100 Philosophy & Psychology
101 Theory of Philosophy
103 Dictionaries and Encyclopedias
107 Education, research, related topics
108 Historical and collected persons treatment
110 Metaphysics
120 Epistemology, Causation, Humankind
130 Paranormal Phenomena
140 Specific philosophical schools
150 Psychology
160 Logic
170 Ethics (moral philosophy)
180 Ancient, Medieval, Oriental Philosophy
190 Modern Western Philosophy & Other Non-Eastern Philosophy
Important note about electronic vs. print books:
While the Library still maintains strong print collections, it is important to note that many of our newest books are available only in electronic rather than print versions. This is especially so in the Social Sciences but can also be true of some critical or highly-used works in the Arts and Literature subjects.
It is therefore essential to use the library catalogue, Primo, which has hotlinks to the electronic books, since browsing the physical collection alone will cause you to miss the up-to-date, new material added to the Library holdings over the last few years.
Subject Encyclopedias
In print, try the Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy, (10 volumes), at the shelf number R 103 ROUT.
An electronic alternative is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
To find it from off campus:
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) is a free peer-reviewed online resource. The IEP is a scholarly online encyclopedia covering philosophy, philosophers and philosophical topics.
Internet for Philosophy is a free online tutorial to help university students develop their Internet research skills.
This tutorial is part of the Virtual Training Suite - a set of Internet tutorials written and reviewed by qualified lecturers and librarians from across the UK.
Author: Dr Meriel Patrick, Lecturer in Theology and Philosophy for SCIO, University of Oxford; reviewed by Dr Ylva Berglund Prytz, University of Oxford. This is the third edition (2009) of this tutorial.
PRIMO is a tool for searching across the UCT library book catalogue as well as a selection of our databases of full text journal articles, all with one query.
You can find it on the library homepage at www.lib.uct.ac.za
In this example we going to do a search in the Sociology of Literature – (the study of literature as a reflection of its society), and a very nice topic for bridging both the Arts and the Social Sciences it is too.
We are going to look for a particular author – Nontsizi Mgqwetho.
This quick search brings up the copies that we have of her work, as well as books and articles about her work.
Clicking on the TITLE of the top record takes me to the records for the printed books and gives me the shelf number so I can find them on the shelves: It says the book is available at the African Studies Library and other locations.
The African Studies Library is a research and archive collection, which collects and preserves books in stock for the generations yet to come and attracts researchers from around the world. In consequence the African Studies collection books can only be read in that library and may not be borrowed.
The Main Library copy is the one that can be borrowed, but you have to get into the full record to finds its specific shelf number.
The shelf number works like a street address – just follow the numbers up or down until you get to the address you want. Shelf numbers keep related books together, so once you have found your book, it is often useful to browse the books on either side of it as well.
In fact, you don’t even have to physically be in the library to do it… If you again click on the title of one of the results, you will be taken to the full record for the book – which has a virtual browse option – so you can see all its neighbouring books…. You never know what you will discover that way.
By clicking on the blue subject headings in the record you can also call up similar books which share that subject heading.
On the search screen you can use a drop-down arrow to search only for electronic journal articles or electronic books or reference works.
In this example, restricting the search to Articles & other Electronic Resources, the top results are for electronic journal articles…
And further down we have an electronic encyclopaedia entry for her, also available online.
If I click on the title I will be taken to a full record for the article or electronic book, and a link to the database on which it lives:
And so to download the article:
The record also shows me how to cite the book or article – which I will need to do if I am going to use it in an essay:
Or, even better, it allows me to send the record to a program like RefWorks or Endnote, which does my citing for me, automatically, at the touch of a button….
The left-hand side of the screen has all sorts of options for refining or restricting your results:
The most useful are probably Peer-reviewed Journals (the most respectable journals, I which every article is vetted by other academics), Subject or Resource type:
If you are getting too many results – and PRIMO can bring up a lot of results – you can use an Advanced Search to search more precisely:
And if you are looking for a very specific book, journal or article – for example from a reading list - PRIMO has a Find By Citation form which can help you find exactly that reference. I’ll use a good social science example here:
Just put in as much information as you have on the reference:
Shaffer, P., 1998. Gender, poverty and deprivation: evidence from the Republic of Guinea. World Development, 26(12), pp.2119-2135.
And this will bring it up in both print and electronic versions:
And clicking on the full text or database link will take you to it.
It is possible to create very precise searches just using keywords.
The trick is to combine them with Boolean Operators, wildcards and brackets. Most of our databases, including our library catalogue, take Boolean operators.
Consider this search string:
(child* OR wom?n OR gender) AND poverty AND Africa* NOT “African American”
The * is a wildcard – it calls up anything that follows the root “child” – so it will being up child and children or childhood……
The ? is a mid-word wildcard – calls up women and woman…
The OR expands you options – women or gender must come up in the results, it doesn’t matter which….
The (brackets) keep the OR words together and relate them to the AND which follows – otherwise the search would call up anything to do with women, regardless of whether it had to do with poverty and Africa….
Any words linked with AND must be included in the search results - OR broadens a search, AND tightens it.
NOT excludes a term. Be careful of this. First search without it, to get an idea of what you are missing.
“Inverted commas” enclose a precise phrase.
To use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) in PRIMO, you must enter them in CAPITAL LETTERS, otherwise PRIMO ignores them.
Don’t forget that you can restrict the search to electronic journal articles or electronic books only, using the drop-down arrow – useful if you are off-campus.
The Short Loans Centre is on Level 4 of the Chancellor Oppenheimer Library.
Many books and photocopied readings essential to your courses have been placed there by lecturers.
You will need to give the staff both the title and shelf number of the book you want.
Short Loan material is issued for 1 or 3 hours only.
You must return Short Loan material to the Short Loans Centre.
Although most of our journals are electronic nowadays, you may still find yourself needing a printed journal.
Here are some Philosophy journals in print at UCT:
American Philosophical Quarterly [ 105 AME] - 1972+ QUARTERLY
Ancient Philosophy [ 180.5 ANC] - 2003+ 2 PER YEAR
Australasian Journal of Philosophy [ 105 AUS] - 1968+ QUARTERLY
Contemporary Political Theory NEW SUBSCRIPTION 2006+
Canadian Journal of Philosophy [ 105 CAN] - 1980+ QUARTERLY
Economics and Philosophy [ 330.05 ECO] - 1993+ 2 PER YEAR
Ethics - An International Journal of Social, Political and Legal Phisophy [ 170.5 INT] - 1899+ QUARTERLY
Inquiry - Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy and the Social Sciences [ 105 INQ] - 1979+ EVERY 2 MTHS
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism [ 111.8505 JOU] - 1980+ QUARTERLY
Journal of Applied Philosophy [ 105 JOU] - 1984+ 3 PER YEAR
Journal of Business Ethics [ 174.405 JOU] - 1983+ 2 PER MONTH
Journal of Medical Ethics [M 174.205 JOU] HEALTH SCIENCES 1975+ OTHER
Journal of Medicine and Philosophy [M 174.205 JOU] HEALTH SCIENCES 1988+ QUARTERLY
Journal of Philosophy [ 105 JOU] - 1915+ MONTHLY
Journal of Religious Ethics [ 291.505 JOU] - 1981+ 2 PER YEAR
Journal of Religious Thought [ 200.5 JOU] - 1991+ 2 PER YEAR
Journal of Symbolic Logic [ 164.05 JOU] - 1971+ OTHER
Journal of the History of Ideas [ 105 JOU] - 1953+ QUARTERLY
Law and Philosophy [DH 340.5 LAW] LAW + EVERY 2 MTHS
Linguistics and Philosophy [ 410.5 LIN] - 1979+ EVERY 2 MTHS
Medical Humanities [M 174.205 MED] HEALTH SCIENCES 2000+ Unknown
Mind [ 105 MIN] - 1892+ 5 PER YEAR
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly [ 105 PAC] - 1981+ OTHER
Philosophia [ 105 PHI] - 1971+ QUARTERLY
Philosophia Africana [BA 199.605 AFR] AFRICAN STUDIES 2001+ 2 PER YEAR
Philosophical Papers (
Philosophical Psychology [ 150.105 PHI] - 1988+ QUARTERLY
Philosophical Quarterly [ 105 PHI] - 1972+ OTHER
Philosophical Review [ 105 PHI] - 1965+ QUARTERLY
Philosophical Studies [ 105 PHI] - 1950+ MONTHLY
Philosophy [ 105 PHI] - 1936+ EVERY 2 MTHS
Philosophy and Literature [ 801.05 PHI] - 1998+ 2 PER YEAR
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research [ 105 PHI] - 1964+ EVERY 2 MTHS
Philosophy and Public Affairs [ 105 PHI] - 1971+ QUARTERLY
Philosophy of Science [DS 505 PHI] SCIENCE LIBRARY 1961+ 5 PER YEAR
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society [ 105 ARI] - 1900+ ANNUAL
South African Journal of Philosophy [ 105 TYD] - 1964+ QUARTERLY
Teaching Philosophy [ 105 TEA] - 1979+ QUARTERLY