The work combined a long-term reconstruction of the institutional conditions that made philosophy a recognisable academic discipline (with an attention to the nineteenth-century background) and an analysis of the congresses as concrete events and archives (delegates, programmes, debates, and organisational practices). To support this, I assembled structured research materials from the congress proceedings (a consolidated dataset on participants and a usable textual corpus) and complemented them with the help of text-mining, targeted archival work, including missions in Paris focused on correspondence connected to the early organisation of the congresses.
The main output is a two-volume book manuscript, Global Philosophy? The Emergence of a Strange Discipline, currently under review. The manuscript integrates a reconstruction of the conditions that made the congresses possible (volume I) with a detailed analysis of the congresses themselves as an international arena (volume II).
In addition, three single-authored articles were submitted to peer-reviewed open-access journals. The first, submitted to Revue germanique internationale, analyses international power relations in the interwar period and the role of Allied cultural diplomacy through the congresses (“La diplomatie culturelle dans les premiers congrès internationaux de philosophie de l’entre-deux-guerres”). The second, submitted to Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines, develops a transnational sociological perspective on the congresses (“Sociologie transnationale de la philosophie : le cas des congrès internationaux de philosophie”). The third, submitted to Lo Sguardo, examines the role of philosophical terminology and lexicography in the emergence of the congresses (“Il problema della lessicografia filosofica e l’origine dei congressi internazionali di filosofia”). These articles extract and sharpen key lines of argument from the broader manuscript, making the project’s results accessible in article format and addressing distinct audiences.
The project also generated an editorial outcome connected to one of its findings: the growing importance of historiography and methodological self-reflection within the congresses and within the consolidation of philosophy as a discipline. Building on this, I initiated an edited reader/handbook on methods in the historiography of philosophy (working title: The Oxford Handbook of Methodology in Historiography of Philosophy in France), prepared with Daniel Whistler, with a proposal planned for submission in Spring 2026.
Dissemination during the action included research presentations in academic settings (including Boston College, Université Laval, Ghent University, NYU, UQAM, the École normale supérieure de Lyon, UNIVE) and an interview for a philosophy-focused blog; a magazine piece is forthcoming. Because the book reached an advanced stage late in the action, broader public outreach was limited during the reporting period and is planned to expand once the main publications are available. In line with the Grant Agreement, the project’s papers, database, and research materials will be made available in open access through Ca’ Foscari’s institutional channels once publication constraints allow.
