Department Library

Thanks to the generosity of former and current faculty, as well as students and friends of the Department, we have an excellent library available for students to use as a research resource. The library is located in Plato's Cave, Humanities 311, where you will usually find several Philosophy students studying and socializing. You are welcome to browse the books at your leisure and use them while visiting Plato's Cave. We do ask, though, that you do not take any of the books with you and that you re-shelve them where you originally found them.

We have a number of fine primary and secondary books in several fields of philosophy. The bookshelves are marked by specific historical periods and specific topics. Among the historical periods and figures included in our collection are:

  • Greek philosophy
  • Plato and Aristotle
  • Hellenistic Philosophy
  • Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
  • 17th and 18th century Rationalism and Empiricism
  • Existentialism, Phenomenology, and Continental Philosophy
  • American Philosophy, 20th century Analytic Philosophy
  • Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant
  • Hegel, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, and Wittgenstein

We also have a number of books arranged by key fields of inquiry in philosophy, including:

  • Epistemology and Metaphysics
  • Philosophy of Mind, Language, and Science
  • British Moral Philosophy and Ethical Theory
  • Social-Political Philosophy and Law
  • Aesthetics
  • Philosophy of Religion
  • Feminist Philosophy
  • Critical Thinking and Logic

Additionally, we have a number of reference resources (dictionaries, encyclopedias) and introductory textbooks to help you with your research projects.