The Guide To Philosophy On The Internet

By Deborah Lambeth

If you’re like me, when you hear that someone’s going to start talking about "philosophy," you automatically think, "Hmm…where is that couch and pillow? Wake me up later." However, philosophy, although dull sounding to many people, is quite an interesting science. The word "philosophy" is a combination of the Greek words philos, meaning "love," and sophia, meaning "wisdom." Among its many definitions, the one that is easiest to understand is that philosophy is "the pursuit of wisdom, a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means." (Webster) In other words, philosophy is that science that triggers the brain into asking the "hows and whys" rather than simply accepting something at face value.

Probably the most comprehensive site on the Internet for discovering the science of philosophy has a title that is about as simple as it gets."The Guide to Philosophy on the Internet" was started by Dr. Peter Suber, a research professor at Eartham College. The focus of his current work is on research, writing, consulting, and advocacy for open access to scientific and scholarly research literature.

As you can tell from his site, Dr. Suber has done extensive work putting together websites, papers, and other informational materials having to do with different philosophies. For example, underneath the heading for philosophers there are several links for the controversial psychology and philosophy of Sigmund Freud. Each link takes you to other websites with exhaustive information about Dr. Freud and his thoughts on life. Hundreds of philosophers are listed in this section—from school of thought celebrities such as Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Bertrand Russell, and Spinoza, to relatively obscure philosophers such as Arnold Geulincx and Robert Grosseteste. No matter whose postulations you want to research, you can probably find a link to them here.

Further down the page are links to various philosophical topics. Here you will be able to find websites, archives, papers, and reviews about any type of philosophical thought. For example, in looking at the link for "Animal Rights" one can find information about protecting animals, legal information about pet abuse, or environmental abuse that affects animals, and hundreds of other issues open for debate. Did you know that the hormone Premarin is made from urine of pregnant mares? This is an example of the type of obscure information you can find just by following this particular link to Animal Rights. Scrolling further down on Dr.Suber’s site, you’ll see other categories containing links to syllabi for different courses, links to philosophy association websites, links to bibliographies and newsgroups dedicated to the pursuit of philosophy, and links to philosophy quotation sites, links to mailing lists for philosophy journals—even links to employment sites for philosophy job seekers. The site has so many hundreds of links that it would take a herculean effort to keep them all updated, so although many of them may be dead links, Dr. Suber explains this right at the top of his site by saying, "I stopped updating this guide in February 2003, after eight years online. I plan to leave it online for the foreseeable future and hope that enough links are still alive to make it useful." He also provides a link to another philosophy site that is maintained and updated on a regular basis, Tom Stone's EpistemeLinks.

Looking through the categories on Dr.Suber’s page is not a "sleeper" activity. There are many topics and subtopics in which to learn and discover things you may not have known before, and you might even glance at the clock and find that hours have flown by before you know it. Whether you’re a philosophy buff or not, the site is certainly worth checking out. You’ll definitely learn something about philosophy, and you might even learn something about yourself. Remember, as the French philosopher René Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am!"