World Congresses and the Philosophical Terminology Issue: A. Lalande’s "Vocabulaire Technique et Critique de la Philosophie"

Abstract

The article discusses the issue related to the formation of a universal philosophi­cal terminology in the context of the World Congresses on Philosophy. The author refers to the epistolary heritage of the philosophers of the Third Republic, and, in particular, to the correspondence of A. Lalande with his friends and colleagues in the philosophical and psychological workshop – X. Léon and É. Claparède. The article emphasizes the special role of the intellectual environment and inter­national communication in the creation of the Vocabulaire Technique et Critique de la Philosophie. The idea is that the existential characteristics of the work on the Vocabulaire (memories, discussions, disputes) equally influenced the choice of the format and the methodology of this publication. Conducting thematic sem­inars and discussions on an ongoing basis, correspondence and editing directly in the course of work, as well as the cultural background, and especially the op­portunity to bring thematic fragments for discussion by the international commu­nity, make the Vocabulaire Technique et Critique de la Philosophie a unique work. Based on materials from the archives of É. Claparède in Geneva and the A. Lalande Foundation in Sorbonne, the author of the article demonstrates that at the beginning of the XXth century World Congress was an extraordinary socio-cultural phenomenon that shown at a new level the existing problems of international communication in the philosophical and scientific community. The question of philosophical terminology, raised by A. Lalande, received new contexts and new levels of discussion.