Philosophy

We offer an extensive range of resources:

• from Democritus to Slavoj Žižek: access to the major authors in Western philosophy
• from ancient to Latin American philosophy: a gateway to the various periods and different strands of thought in the history of philosophy
• from the metaphysics of nature to aesthetics: an introduction to the various areas and themes of contemporary philosophy

Among other things, we offer resources on the authors and themes currently studied by the university community:

• Ancient and mediaeval philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, neoplatonism, ethics, psychology and noetics, Arab philosophy
• Modern and contemporary philosophy: political philosophy, philosophy of law and modern natural law, Herbart, theories of justice, human rights and human dignity, secularity and tolerance
• Philosophy of culture: Cassirer, Frankfurt School, Simmel, Benjamin, Kracauer
• Aesthetics and philosophy of art: aesthetics of photography, Kunstwissenschaft
• Philosophy of science: metaphysics and ontology, philosophy of nature, philosophy of mind, philosophy of technology and new technologies

Documents are varied and available in paper or digital formats:

• books, dictionaries and encyclopaedias
• journals and academic articles
• bibliographies and bibliographical databases
• DVDs

We offer a variety of documentary resources aimed at several different audiences:

• Students: we offer you the documents you need for your philosophical studies and to pursue your own research.
• Teachers: we purchase resources that are useful for teaching (purchase proposal form) and reserve them for your students.
• Researchers: whether you are a PhD student or professor, we provide you with the necessary bibliographical resources to progress your academic research.
• Former students, secondary-school students and the general public: apart from the university community, we offer anyone with an interest in the field the chance to discover the many aspects of Western thought.

The Unithèque site houses 16,000 documents classified by author, historical period and theme.

Several search tools are available to help you find documents in the open shelves and in the stacks:

• Renouvaud to access the physical and digital documents you need
• the catalogue of University of Lausanne Master’s and degree dissertations for access to the list of dissertations examined since 1949

The databases portal provides access to all bibliographical databases (for example: PhilPapers; Philosopher’s Index; Oxford Bibliographies), online sources (Hegel Werke Online), a number of digital dictionaries and encyclopaedias (Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie Online), and platforms for e-books and academic journals (Oxford Scholarship Online; JSTOR .

These online resources are available on UNIL computer workstations, on our public computers in the library or at home through authenticated access, which is only available to members of the university community.

We offer a range of services to respond to your needs for documentary resources, support your studies and teaching, and guide your documentary research:

• purchase proposals: you are welcome to suggest new resources using the purchase proposals form.
• semester references: you can ask for reference works that will be useful to your students to be excluded from lending for a semester, by completing the relevant form.
• help and training on documentary research: training sessions are offered as part of courses in philosophy (BA), and on request, for advanced students (Master’s and PhD)
• training on documentation tracking and managing bibliographical references (Zotero): on request for advanced students (Master’s and PhD)