Some cautionary notes on using the Internet as a research tool in philosophy

 

The Internet is just about the worst possible source for information about philosophy. It is worse than back issues of Reader’s Digest, and just slightly above the National Inquirer. I mean this in all seriousness, and so I strongly discourage using the Internet for research. If you do use it in your paper, I will not be impressed with your technological savvy. On the contrary, I will assume you’re too lazy to go to the library.

 

Ninety-nine percent of what you’ll find on the Internet regarding philosophy is there because the author couldn’t get it printed in any respectable publication. In contrast, everything you’ll find in a university library is a respectable publication. Librarians are trained to sort out the good from the bad – that’s what they do for a living. So when you do research on the Internet you’re almost sure to be relying on work that is well below second-rate. The library is vastly superior as a resource.

 

Now there is that 1% of material on the Internet that is extremely valuable, and so the Internet is a gold mine for someone able to see what’s good and what’s not. But this isn’t something you can do without specialized knowledge in a field, and so you’re far more likely to find something that belongs to that bad 99%.

 

Still, I know that laziness is hard to overcome, and the Internet can be useful when used with care. So if you simply must work this way, begin with two highly respected encyclopedias available through the internet, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (This last is available only through the CU server.)