The thought is canvassed that any reasonably heterogeneous collection of philosophy books accessible to any public is best shelved in strict alphabetical order by the author/editor names that appear on their spines, as we often find in public libraries with open access for a general reading public. The positive good that such an arrangement seeks is philosophical neutrality; given the highly controversial and fissiparous nature of the activities that are embraced under the rubric 'philosophy.' For the rest, support for our hypothesis is mainly negative, and derives from considerations concerning the difficulties that arise in persevering with any of the obvious alternative classifications. Though some of the ordering principles that motivate more adventurous and helpful arrangements can be applied to many philosophy books, the hard cases are so hard, so many and so prominent, that they would require any conscientious cataloguer to be continuously making make choices. The upshots of such choices cannot be predicted and hence make for arbitrariness. Someone who knows their own way around will find what they are looking for; and someone who doesn't is beyond help.
