Find the person of interest. The dictionary does a nice job of describing how the individual's philosophy within a larger history of ideas. Encyclopedia of philosophy. Articles vary in length. Coverage of ancient, medieval, and early modern philosophers is very good.
Topics are large and general.
Use the index to locate smaller topics. These indexes are available from the Library webpage under Electronic Resources . Topics include sciences, arts, humanities etc. Many articles available full text. Available through FirstSearch Electronic index to 385 scholarly journals in the Humanities.