Philosophy and open access: the digital archive Philosophical dictionaries of the modern age

Abstract

The digital archive Lessici filosofici dell'età moderna, (Philosophical dictionaries of the modern age) funded in the years 2007-2008, represents a first stage towards open access. 
The archive, that is one of the data bases of the ILIESI (Institute for intellectual lexicon and history of ideas), is a digital library that currently provides students and scholars with about twenty philosophical-scientific and scholarship vocabularies, published in Latin between the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 18th centuries. 
The project also foresees the recording of the dictionaries' nomenclature: of all the entries and, to some extent, the sub-entries, with various research possibilities. The archive is also enriched with biographical files on the authors of the dictionaries chosen and with bibliographical files regarding the edition reproduced. A "Materials" section is available for consultation.  It contains articles, synoptical files and other study material on the lexicons published.  
The digital archive forms part of the research series of the ILIESI: Studies on European philosophical lexicon of Humanisn in the 20th century, focussed on an analysis of intellectual vocabularies and tools of philosophical lexicography in some representative moments between humanism and modern times.  
The objectives of the project  Lessici filosofici dell’età moderna are:

1. Preparation of an archive of philosophical dictionaries (philosophical -scientific and scholarship) that can be consulted on line, in open source mode. This archive makes a series of texts accessible: they are texts that are related both to the traditional philosophy of schools (for example ancient and medieval Aristotelian tradition) and to more recent philosophical orientations: from Catholic and Protestant scholastics to Cartesian philosophy.  It should be noted that these are works that are often very difficult to find.
2. Preparation of a interrelated thesaurus of the lexicons, with a combined index of entries (headwords, syntaxes and locutions) of the dictionaries published.

The digital archive Lessici filosofici dell'età moderna demonstrates an attempt to reconcile a typical tool of the scientific research environment such as open access with the philosophical environment.