『現代哲学辞典』に関する文献的比較考察

三木清を中心とする哲学辞典編集史の一端

抄録

The book The Contemporary Dictionary of Philosophy(1936), which was mainly edited by Kiyoshi Miki, seems to have fallen into obscurity. One rarely hears it mentioned these days. As made clear in a paper by Prof. Miyajima(2011), the book was revised and edited by Kiyoshi Miki, and republished in 1941 as The New Edition of the Contemporary Dictionary of Philosophy. At that time, Japan was under a state of emergency because of war time hostilities. Five years later, the revised edition of the text was also out of print. Miyajima tells of the necessity of the transition from the old edition to the new one, and of the circumstances under which the revisions were made, as well as the crucial efforts made by Miki as the sole editor. Following the end of the Pacific War, rather than republish the newer edition, the older 1936 edition was going to be republished. But when articles written for the new edition were reviewed, it was found that some descriptions in the new edition were superior in comparison with their older versions. However, other articles in the new edition seemed to have suffered wartime censorship, which slanted their meaning. Therefore, some articles in the new edition can give the modern reader of the text a taste of the cultural circumstances at that time. In comparing the headings of both editions, one can see these distinctions. In this paper, a comparative study between both texts is made. For that purpose, several headings are selected to compare both texts with each other. In his introduction to the 1941 edition, Miki claims that the new text is the definitive edition. He suggests to us that the contents of each heading in this dictionary is not only to be looked up, but is to be read in detail. Through this research, we may have a clearer view to understand the period and circumstances of Japan during war time.