introduction by the editors, explaining the arrangement and format of the edition. The editors have put this resource online for the use of interested Descartes scholars. They express an interest in seeing what particular functions it will serve for those in the field. Each paragraph has been numbered using the paragraph divisions of the original Latin text. There are also links at the end of each paragraph, allowing the reader to switch between the Latin, English and French versions, while keeping his/her place in the text. This page will be of use to any Descartes scholar, but especially to those interested in a deep textual analysis of the various editions. The site is quick, uncluttered and easily navigated via links placed at appropriate positions around the page.
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Digital Locke project
http://www.digitallockeproject.nl/
The Digital Locke Project is an online endeavour, based in the Netherlands, which aims to make available a critical edition of the manuscripts of the British empiricist philosopher, John Locke. At time of cataloguing, 34 texts were available, all relating to Locke's most famous work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The site offers transcriptions of the manuscripts rather than images: for each work, both a normalised and a diplomatic (i.e. including details of all alterations, deletions, marginalia, etc.) version are available, and descriptions are also given of the physical characteristics of the manuscripts. The collection of texts is fully searchable. This is likely to be a valuable resource for advanced scholars working on Locke.
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Diotima : a philosophical review
http://college.holycross.edu/diotima/
'Diotima: A Philosophical Review' is an online philosophical journal that is published biannually by the Department of Philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross at Worcester, Massachusetts. The journal contains essays, reviews, poems, and dialogues on an extensive range of topics. The subject content is predominantly quite general in nature and is thus designed to be of interest to the educated non-specialist. This homepage contains the full contents of two issues, one published in 2000, the other in 2001. Unfortunately the site does not seem to have been updated since 2001. Hence although it has also included a number of links (e.g. to events and other journals and resources on philosophy), a number of these can no longer be accessed.
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EServer.org accessible writing : philosophy
http://philosophy.eserver.org/
The philosophy section of EServer.org is an impressive collection of online electronic texts of some major philosophical works, both ancient and modern. Plato is particularly well-represented, with many of his dialogues, as well as longer writings such as 'The Republic', freely available. A considerable number of texts by Immanual Kant, David Hume and Aristotle are also featured. Most texts are in English, though there are a couple by Rene Descartes and Jacques Derrida in the original French. Other philosophers for whom one or more works can be found include: Epictetus; Gottfried Leibniz; George Berkeley; Francis Bacon; Blaise Pascal; Henri Rousseau; and Friedrich Nietzsche. There are also a handful of links to other sites concerning particular philosophers, philosophical movements, and philosophy organizations. In general. the site is clearly laid out and very easy to use and would be useful to philosophy scholars in general and those researching French and German philosophy in particular. At the time of reviewing, most but not all links to texts were functioning.
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Ethics, by Spinoza (1677)
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/ToC/Spinoza%20Ethics%20ToC.htm
This is a basic plain text version of Spinoza's Ethics translated into English by R. H. M. Elwes. Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677), also known as Baruch Spinoza, was one of the great rationalist philosophers of the 17th century, and his Ethics is his most famous and influential work. The text is divided into five parts, each part on its own Web page. The only problem with this is that searching the text for particular words or phrases is more time consuming than if the text were just one file. This is a very basic site, with no search engine.
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