20世纪末,美国出版了一本较大篇幅的哲学工具书,取名为《哲学家指南》(A Companion to the Philosophers, edited by Robert L. Arrington, Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999),以囊括历史上的哲学家特别是最近一个世纪出现的著名哲学家。西方学术界有这样一个传统,即每隔30—50年都要组织编写一本较大篇幅的各科“指南”性质的工具书,以介绍当时该领域内最具有代表性的人物及其思想,在加入新近的人物及思想的同时,原来在书中的某些人物及思想因为引入了新的参照系有可能就依其地位的“相形见绌”而“淡出”指南。这样,这类的大型工具书实际上就立下 At the end of the 20th century, the United States published a large-scale philosophical book named A Companion to the Philosophers (edited by Robert L. Arrington, Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999) to encompass historical Philosophers, especially famous philosophers who have appeared in the last century. There is a tradition in Western academia that every 30 to 50 years, a large-scale “guidebook” of various subjects should be organized to introduce the most representative figures and their thoughts in the field at the time At the same time as adding new characters and thoughts, some of the characters and thoughts originally in the book may have “faded out” the guidelines because of their “dwarfs” of status due to the introduction of a new frame of reference. In this way, such a large reference book is actually set