What this is
I’m going to list some resources for doing research in philosophy. During the term, these may be of some use in looking up odd points. After the quarter is over, if you want to do more, these resources may help. The course does not require outside research and I think it would probably be a bad idea to try to do any: reading the Treatise carefully is hard enough on its own.
Many of these resources require a University of Chicago internet connection. If you want to access them at home, you will have to use the University’s proxy server.
Philosophy in general
The Regenstein Philosophy Research page lists a wide array of resources. Of special interest is the Philosopher’s Index (the index of work in our discipline).
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy is reasonably good for getting an overview of an issue, though I have to confess that I rarely understand encyclopedia articles: they’re too condensed. But each entry has a good bibliography.
The full text of many books published by Oxford University Press is available in full-text editions on the Oxford Scholarship Online website.
Historical sources
The Hume Society is the professional organization that sponsors conferences and the journal Hume Studies. Those who join the Society get the journal and access to electronic copies of all the past issues.
InteLex PastMasters is a text database of philosophical writing. That means you can search for a word or phrase in Hume or a variety of other authors. This is a very good thing. Use the database “British Philosophy, 1600-1900”.
Finally, there are two collections of facsimilies of original editions: you can search by titles and, in some cases, content and then print out a copy of the original pages. Eighteenth Century Collections Online and Early English Books Online, which concentrates on the 17th century and earlier.