五十年來的《思與言》不僅是社會學新議題介紹與譯註的園地，同時也是社會學「學術新鮮人」加入學術社群的「入門期刊」。這些新鮮人在往後的社會學發展，姑且不論是否優秀，但是到目前為止大多數仍然是活躍的，充滿熱情，許多人也投入了通識教育，並以教育做為志業。除此之外，《思與言》這五十年來的發展，當然也包含著社會學本身的內部批判與反省，例如「韋伯熱」專刊。然而，隨著越來越嚴重的學術競爭工具理性化，充滿了批判性的社會學也不能豁免，這樣的趨勢嚴重影響《思與言》和當前臺灣社會
學發展的關係。被莫名地冠上社會學「入門期刊」的名號，特別是歸類為「非」TSSCI 的期刊之後，與真正的社會學家的投稿量之間，產生令人難以置信的關聯，鮮有真正的社會學家在此發表論文。五十年
的學術資本終究敵不過工具理性化的學術競爭。所幸，至今尚有一群當年受惠於《思與言》的社會學新鮮人，如今已成為社會學家或教育工作者，依然持續支持《思與言》的編輯與經營。在工具理性化與學術熱情之間，不知不覺讓社會學應有的使命，自然顯露出來。這就是五十年來《思與言》與臺灣社會學發展的
生命歷程。

Till now, after 50 years, Thought and Words: Journal of the Humanities
and Social Sciences never stops to introduce new subjects and issues of
sociology, and to encourage “fresh men” who would like to be a sociologist,
publishing their papers by the facilitating of editors of this journal.
Therefore, Thought and Word is a famous intellectual journal in Taiwanese
sociological community. Right now, Most of the “fresh man” not only really
become sociologist, but also very active in general education, to share their knowledge of sociology with students, who their major are not in sociology. However, at the same time, ridiculously, Taiwanese sociological
community becomes more and more instrumentalist. Even criticizing the
instrumentalism has become the sociologist’s second nature. Today, most of
Taiwanese sociologists prefer publishing their papers in the TSSCI or SSCI,
than doing in Thought and Words, because the latter is not TSSCI. After 50 years,Thought and Words is still living in Taiwanese sociologist community, and keeps to encourage the “fresh man” to publish their papers. If one day Taiwanese sociologists really lost their passion and never abandon instrumentalism, maybe the dying time of Thought and Words, will be coming. Fortunately, a lot of “fresh men”, who become sociologists or other intellectual field’s professor, come back here to be the editors or general
editor, and to manage this intellectual journal, which has incubated many
excellent professors or intellectual researchers.