Philosophy

Collection overview

The Philosophy collection in Senate House Library is a leading national resource. The collections act as the Library for the Royal Institute of Philosophy.

Collection coverage includes the following aspects:

Historical: ancient philosophy – 21st century ; including works of philosophers, in English and European languages, and critical texts
Thematic: eg metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, ethics, logic etc

The collection is particularly strong in modern Western philosophy, especially works by and about individual philosophers – British, American and Continental

The Reference section can be found adjacent to the Philosophy books – this includes dictionaries, encyclopedias and bibliographies

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Collection location

Most books and periodicals are located on the 2nd floor North Block
All items available on open access will display the location PHILOSOPHY, with the classmark prefix 66 eg PHILOSOPHY North Block 2nd Floor (66) AE N54G 969
Large books are shelved in a separate sequence - indicated by the prefix ‘f’ or ‘folio’, before the location code
Recent issues of periodicals are on display bays in the Goldsmiths Library – 4th floor South Block. For more information on finding journals, see our journals resources page
Some items are held in the closed access stacks. These will display the location Stack Service. Please request at the Stack Service desk on the 4th floor South Block
To locate individual titles use the online catalogue

Related collections

The philosophy of a subject is generally shelved with that subject, hence most of the major subject collections will contain books of interest to philosophers eg History, Psychology, Religion etc. Other significant related collections include:

Area collections of Latin American Studies and United States Studies – intellectual history of countries
Art collection - aesthetics
Classical Studies collection – texts of ancient philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle
Languages collections – works of renowned thinkers eg Montesquieu and Diderot
Psychology collection – consciousness studies and cognitive science
Special Collections – especially the De Morgan Library

NB Texts and critical works about specific texts of Plato and Aristotle are located in the Classics collection, but general critical works about them are in the Philosophy collection.

Classmarks for Philosophy

All classmarks in this collection have a numerical prefix of 66 eg PHILOSOPHY North Block 2nd Floor (66) AE N54G 969

AA-AAB: General histories of philosophy

AAD-AAY: Ancient philosophy

AB: Medieval philosophy

AC: 16th-18th century philosophy

AD: 19th -21st century philosophy, general works divided by country

AE: 19th-21st century philosophy, individual philosophers

AF: General philosophy, introductions

AG: Systematic philosophy

AH: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind

AI: Philosophy of human nature

AJ: Ethics

AL: Logic

For a more detailed explanation of classmarks see the Library's leaflet 'A guide to the classification scheme'.

Other libraries

For more information about Philosophy holdings in other academic libraries in the London area, please consult the M25 Consortium of Higher Education Libraries website: www.m25lib.ac.uk. For elsewhere in the UK, consult the Consortium of University and Research Libraries catalogue: www.copac.ac.uk