While Stanford enc. has its own search, it doesn't work the best at the
time I'm writing this. Google's site search works lot better, instead
of searching for let's say "Hegel" on Stanford search, you can use "site:plato.Stanford.edu Hegel" in
google (or read further on this page for better way).
By default you should have quick search for
wikipedia in Firefox. To search wikipedia for "ontology" for example,
just go to
the address bar (or press ctrl+l
combination of keyboard to go there without touching the mouse), type "wp ontology" and press Enter.
For adding quick shortcut for Stanford encyclopedia (by using google
search), go to Bookmarks menu, then to the sub-menu "Quick Searches",
and right click at any place in that sub-menu. Choose "Add New
Bookmark..." option.
Write whatever you want in name and description boxes, type "st" in the keyword text box, and put
"http://www.google.com/search?q=site:plato.stanford.edu+%s"
for location. After then if you need to find article on Hegel at
Stanford, you just press ctrl+l, write st
Hegel, and press Enter.
Books
Plato and Aristotle
Check the works
of Plato and Aristotle.
While this is 2400 years old philosophy, don't think it is shallow or
easy.
...all concerned with the question of epistemology, or
the nature of the "human knowledge" and "human understanding" as titles
of those books say.
While those are not really the best theories the philosophy can offer,
I think they cover some ideas, that lot of other works will reference,
so create good base.
Kant and Hegel - German Classical Philosophy
While the Kant's work is considered pretty heavy, I think that sooner
or later you should get into the Critique of Pure
Reason. Kant's
philosophy is considered fresh even today (check this article
of how the issues he was interested in are in the center of modern
cognitive science).
On other hand Hegel is very hard to read. So hard that some people
think that he is talking nonsense. But, I think his philosophy makes
lot of sense, and you can check the Stanford article on Hegel, for interpretation of his
general philosophy. Consider reading his works(the
major one being Science
of Logic) just if you have a lot of time, you have read Kant, read
the Stanford enc. article, and if you are extremely patient person.
Analytic philosophy
For good overview check Avrum Stroll's 20th
century analytic philosophy (this is not free download, but book
which is available in print or in download for arround 20$ when I
checked).
Those works include Quine's Two Dogmas, Putnam's
Meaning of 'Meaning', Tarski The Semantic
Conception Of Truth.
Cognitive Development - Concepts
How are concepts created is interesting question in philosophy,
cognitive science. Among newest works in this field is theory based
theory of concepts, which sheds new light on epistemology. Check this PhD dissertation to
get overview, and feel for those theories.
Lot and lot of philosophical papers (and connected like psychological,
cognitive science, physics, mathematics etc..) are on the net. Probably
you wouldn't want to read all the papers, but search through those only
when you are interested in particular issue.
For on-line papers which are connected to consciousness check the
Chalmers' reference. Also
check list of papers
on Cogprints site and DiText.
Check the articles on Holistic Model of Mind.
The texts speculate on the underlying basis of concepts, conceptual
thinking, getting into the questions like body-mind problem, necessary
truths, mathematics etc. I tried to write those so they are easily
understandable even if you don't have prior knowledge of other
philosophical systems.