Philosophical Congress as a Type of Informal Communication, or On the Problem of Reproducibility of Knowledge

Abstract

The author defends the thesis that the essential aspect of communication within the philosophical community (whether global or local) is the opportunity to dis­cuss with colleagues incompletely meaningful and, accordingly, insufficiently clearly formulated ideas. Moreover, the discussion of ideas that cannot yet claim the status of philosophical knowledge, but nevertheless express the vector of in­tellectual searches, is most effectively carried out in individual communication (in various forms: from correspondence and personal meetings to joint work of local communities). This aspect of communication, characteristic of any intellec­tual community, is an essential component of collective cognitive activity. But in science, he is simply “overshadowed” by a rigorous methodological approach to exhaustive reproducibility of results by members of various research groups. So the preliminary stage of individual communication, during which knowledge is actually formed, is at best considered only as a background of scientific knowledge as something methodologically secondary. Meanwhile, the author be­lieves informal communication is a necessary aspect of scientific knowledge, en­suring its dynamics, and as such, today requires a particular methodological un­derstanding. This is the case in science. In the philosophical community, this type of communication is presented more thoroughly, which is very clearly demonstrated in the activities of congresses.