What's Here

Here you'll find guides and encyclopedias on philosophy from the Middle Ages through the 18th century.  The titles are arranged in rough chronological order.

NOTE: If you're interested in finding a guide or introduction to a particular person or subject, such as Locke or humanism, also look at Guides to Philosophies/Philosophers.

Encyclopedias and Reference Works

Dictionary of Medieval Philosophy ed.. Henrik Lagerlund. Springer Verlag 2011. Covers medieval philosophy from 500 to 1500.

The Cambridge companion to medieval philosophy. Ed. A.S. McGrade. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

SML (Stacks), B720 .C36X 2003; Divinity Library (Stacks), B721 .C34 2003

 

A companion to philosophy in the Middle Ages.  Ed. Jorge J. E. Gracia et al. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005.

Bass (Stacks), Divinity Library (Stacks), B721 .C54 2002

A set of seven essays dealing with the historical context of philosophy in the Middle Ages, followed by alphabetical entries on 138 philosophers, Christian, Jewish, and Islamic, who lived between the 4th and 14th centuries.

Medieval philosophy.  Ed. John Marenbon.  London; New York: Routledge, 1998.

SML (Philosophy Study Room), Divinity Library (Stacks), B721 M453 1998

Histories

The Cambridge history of later Medieval philosophy.  Ed. Norman Kretzmann et al.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Online; earlier editions in Bass (Stacks), B721 C35 1982; SML (Philosophy Study Room), Divinity (Trowbridge), B721 C35 1982

This volume covers the period "from the rediscovery of Aristotle to the disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100-1600" with topically organized essays.  Restricted to the Latin Christian West.

The Cambridge companion to Renaissance philosophy. Ed. James Hankins. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

SML (Stacks), B775 .C36 2007

The Cambridge history of Renaissance philosophy. Ed. Charles B. Schmitt et al. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

SML (Starr), Divinity Library (Trowbridge), Bass (Stacks), B775 C25X 1988

Cambridge history of seventeenth-century philosophy. Ed. Daniel Garber, Michael Ayers. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Bass, SML (Philosophy Study Room & Divinity (Reference), B801 C35X 1998

Online edition: Vol. 1 & Vol. 2

The Cambridge companion to early modern philosophy.  Ed. Donald Rutherford.  Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Divinity Library (Stacks), B801 .C345X 2006

Advanced essays on topics including epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, logic, ethics, and political philosophy.

A companion to early modern philosophy.  Ed. Steven Nadler. Oxford; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 2002.

Bass (Stacks), SML (Philosophy Study Room), B801 C66X 2002

The Oxford handbook of philosophy in early modern Europe.  Ed. Desmond M. Clarke, Catherine Wilson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

SML (Stacks), B801 .O93 2011 (LC)

Essays on Early Modern Philosophers. Series ed. Vere Chappell.  New York: Garland Pub., 1992.

Various locations; see link to search results.

12-volume series of collected essays, with some volumes devoted to individual philosophers, others covering philosophical schools, and others treating a broad category of philosophers (seventeenth-century natural scientists, e.g.) 

Blackwell guide to the modern philosophers. Ed. Steven M. Emmanuel.  Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.

SML (Philosophy Study Room), Divinity Library (Stack Reference), B791 B53X 2001

Offers in-depth essays on eighteen philosophers from the 17th to 19th centuries, including Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Malebranche, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. The book focuses on ideas and key arguments rather than on biography.

The dictionary of seventeenth-century French philosophers. Ed. Luc Foisneau. London; New York: Thoemmes Continuum, 2008.

SML (Starr), B1815 .D53X 2008

Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. Rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2004.

SML (Starr), B802 E53X 2005

Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. Ed. Alan Charles Kors. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2003.

SML (Starr), B802 .E53X 2003

Covers the "long" Enlightenment, from 1670 to 1815. Articles range from discussions of mercantilism and democracy to the battlefield to the dissemination of ideas in salons and coffeehouses. Coverage includes not only Western Europe but also North America, Brazil, and Iberian, Russian, Jewish, and Eastern European cultures.

A companion to rationalism.  Ed. Alan Nelson. Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.

SML (Stacks), B833 .C66X 2005

The two main sections of this companion deal with rationalism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but the book also treats the historical roots of rationalism and its contemporary manifestations.

The dictionary of eighteenth-century British philosophers. Ed. John W. Yolton et al. Bristol, England; Sterling, Va.: Thoemmes, 1999.

SML (Philosophy Study Room), Divinity Library (Trowbridge), B1301 .D538 1999

The Age of German Idealism.  Routledge History of Philosophy vol. 6. Ed. Robert C. Solomon et al. New York: Routledge, 1993.

SML (Stacks): B2615 A35X 1993

Mainly essays on Kant and Hegel, but with a contribution apiece on Fichte and Schelling, the Young Hegelians, Schopenhauer, and Kierkegaard.

The Cambridge companion to German idealism. Ed. Karl Ameriks. Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

SML (Stacks and Philosophy Study Room), Divinity Library (Stacks), B2745 C36X 2000