The history of Western philosophy is not a roll call of great men; it is a 2,500-year history of how meaning and value were conserved
The methodology of Western philosophy is, at its core, the story of a 7-Layer Deep-Thinking Operating System: from the ancient Greeks asking "what the world is made of" (the Material Layer), to the modern turn of "how can I know" (the Information and Awareness Layers), down to the contemporary question "how should I live" (the Subconscious and Mind Layers). Re-read through the Law of Value Conservation, every great philosopher's core thesis can be rendered as an E×S×T multiplication or division operation — and where value comes from and how meaning is conserved is precisely the single question this 2,500-year history of method has been quietly answering all along.
Set this law back into the history of philosophy and a striking correspondence appears: the philosophers' "legislation of value" is deeply isomorphic with the multiplication-and-division arithmetic of value conservation. Plato legislates for total value with the "just city" (an S×T multiplication model); Aristotle calibrates the balance of multiplication and division with the "mean"; Kant completes a multiplication-legislation for the Mind Layer by having "reason give nature its laws"; Rousseau enlarges the S-dimension of freedom with the "social contract"; Schopenhauer sounds a division warning that "the stronger the desire, the greater the suffering"; Nietzsche launches a division revolution by "revaluing all values"; and Sartre and Camus carry out a multiplication-rebuilding that "creates meaning out of the void." The history of philosophy is value conservation run again and again through the human mind as multiplication and division.
Why read the history of philosophy through the "twin models"?
The macro formula Y=E×S×T and the micro formula y=f(m)×f(h)×f(t) give philosophical theses a computable yardstick. They let us answer: which variable did this philosopher enlarge (multiplication), and which did he shrink (division)? Argument about philosophy thereby shifts from "whose view is right" to "how value is conserved."
The sequence Information→Material→Behavioral→Bodily→Awareness→Subconscious→Mind supplies the history of philosophy with a coordinate system of depth. The same question runs on different "algorithms" at different layers: epistemology works at the Information Layer, ontology takes root in the Material Layer, ethics legislates at the Behavioral Layer, and existentialism wrestles in the Subconscious and Mind Layers — so the history of philosophy becomes less a "chronological ledger" than a "map of deepening descent."
Just as the law of conservation of energy pervades the natural world, so too, from the holistic perspective of the economy, society, and the people, economic value, social value, and time value are neither created out of nothing nor vanish into nothing; they merely transform from one form into another or transfer from one subject to another, while the total amount of value remains unchanged.
Macro: Y = E × S × T = Economic Value × Social Value × Time Value = Aggregate Economic–Social Value (In this article: E = cognition and practice; S = ethics and community; T = history and progress)
Micro: y = f(m,h,t) = f(m) × f(h) × f(t) = f(m)Monetary Value × f(h)Happiness Experience × f(t)Time Value (In this article: m = cognition, practice and output; h = ethics, freedom and community; t = historical accumulation and progress)
“The Value Cube · Three Readings of the Formula”—fold the two formulas above back into geometry: every variable is an edge, and the multiplication sign is the volume. Three readings (macro adds, micro multiplies / value never disappears, it only changes shape / 1 is the only watershed in multiplication), 12 isometric plates, and a verbatim script you can read aloud.
2The Seven-Layer Map of Philosophical Method: 7-Layer Depth × Periods of Philosophy
The history of philosophy feels "the deeper you read, the deeper it gets" because over 2,500 years it kept descending into ever deeper recesses of the human mind. Overlay the 7-Layer Depth Model on the standard periodization and you get a "map of the descent": early philosophy answers "what is the world" (shallow information and material), middle philosophy asks "how do I know, and what should I do" (behavior and awareness), and modern philosophy goes straight to "how do I face nothingness and death" (the subconscious and the mind).
Main table: 7-layer depth × 20 works × periods of philosophy
| 7-Layer Depth | Period | Representative Works | Value-Conservation Thesis |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Information Layer | Classical / Modern | A History of Philosophy (9th ed.); The Big Questions; An Essay Concerning Human Understanding; The Republic | Empirical input and rational verification (multiplication) |
| 2 Material Layer | Classical / Modern | Metaphysics; Critique of Pure Reason | Ground of being and the thing-in-itself (multiplication) |
| 3 Behavioral Layer | Classical / Modern | Nicomachean Ethics; Critique of Practical Reason; The Social Contract | Virtuous action and moral legislation (multiplication) |
| 4 Bodily Layer | Modern (19th century) | The World as Will and Representation; The Birth of Tragedy | Kinetic will and the warning of desire (division) |
| 5 Awareness Layer | Modern / Contemporary | Meditations on First Philosophy; Critique of Judgment | Doubt and aesthetic calibration (multiplication) |
| 6 Subconscious Layer | Contemporary (19th–20th centuries) | Being and Time; Being and Nothingness; The Myth of Sisyphus | Rebuilding meaning in the void (multiplication) |
| 7 Mind Layer | Classical / Modern / Contemporary | The Republic; The Social Contract; Thus Spoke Zarathustra | Legislating for total value (multiplication) |
3The Methodological Value of Three Introductions: the Systematic, the Question-Based, and the History-of-Ideas Approaches
When reading the history of Western philosophy, choosing the right "way in" often decides how steep the first mountain feels. These three introductions embody three entirely different methodological orientations, which happen to match three "multiplication strategies" in value conservation.
The systematic-textbook approach: organized chronologically, it runs from Greek philosophy to twentieth-century thought in five parts, with primary-source excerpts along the way. Methodologically it is "multiplication by systematic integration" — it folds scattered fragments of thought into one chronological frame, giving readers the full coordinate system first and letting them fill it in afterward. Best for readers who want the whole map, not isolated shards.
The question-based approach: instead of marching through names and dates, it organizes material around life's big questions — reality, the self, freedom, morality, beauty — and treats the reader as a beginner who knows nothing of philosophy. Methodologically it is "multiplication by participation" — it lets readers walk in with their own questions and generate answers through thinking itself. Difficulty: reader-friendly.
The history-of-ideas approach: a history of philosophy by a Nobel laureate in literature, it presents the record yet carries sharp personal judgments — "history with a point of view." Methodologically it is "multiplication that adds value through opinion" — it layers the author's understanding and criticism (the E-dimension) on top of objective historical material (the S-dimension), then lets the depth of time (the T-dimension) settle it into "a history of philosophy with an attitude." Difficulty: ★★★.
4Ancient Greece: From Myth to Logos — Reason as the Enlightenment of the Information Layer
Western philosophy begins with an enlightenment of the Information Layer. In the age of myth, the gods explained the world — "thunder is Zeus' anger"; then the Milesian school began asking whether the origin of all things is water or air. For the first time, human beings tried to interpret the world with testable reason (logos) instead of untestable myth. The essence of this turn was handing the right to explain the world back from "external narrative" to "human reason" — the first multiplicative leap in value conservation's Information-Layer calibration.
The move from "mythic explanation" to "rational explanation" is a Multiplication case: a doubling of the power to decode information. For the same set of phenomena, a rational model (cause → effect) yields more predictable, accumulable and testable information than mythic narrative (will → punishment). Once the "multiplier" of the Information Layer exceeds 1, knowledge compounds — and philosophy, science and logic are born in succession.
Socrates' maieutic questioning is Division case: a constructive division. First divide unexamined beliefs down to zero, then rebuild true knowledge on the ruins. It reminds us that division is not always destructive; clear out first, rebuild second is the standard route to a higher level of thinking.
5Plato: The Republic and the Symposium — The Multiplication of a Just City and the Upward Flow of Eros
Multiplication case: The "just city" designed in The Republic (trans. Guo Binhe and Zhang Zhuming, The Commercial Press) is, in essence, a multiplication model of social value (S) × time value (T): rulers govern with wisdom (the quality of S), guardians protect with courage (the force of S), and producers work with temperance (the base of E); only when each does its own work can the city endure across generations (T). With the philosopher-king — a legislator of the Mind Layer — Plato defines justice as balance of the whole through multiplication rather than the maximum of any single party.
The Symposium (trans. Wang Taiqing, The Commercial Press) is short and highly readable, yet it hides Plato's most ingenious method: love is not a single-layer emotion but a "ladder of love" climbing from the Bodily Layer (desire) to the Awareness Layer (beauty) to the Mind Layer (the love of the Forms of the good and the beautiful). Every step love takes across layers is a multiplicative amplification in value conservation — the same energy has a far larger multiplier at the higher layers than at the lower ones.
6Aristotle: Ontology and Ethics — The Foundation of the Material Layer and the Multiplication–Division Balance of the Behavioral Layer
Metaphysics = Foundation Work on the Material Layer
Metaphysics (trans. Wu Shoupeng, The Commercial Press) is widely considered one of the most obscure originals in Western philosophy (difficulty: ★★★★★), yet the question it answers could hardly be plainer: "being qua being". Aristotle laid for Western philosophy the foundation of ontology — the inquiry into the "first cause" and "primary substance" behind every thing. In the coordinates of value conservation this is the engineering of the Material Layer (the foundation): if the foundation is solid, the superstructure (knowledge, ethics, politics) can be safely multiplied; if it is hollow — as when "Forms" are severed from "reality" — then however beautiful the upper floors, they hang in mid-air.
Nicomachean Ethics = Eudaimonia Through Virtue, a Balance of Multiplication and Division
Multiplication case: The Nicomachean Ethics (annotated and trans. Liao Shenbai, The Commercial Press) argues that "virtue is a mean": courage lies midway between cowardice and recklessness, generosity between stinginess and prodigality. This is not spineless fence-sitting but a dynamic balance of multiplication and division — calibrating the two divisors "excess" and "deficiency" in every situation so that the value of action stays reliably in the optimal range.
Aristotle defines happiness as "activity of the soul in accordance with virtue" and insists it run through a whole lifetime ("one swallow does not make a spring"). Happiness is not a one-off pleasure (f(m)); it is the compounding accumulation of virtuous activity (f(h)) × depth in time (f(t)) — which is almost the classical original of the micro conservation formula y=f(m)×f(h)×f(t).
7The Modern Turn: I Think, Therefore I Am — Descartes' Reconstruction of Certainty and Locke's Empirical Calibration
Descartes' Meditations = The Reconstruction of Certainty as a Multiplicative Foundation
Multiplication case: Modern philosophy opens with a breathtaking reconstruction. The Meditations on First Philosophy (trans. Pang Jingren, The Commercial Press) begins from "methodical doubt": first discard everything doubtable (a thorough division), then find a point that cannot be doubted — "I think, therefore I am" — and on that ground re-derive God, the self and the world. Descartes' greatness lies not in the doubt itself but in using doubt to purchase a sturdier multiplicative foundation: once certainty is secured, the edifice of knowledge can be rebuilt exponentially.
Locke's Essay = Empiricism as Information-Layer Calibration
Multiplication case: The Essay Concerning Human Understanding (trans. Guan Wenyun, The Commercial Press) advances the famous "blank slate": the mind holds no innate ideas; all knowledge comes from experience (sensation plus reflection). This is input calibration at the Information Layer — it puts the question "where does information come from" squarely on the table and argues that the value of knowledge depends on the quality and range of empirical input. With this, empiricism and rationalism raise the curtain on modern epistemology.
8Kant: The Three Critiques as Value-Legislation for Cognition, Morality and Aesthetics
Kant's (1724–1804) three Critiques (People's Publishing House, trans. Deng Xiaomang, rev. Yang Zutao) may be the most systematic "project of value-legislation" in the history of philosophy — they answer three questions in turn: What can I know (Critique of Pure Reason)? What ought I to do (Critique of Practical Reason)? What may I hope (Critique of Judgment)? In the 7-layer coordinate system the three correspond neatly to legislation at the Information, Behavioral and Awareness Layers.
"reason legislates for nature": Multiplication case: Kant holds that knowledge does not passively mirror the world; reason actively organizes experience through a priori forms (space, time, the categories). This "Copernican revolution" swaps epistemology's multiplier from the "external world" to reason's own structure within us — once this multiplication of cognitive power is secured, universality and necessity in knowledge become possible.
Moral autonomy = the categorical imperative: Multiplication case: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Kant turns morality from "obedience to an external authority" (division: handing one's value over to others) into autonomy (multiplication: giving the law to oneself). Freedom is not doing whatever one pleases; it is obeying the law one has legislated for oneself.
Aesthetic common sense: Multiplication case: Kant explains aesthetic judgment through "purposiveness without purpose" — beauty depends on neither concepts nor utility, yet it demands "universal assent." This is a multiplicative calibration of the Awareness Layer: when cognition (the true) and morality (the good) tear apart, aesthetics (the beautiful) acts as the "keystone" that reconnects them into a complete critical system.
9Rousseau: The Social Contract as a Multiplication of Freedom Along the S-Dimension
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." This opening of The Social Contract (trans. He Zhaowu, The Commercial Press) is one of the most quoted aphorisms in the history of political philosophy. Rousseau's answer is not a return to the state of nature but, through the social contract, to carry out a multiplication of freedom along the S-dimension.
Multiplication case: Rousseau argues that when individuals surrender some rights to the "general will" by contract, they do not lose freedom; rather, they amplify freedom through social cooperation — the freedom of going it alone (E) is hemmed in everywhere by nature, whereas inside a community welded together by contract (the S-dimension) each member remains "as free as before" and gains far stronger protection. The value of freedom multiplies through the social dimension.
Division warning: Rousseau also warns that when society lurches into extreme inequality of wealth and force replaces contract, the "general will" degenerates into the "will of all," the S-dimension of social value shrinks, and total freedom contracts — this is degeneration through division. He urges law to curb the extreme concentration of wealth so that the multiplier structure stays intact.
10Schopenhauer: Will and Suffering as a Division Warning
The World as Will and Representation (trans. Shi Chongbai, rev. Yang Yizhi, The Commercial Press) was a nineteenth-century philosophy book that broke out of the ivory tower. Schopenhauer reduces the essence of the world to a blind will to live — not rational, but an endless surge of desire; and the nature of desire is lack, lack is suffering, and satisfaction breeds new desire at once. Life therefore swings like a pendulum: oscillating between pain and boredom.
Division case: Rewriting Schopenhauer in the micro formula: monetary/desire satisfaction f(m) keeps rising, while happiness experience f(h) and time value f(t) keep shrinking — as the denominator shrinks, suffering must swell. Schopenhauer's pessimism is no mere mood; it is a sober division warning: when a person bets all of his value on satisfying the will, total value y instead tends toward zero or even below it.
Schopenhauer offers two paths that reduce division risk: aesthetic contemplation (briefly escaping the will's servitude in art) and compassion / ascetic renunciation (denying the will to live). The lesson: when the division warning sounds, the right move is not to keep enlarging the numerator of desire but to nourish the denominator (f(h) happiness experience and f(t) time value) — to restore the multiplication.
11Nietzsche: The Revaluation of All Values as a Division Revolution
Nietzsche (1844–1900) is among the philosophers best known to the general public. Thus Spoke Zarathustra proclaims "God is dead" in prose-poetry, while The Birth of Tragedy re-examines Greek art through the duality of the Apollonian and the Dionysian. In the coordinates of value conservation, Nietzsche launched a division revolution.
"God is dead" is not a cheer; it is the collapse of an old system of values: once the transcendent absolute (God) loses its hold, the whole edifice of morality, meaning and order it supported is divided down to zero.Division warning: Nietzsche saw it clearly in advance: once the divisor (the old order) is divided to nothing, modern man plunges into the abyss of "nihilism" — that is the price of the division revolution.
After division comes not an end but the rebuilding of multiplication: Nietzsche calls for all values to be re-assessed by the "will to power" (life's own power of creation), with the "Overman" as the ideal — moving the anchor of value from the "beyond" back down to "earth." Zarathustra descending the mountain to "give away wisdom" is precisely multiplication-rebuilding in action.
Nietzsche holds that the greatness of Greek tragedy comes from the fusion of two forces: the Apollonian (form, dream, order) and the Dionysian (music, intoxication, frenzy). This is not an either/or but a multiplication of the two: order without passion is dead, and passion without form is chaos; tragic art multiplies the two together, and only so does it produce an aesthetic value that shakes the soul.
12Existentialism: Multiplication-Rebuilding in the Void
Existentialism was one of the most influential philosophical movements of the twentieth century. It confronts the situation "after value has been divided to nothing": no God, no pre-assigned essence, no ready-made meaning — human beings must create meaning for themselves out of the void. The three thinkers treated here offer three paths of "multiplication-rebuilding."
Being and Time (trans. Chen Jiaying and Wang Qingjie, SDX Joint Publishing) is famously hard to read, yet its heart is "being-toward-death": man is a being who exists toward death, and only by facing death — the most extreme boundary of time — can he wake from the fallenness of the "they-self" and live his authentic self.Being-toward-death turns time value T from something vague into something vivid — knowing you will die is what multiplies urgency into every present moment.
Being and Nothingness (trans. Chen Xuanliang et al., rev. Du Xiaozhen, SDX Joint Publishing) holds that "existence precedes essence": man first exists, then shapes his essence through free choice. There is no a priori "ought"; value is created by the person himself — this hands the multiplier of meaning-making entirely back to the individual. Sartre also admits that freedom is a "burden": to choose is to be responsible, and there is no escape.
The Myth of Sisyphus (trans. Du Xiaozhen, The Commercial Press) is slim and readable (difficulty: ★★★): the gods condemn Sisyphus to roll a boulder uphill forever, and the boulder always rolls back down. Camus says: the absurd is not despair but lucidity — "one must imagine Sisyphus happy," because in his futility he still chooses to love and still rolls the stone, creating meaning through the very act. This is the model of multiplication-rebuilding in the void.
13Stromberg and Conflict of Ideals: A Methodological Map of Modern Western Thought
The twentieth title on the list, Conflict of Ideals, was verified online: its author is a professor of philosophy at Franklin & Marshall College in the United States, L. J. Binkley (Luther J. Binkley), translated by Ma Yuande, Chen Baicheng, Wang Taiqing, Wu Yongquan and others, The Commercial Press, 1983 (original 1969). The "L. Stromberg" on the list appears to be a slip of memory: Stromberg (Roland N. Stromberg) is the author of a different work, An Intellectual History of Modern Europe. Following the verified facts, this article discusses Binkley's Conflict of Ideals.
Conflict of Ideals: Changing Value Perspectives in Western Society is a methodological map of modern Western currents of thought: it sets Marxism, the humanism of psychoanalysis, existentialism and its humanism, and neo-Christian theology side by side within the coordinate system of "changing value perspectives," exploring the clash of rival ideals of life in the capitalist world. Seen through value conservation, the essence of the book is: to let plural values find their own defensible boundaries amid the clash along the S-dimension (society) and the T-dimension (time) — it offers no single answer; instead it teaches readers to navigate value conflicts methodologically.
14Applying Philosophical Method: From Reading Philosophy to Decision-Making — A 7-Layer Operating System of Thought
The value of philosophical method lies not in memorizing conclusions but in training a portable operating system of thought. Just as history is read in four ascending stages, so is philosophy: the Information Layer (read what) → the Material Layer (read the essence) → the Behavioral Layer (read action) → the Mind Layer (read yourself). Go deeper still, and philosophical method can act directly on personal decisions, investing and life itself.
The four ascending stages of reading philosophy
First gather accurate information — who wrote this text, what is its core thesis, and how does its chain of evidence run? This corresponds to Locke's empirical calibration and Descartes' doubt: verify the source first, then believe the claim.
Next ask "why" — what assumptions about the world and the human being stand behind this claim? This corresponds to Aristotle's ontological questioning and Kant's sense of the boundary of the thing-in-itself: distinguish appearance from foundation.
Then move to "what should I do" — how does this body of thought guide my choices? This corresponds to Aristotle's ethics of virtue and Kant's practical reason: translate ideas into executable rules.
Finally turn to "who am I" — what values do I identify with, and for what am I willing to take responsibility? This corresponds to existentialist self-determination and Nietzschean self-legislation: complete the multiplication of the self through the very act of reading philosophy.
Seven-layer applications of philosophical method to decisions, investing and life
| 7-Layer Depth | Philosophical Tool | Application to Decisions / Investing / Life |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Information Layer | Locke's "empirical calibration," Kant's "synthetic a priori" | Cross-verify sources and organize information logically, filtering noise down to signal |
| 2 Material Layer | Aristotle's "being qua being" | Return to fundamentals and the ground of value; do not be fooled by appearances and narratives |
| 3 Behavioral Layer | Kant's "categorical imperative," Aristotle's "mean" | Behavioral rules for investment decisions: universalizable, executable over the long run, avoiding excess and deficiency |
| 4 Bodily Layer | Schopenhauer's "will," Nietzsche's "will to power" | Recognize the drive of desire and impulse; guard against FOMO-driven chasing and panic selling (a division warning) |
| 5 Awareness Layer | Descartes' "methodical doubt," aesthetic judgment | Verify at the Information Layer before deciding: doubt first, then gather evidence, then commit — calibrating the noise of intuition |
| 6 Subconscious Layer | Existentialist "self-determination," being-toward-death | Awareness of bearing risk yourself: acknowledge uncertainty, own the consequences of decisions, refuse the blame-shifting mindset |
| 7 Mind Layer | Kant's "reason legislates for nature," Nietzsche's "revaluation of all values" | Build personal value principles and a long-term vision; do not be led around by short-term market sentiment |
15East and West Compared: The Eastern Echo of Value Conservation
Place the West's "multiplication–division playbook" beside Eastern wisdom and you will be struck by how the two converge on the same end by different roads: both are working on the same problem — where value comes from and how meaning is conserved. The West uses concepts and logic; the East uses cultivation and felt imagery; yet the underlying structure of multiplication and division is astonishingly alike.
Division case: "In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired. In the pursuit of the Way, every day something is dropped. Less and less is done until non-action is achieved." Daoism follows the route of subtraction (division): cut desire, cut artificial contrivance, and let what is genuinely natural show itself. This echoes Schopenhauer's "denial of the will to live" — in both cases, after the division warning sounds, the chosen move is to subtract from desire.
Multiplication case: Buddhism teaches "dependent origination and emptiness" and "all dharmas are consciousness-only," yet its practice rests on "loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity" and "the six perfections in ten thousand deeds" — having seen through "emptiness," it still accumulates merit multiplicatively through altruistic action. This is the same tune as existentialism's "creating meaning in the void": recognize the void, and still choose the multiplication that moves toward the good.
Multiplication case: With the five constants of "benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness," Confucianism builds a multiplicative system of social value: cultivating the self (E) × regulating the family (S) × governing the state and bringing peace to all under heaven (T); "to establish oneself, establish others; to enlarge oneself, enlarge others" — extending oneself to others is precisely a multiplicative expansion of the S-dimension, kin in spirit to Plato's just city and Rousseau's social contract.
16Conclusion: The Methodology of Western Philosophy Is a Multiplication–Division Playbook of Value Conservation
Looking back over the whole journey, the value of Western philosophy's methodology can be condensed into three propositions:
- It is the evolution of a 7-layer deep-thinking operating system. From the Greeks' question at the Material Layer, to the modern turn of the Information Layer, to the contemporary struggle in the Subconscious and Mind Layers, the history of philosophy has spent 2,500 years descending into the depths of the person — to read philosophy is to install a seven-layer deep-thinking operating system in the mind.
- It is a history of multiplication–division deduction under value conservation. Plato, Kant and Rousseau multiply; Schopenhauer and Nietzsche divide; existentialism divides first and multiplies after — every great philosopher's core thesis can be rendered as an E×S×T operation of multiplication or division, from which his answer to "where value comes from and how meaning is conserved" can be read.
- It is a thinking tool that can be carried into the present. Descartes' doubt verifies before decisions, Kant's maxims gatekeep conduct, existentialist self-determination owns the risk, and Aristotle's mean recalibrates over the long run — philosophical method is no archive of dead pages but an operating system for navigating uncertainty.
17Sources and Verification of the Bibliography
All twenty titles below were verified against multiple online sources (official websites, established publishers, Douban, authoritative media, etc.); titles, authors, translators, publishers and years follow the verification results. Any discrepancy with the original list is noted as is, and nothing has been fabricated. Objective historical statements are marked "paraphrase," and ratings/indices are marked "indicative."
| # | Title | Author (verified) | Translator / Edition (verified) | Verification |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A History of Philosophy (9th ed.) | Samuel Enoch Stumpf, James Fieser | Trans. Deng Xiaomang and Kuang Hong, Beijing United Publishing (Houlang), 2019 | Verified (the list's "Stumpf" spelling was corrected) |
| 2 | The Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy | Robert C. Solomon, Kathleen M. Higgins | Trans. Zhang Butian, Guangxi Normal University Press / Tsinghua University Press (10th ed.), 2018 | Verified |
| 3 | A History of Western Philosophy | Bertrand Russell | Trans. He Zhaowu and Joseph Needham (vol. 1), Ma Yuande (vol. 2), The Commercial Press | Verified |
| 4 | The Republic | Plato | Trans. Guo Binhe and Zhang Zhuming, The Commercial Press | Verified |
| 5 | The Symposium | Plato | Trans. Wang Taiqing, The Commercial Press, 2013 and other editions | Verified |
| 6 | Metaphysics | Aristotle | Trans. Wu Shoupeng, The Commercial Press | Verified |
| 7 | Nicomachean Ethics | Aristotle | Trans. and annotated by Liao Shenbai, The Commercial Press | Verified |
| 8 | Meditations on First Philosophy | Descartes | Trans. Pang Jingren, The Commercial Press | Verified |
| 9 | An Essay Concerning Human Understanding | John Locke | Trans. Guan Wenyun, The Commercial Press, 1959 | Verified |
| 10 | Critique of Pure Reason | Immanuel Kant | Trans. Deng Xiaomang, rev. Yang Zutao, People's Publishing House | Verified |
| 11 | Critique of Practical Reason | Immanuel Kant | Trans. Deng Xiaomang, rev. Yang Zutao, People's Publishing House | Verified |
| 12 | Critique of Judgment | Immanuel Kant | Trans. Deng Xiaomang, rev. Yang Zutao, People's Publishing House | Verified |
| 13 | The Social Contract | Jean-Jacques Rousseau | Trans. He Zhaowu, The Commercial Press (revised 3rd ed., 2003) | Verified |
| 14 | The World as Will and Representation | Arthur Schopenhauer | Trans. Shi Chongbai, rev. Yang Yizhi, The Commercial Press | Verified |
| 15 | Thus Spoke Zarathustra | Friedrich Nietzsche | Trans. Qian Chunqi, SDX Joint Publishing (annotated edition) and others | Verified |
| 16 | The Birth of Tragedy | Friedrich Nietzsche | Trans. Zhou Guoping (Yilin / SDX, etc.) or Sun Zhouxing (The Commercial Press) | Verified |
| 17 | Being and Time | Martin Heidegger | Trans. Chen Jiaying and Wang Qingjie, SDX Joint Publishing | Verified |
| 18 | Being and Nothingness | Jean-Paul Sartre | Trans. Chen Xuanliang et al., rev. Du Xiaozhen, SDX Joint Publishing | Verified |
| 19 | The Myth of Sisyphus | Albert Camus | Trans. Du Xiaozhen, The Commercial Press / People's Literature Publishing House, etc. | Verified |
| 20 | Conflict of Ideals: Changing Value Perspectives in Western Society | L. J. Binkley (professor of philosophy at Franklin & Marshall College) | Trans. Ma Yuande, Chen Baicheng, Wang Taiqing, Wu Yongquan and others, The Commercial Press, 1983 (original 1969) | Verified (the list's "L. Stromberg" was an error and has been corrected) |
Clickable source links
- Bibliographic record for A History of Philosophy (9th ed.): Douban Reading (Beijing United Publishing / Houlang, 2019)
- Bibliographic record for The Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy: Douban Reading (Guangxi Normal University Press, trans. Zhang Butian)
- Edition information for Russell's A History of Western Philosophy: The Commercial Press · Great Translations series (trans. He Zhaowu and Joseph Needham, vol. 1; Ma Yuande, vol. 2)
- Official record for The Republic (trans. Guo Binhe and Zhang Zhuming): The Commercial Press
- Bibliographic record for the Symposium (trans. Wang Taiqing): Douban Reading
- Bibliographic record for Metaphysics (trans. Wu Shoupeng): Douban Reading | translator profile: The Commercial Press · Wu Shoupeng
- Official record for the Nicomachean Ethics (annotated and trans. Liao Shenbai): The Commercial Press | translator interview: China Reading Weekly · Liao Shenbai
- Official record for the Meditations (trans. Pang Jingren): The Commercial Press
- Edition study for An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (trans. Guan Wenyun): Baike · An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
- Bibliographic record for the Critique of Pure Reason (trans. Deng Xiaomang, rev. Yang Zutao): Douban Reading | record for the Critique of Judgment: Douban Reading
- Official record for The Social Contract (trans. He Zhaowu): The Commercial Press
- Official record for The World as Will and Representation (trans. Shi Chongbai): The Commercial Press · Schopenhauer | history of translations: The Paper · Editor's note
- E-book of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (trans. Qian Chunqi): WeRead
- Bibliographic record for The Birth of Tragedy (trans. Zhou Guoping): Douban Reading | interpretation: Guangming Online · Arts commentary
- Bibliographic record for Being and Time (trans. Chen Jiaying and Wang Qingjie): Douban Reading
- Bibliographic record for Being and Nothingness (trans. Chen Xuanliang et al.): SDX Joint Publishing · Modern Western Scholarship Library (Being and Nothingness and Being and Time both belong to this library; see the Baike entry: Baike · Being and Nothingness)
- Official record for The Myth of Sisyphus (trans. Du Xiaozhen): The Commercial Press
- Edition information for Conflict of Ideals (by Binkley): Douban Reading · Conflict of Ideals (The Commercial Press, 1983) | translator: Douban Reading · translator Ma Yuande
- Basis of the writing conventions: the in-house document "The Law of Value Conservation and the Path to Multiplying Righteousness and Profit in the Unified National Market" (an internal document of the Econ-Sentiment Twin Think Tank)