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InteLex licenses the best available editions from leading academic and university publishers and organizations. We have worked with Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton, Indiana, Blackwell, de Gruyter, SIU Press, Pickering & Chatto, New City Press, Marquette, the University of California Press, Lawrence & Wishart, and MIT Press to publish the electronic versions of highly recognized and respected complete print editions. In instances in which a critical edition is still emerging, or where there is an extant, available standard scholarly edition recognized and used by scholars, we have chosen the best available complete edition. Finally, we work with prominent scholars to create and publish new editions. The Past Masters Preface at the beginning of each database gives the precise bibliographical information for the contents of that database. We also supply MARC bibliographic records to our institutional customers free of charge.

Wherever possible, we have sought to bring cohesive editions instead of individual texts and works from disparate collections. We offer the Collected Works of Ludwig Wittgenstein from Blackwell; Nietzsche's Werke, the definitive Historish-Kritische Ausgabe (a combination of both the Kritische Gesamtausgabe and the Kritische Studienausgabe) edited by Colli and Montinari, published by Walter de Gruyter; the definitive English translation of The Complete Works of Marx and Engels, the 50 volume edition from International Publishers and Lawrence & Wishart; the Oxford University Press translations of G.W.F. Hegel, which contains the definitive translations of Hegel's major works, lectures, and political writings; the definitive edition of The Works of Charles Darwin (Pickering & Chatto); The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Oxford); and The Works of Robert Boyle, the new scholarly edition from Pickering & Chatto. These are all examples of internationally respected editions prepared by recognized scholars in the field. All of our English Letters titles are definitive editions either from Oxford University Press or Pickering & Chatto, prepared by renowned scholars in their respective fields.

In cases where there is no critical edition available, or a critical edition is in process, we have used definitive, authoritative editions still respected and widely used by scholars. Examples of this in our Past Masters collection would include Leibniz: Die Philosophischen Schriften edited by Gerhardt; J.G. Fichte, Sämmtliche Werke und Nachlass, edited by I.H. Fichte; Schopenhauer: Hauptwerke, edited by Paul Deussen; Kant: Hauptwerke (based on the Akademie-Ausgabe of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, edited by Cassirer et al -- soon to be expanded with the Nachlass and the letters from the Academy edition); and Hegel: Werke, the Jubiläumsausgabe republished as the Theorie-Werkausgabe by Suhrkamp Verlag in Frankfurt. While there may be other, emerging critical editions, as is the case with Fichte and Hegel, these editions used in InteLex Past Masters are all major, definitive editions recognized, respected, and still widely used by scholars in the field.

Finally, we have worked very closely with scholars and institutes to publish new authoritative, complete editions. Examples of this would include Wittgenstein's Nachlass: The Bergen Electronic Edition, which we offer in conjunction with Oxford University Press; Descartes: Oeuvres Complétès, a new edition based on the Adam et Tannery but fully modernized, and with new materials, edited by André Gombay and the Connaught Descartes Project at the University of Toronto; The Works of George Santayana, containing the four released volumes of the critical edition published by MIT; C.S. Peirce: Chronological Edition, now underway under the editorship of Nathan Hauser and being published by Indiana University Press; The Collected Works of John Dewey and The Correspondence of John Dewey, both being edited by Larry Hickman at the Center for Dewey Studies at SIU Carbondale. We are constantly looking for new and emerging scholarly editions that will set the standard in the future.

“I think you must have been one of the first companies publishing electronic texts to recognize the importance of choosing the right edition of a work. Certainly, you have done a consistently better job in this area than anyone else.”
Patricia Buck Dominguez
Collection Development Department, Davis Library
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

While the practice of reading books in digital form, whether it be on a laptop screen, desktop monitor or PDA, has not yet won widespread acceptance, using computer technology for scholarly research has been established over the last few decades, providing robust search capabilities, fast navigation through large bodies of text, and precise quotation, citation and reference possibilities that have greatly facilitated and enhanced scholars' work. 

Book indexes (most of which were prepared by hand) are almost always inaccurate. A database with search software is like a book index whose entries not only consist of every word in the book but are physically linked to the pages. Press a key and all passages of interest are assembled in one place. Creating concordances and exporting text and reference lines to a word processor takes only a few seconds. 

Employing these electronic texts it is possible to make instant comparisons of different authors, locate stray quotations and find their context, analyze the vocabulary, word combinations, verbal habits, slips, and eccentricities of particular authors, follow the fortunes of terms and clusters of terms through an indefinite number of works, and even-of particular value for historians seeking to establish semantic contexts-carry out lexicographical surveys of word usages in a range of classic texts. These databases can be searched for single words (and their roots and derivatives) or combinations of words, in one text or multiple texts, so that they serve both as a set of concordances (but searchable more efficiently than printed concordances) and, in a more limited way, as a historical dictionary. 

Consider the alternative of checking print indexes when the number of texts to be explored grows to tens or hundreds.  The time savings can become substantial. Texts which are out of print can be very difficult and/or expensive to acquire. Creating a collection using Past Masters databases can be far more convenient. 

Our databases permit scholars to spend time thinking and writing that they otherwise would have to spend finding material.

“Its potential as a timesaver is tremendous: for finding half-remembered quotations, for investigating the author's use of key terms, for tracking down quotations in commentators who may not be using the same edition as you are...”
--Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie

A growing number of texts are available to download on the Internet. Most such texts are public domain, without critical apparatus, without references to print editions to let you know the location of passages, and without editorial oversight to ensure the accuracy of the reproductions and thus the verity of your searches. The long-term-availability of free-texts at the same URL has been questionable. Often these links return 404 errors as the pages move or the provider stops providing.

Word processors are not designed for searching large amounts of text, and provide only rudimentary search functionality. 

The Past Masters series is developing comprehensive collections of texts drawn from scholarly editions. Our objective is to obtain the complete corpora in original language and in English translation of the seminal thinkers. This allows the scholar to explore ideas as they evolve through an author's lifetime or across the centuries.

Our proprietary conversion process leaves less than 6 word errors per million characters, which helps to ensure that searches are thorough and accurate. Typical Optical Character Recognition (OCR) accuracy is less than 98% and if you consider that even 99.95% accuracy still leaves 500 errors per million characters, it becomes obvious that large files (typically 10 to 100 million characters) require the kind of accuracy that we provide.

The VIEWS search engine is one of the fastest and most powerful tools for managing large text files that currently exists for PCs or Macs. Hypertext links take you directly to the relevant texts or to footnotes, variant readings, translations or images. Searches can be as simple as a single word, or as complex as nested combinations of Boolean, phrase, and proximity searches. VIEWS is specifically designed for doing research. Each paragraph and footnote is fully referenced to its print edition location. VIEWS compresses data by roughly 50%, which saves valuable hard disk space; and of course on CD-ROM the databases take up no hard disk space at all.

“[InteLex] Past Masters databases, on the other hand, include the text of highly-respected, complete, scholarly editions and translations, a strong search engine capable of searching across texts, and features such as textual notes and pagination. These factors, along with the reasonable pricing, makes [InteLex] Past Masters titles appealing to a broad user spectrum, from casual readers and undergraduates searching for an online version of a text to scholars performing high-level research.."
The Charleston Advisor
Volume 5, Number 3
January 2004
Date of Review: November 12, 2003 
Composite Score: **** 3/4 [out of *****]
Reviewed by: Helene C. Williams 
English Bibliographer for the Humanities 
Collection Development 
Widener Library 
Harvard University
USA

“InteLex has been Scrupulous in checking its databases...”
--Choice Magazine

“...the data quality is very high, with few if any errors.”
--New Media Canada

“...Impressive care has been taken in establishing these texts.”
--Journal of the History of Ideas

PDF is an acronym for Portable Document File. It is a proprietary format developed by Adobe Systems Inc., which allows a document to be viewed and printed as the author/editor intended, regardless of the computer hardware or operating system. All that is required to view and print the file is the freely available Acrobat viewer.

The answer usually depends on the intended use. PDF may be better if the primary use is to read or print the document. PDF files can retain most or all of the formatting that a desktop publishing package can provide, so in most cases they are better at displaying the actual "look and feel" of the original document. Navigation is easy because a hypertext table of contents can be created. PDF allows a single word or phrase to be searched, but it is time consuming and inconvenient to search large bodies of text.

If research is the intended use, and the amount of text is significant, i.e. thousands, tens or even hundreds of thousands of pages VIEWS is superior. VIEWS is a search engine and its files are pre-indexed at the time of creation. This means that Boolean, phrase and proximity searching are faster by orders of magnitude. There are tools to help establish relevancy, attach personal notes, hilight text, create named bookmarks and hypertext links, etc. Search results can be more easily exported to word processing files and every paragraph and footnote is fully referenced to its corresponding location in the print edition. Shadow files make it possible to save this research for fast retrieval without having to save the entire database.

“A Superb research tool....”
--RQ

“At last!...an outstanding text database product”
--Choice Magazine

Our goal is to offer both an original language edition and an English translation of every work in our collection. We try to serve as wide an audience as possible, and translations are more widely used, in the U.S. and Canada at least, than non-English original language texts.

“Past Masters CD-ROMs show how useful new technology can be for scholars in the humanities”
--New Media Canada

“The Past Masters database makes it very easy to find citations...I can quickly search for variations in word translations that would otherwise take far more time using printed indexes...An excellent teaching tool.”
--Assoc. Prof. John Jones
Marquette University

There are many reasons why Past Masters full-text electronic scholarly editions add tremendous value even if the library has the editions in print:

1) using Past Masters full-text electronic scholarly editions, one can locate stray quotations and find their context; analyze the vocabulary, word combinations, verbal habits and eccentricities of particular authors; trace the use of terms, concepts, and phrases within a specific oeuvre or across databases; and obtain a definitive citation/reference for any results that can be used in scholarly research and writing; 

2) if a library has the edition in print, only one person can use/check out each volume (or the entire edition) at a time; this is not the case with the Past Masters full-text electronic edition;

3) searches of the electronic edition can find instances which were not indexed in the print edition, and advanced searches can locate many items that even accurate and complete indexes would miss; 

4) searches across an entire edition (as opposed to an index of a single volume), or, even more, searches across multiple editions return not only more information than is available by correlating print indexes, but also a different sort of information showing, for example, parallels and differences across fields or across time; 

5) it is usually difficult or impossible for experts to use print editions in different fields from their own. It is too difficult to gain an overview of a corpus and, therefore, 
to use findings from it in a scholarly way. With Past Masters electronic editions, in contrast, concentrations of interest can be isolated and the passages in question mastered; 

6) since the maintenance costs of the electronic edition are much lower than with a print edition, acquisition of an electronic edition in addition to a print edition can lower 
library costs by allowing restriction of the latter to reference or specialized use; 

7) an electronic edition can be augmented and corrected over time and so can remain the standard edition in ways which print editions cannot; 

8) electronic editions can and will be augmented by materials which are important to the study of the base edition. In the example of The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy, we hope to add the 'Public Voices', the letters of his wives and his 'Studies, Specimens & Notebook'. There are doubtless further materials which scholars would like to have as part of a 
Thomas Hardy electronic research platform; 

8) Past Masters databases often include texts which are out of print and generally unobtainable. In these cases, the database supplies the missing volume if the library doesn't have it, or, if it does, allows the print volume to be put into restricted circulation.

Copying or printing of any portion of the databases is restricted to personal use only. Printing of texts for use in course material is strictly prohibited.

“I think that the material you are producing is absolutely brilliant”
--W. H. Newton-Smith
Balliol College
Oxford University

There are three primary features/benefits of upgrading and the software page in this section is the best place to see them in action.

1. Graphic User Interface (GUI) – Besides the familiar advantages of the GUI providing a common look and feel for program functions, the ability to "fair use" copy and paste text into your word processor, and optimization for use with a mouse, there are two other very useful features:

2. Search Relevance – Once a search has been executed, the search results can be displayed in the table of contents view. As sub-headings are expanded, the number of records with hits are displayed next to the corresponding headings. Since every heading in the table of contents view is a hypertext link to the corresponding full text, this feature allows the user to quickly locate hits in relevant texts or to find a locus of hits. Also, the table of contents can be used to navigate quickly to a particular text of interest.

3. Shadow Files – Shadow files allow the user to customize and save research results. The shadow file does not change the underlying database, but allows for users to save bookmarks and personal notes as well as to highlight text.

“Carefully researched and accurate...A practical instrument for research...I found virtually nothing to criticize about the programme.”
--Mind

If you already own one or more of our databases, you may upgrade to Macintosh or Windows for the sum of the difference in prices between the DOS version and the Macintosh or Windows version. Add $10 for the user guide (or $20 for the user guides if an institution) unless you purchase a new database at the same time. There is a minimum $50 charge for an upgrade.

Thus an individual who owns Aquinas and Aristotle in DOS format would pay $75 plus shipping to upgrade: 

“...considering the cost of academic books, these databases are quite inexpensive.”
--New Media Canada

“Eminently affordable...a very appealing and very useful package indeed.”
--Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie

There are two network licenses. The Institution Site License allows two simultaneous users on a LAN (within a building); and the Campus-Wide Site License allows unlimited network access on campus.

A school can start with an Institution license and upgrade to a Campus-wide license at any time.

There is a volume discount of 10% for cumulative order volume of US$20,000 and 15% for cumulative order volume of US$30,000. Once these levels have been reached, subsequent purchases are automatically discounted at the appropriate rate.

Several frequently ordered combinations of Past Masters titles have been set up to review and/or print out.

The Peirce: Chronological Edition will eventually feature the most important parts of the two other databases. But the Chronological Edition itself is only 20% complete at present and will not be finished for many years. The current release of the 'Chronological Edition' stops at the year 1890. It therefore has little overlap with the Collected Papers or with the Published Works I, because the great majority of texts in the latter two databases were written after 1890. 

As regards the relation of the first volume of Published Works database to the Collected Papers database, the former contains Peirce's contributions to the journal, The Nation, over a forty-year period. Since the Collected Papers database features only a handful of these contributions to The Nation, there is very little overlap between these two databases.

InteLex currently publishes six Wittgenstein databases. Three of these databases are in German: Nachlass; Gesamtbriefwechsel; and Tagebücher und Briefe. The letters (but not the diaries) in Tagebücher und Briefe are also included in Gesamtbriefwechsel: full credit is given for the overlap. Two of the databases are in English: Collected Works and Letters, Lectures, conversations, Memoirs. There is no overlap between these, but the letters in Letters, Lectures, Conversations, Memoirs are also included in Gesamtbriefwechsel: full credit is given for the overlap. The sixth database, Wittgenstein: Texts & Contexts, has primary texts by Wittgenstein, and secondary texts about Wittgenstein, in both German and English.

All of Wittgenstein's major 'works', derive from thousands of pages of notes which Wittgenstein repeatedly revised and sorted in various ways, but never published (except for the Tractatus). These notes, almost entirely in German, constitute his Nachlass. 

The Published Works database (previously published by InteLex, but no longer available pending further negotiations with the rights holders) consisted of the Tractatus plus those 'works' which were produced from the Nachlass after Wittgenstein's death by editors appointed by him. Nearly all these works. like the notes upon which they are based, are in German.

The Collected Works database consists of the authoritative English translations of the 'Published Works' (excepting the Tractatus).

Wittgenstein research up to the present time has been based on the Published Works and their translations in the Collected Works. Publication of the Nachlass and of the Gesamtbriefwechsel (see below) effectively opens a new chapter in the history of Wittgenstein research by making possible, for the first time, a comparison of his
original notes, and their variants, with the 'works' which were ultimately derived from them after Wittgenstein's death by editors. 

The difference between the Nachlass and the Collected Works databases is therefore that the Nachlass contains Wittgenstein's original and unpublished notes in German, while the Collected Works database consists of the works which were edited from these notes and published in English translation.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Gesamtbriefwechsel (Complete Correspondence) has all of Wittgenstein's known correspondence (excepting those few letters whose publication has been reserved for a future date). 

Wittgenstein: Letters, Lectures, Conversations, Memoirs presents that part of Wittgenstein's correspondence which was either written in English or is available in English translation from the original German. The database also features transcriptions of Wittgenstein lectures and conversations on various subjects made by his students at Cambridge. Finally, the database includes descriptions and memoirs of Wittgenstein written by his friends, colleagues and students. There is no overlap between this database and the Collected Works database, but the letters appear also in the Gesamtbriefwechsel.

Wittgenstein: Tagebücher und Briefe contains those diaries and small collections of letters which have been edited and published by the Brenner Archive in Innsbruck. Full credit is given for the overlap with the Gesamtbriefwechsel.

Wittgenstein: Texts & Contexts includes the first 25 volumes of the annual publication (Schriftenreihe) of the Wittgenstein Society of Austria. Volume one reprints the dictionary which Wittgenstein prepared for his pupils when he worked as a primary school teacher. Volume twenty-three is a collection of Wittgenstein's correspondence with his family, but the overlap with the Gesamtbriefwechsel is minimal.  The remaining volumes feature original contributions on Wittgenstein's work from some of the foremost philosophers of the last quarter century.

Yes. InteLex provides detailed MARC records for the web versions of the currently available Past Masters databases, and is committed to providing MARC records for forthcoming titles as they are released. MARC records are provided at no additional charge to Institutional and Campus-Wide customers. While the MARC records are specifically for the Web versions of the databases, customers can download these MARC records and modify them in order to create MARC records appropriate for Institutional CDs. The Released Titles page allows anyone to click on the icons adjacent to the respective titles in order to download the zip files.

The IVLITE program is not Windows XP or VISTA compatible and there are no upgrades available for this software. However, it is possible to redirect the Nachlass to use a different viewer. To redirect the Nachlass to use Internet Explorer, follow the steps below.

[1] Assuming the Nachlass is already installed, open the file C:\WINDOWS\EXEC2.INI

[2] In the line that states VIEWER=C:\IVLITE\IVLITE.EXE -L -M, change to VIEWER=C:\PROGRA~1\INTERN~1\IEXPLORE.EXE

[3] Save the EXEC2.INI file and then open the Nachlass program

A better viewer for the images might be one called Irfanview. You can download this program from http://www.irfanview.com/. If you choose this program as your viewer for the Nachlass images, then you will need to repeat step [2] (above) replacing the VIEWER= path with the path to the Irfanview program. Remember to use the short filenames when changing the path, i.e. C:\PROGRA~1 instead of C:\PROGRAM FILES.