Philosophy at the Margins. Conference of the „Archive of the History of Philosophy and Social Thought”

“Archiwum Historii Filozofii i Myśli Społecznej” (“Archive of the History of Philosophy and Social Thought”) was founded in 1957 by Leszek Kołakowski, Jan Garewicz and Bronisław Baczko, the leading representats of what was later called the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas. The Archive emerged during the post-Stalinist thaw and was remarkable for its intellectual and methodological independence. The authors publishing in the “Archive” did not restrict themselves to the method of dialectical materialism, but transgressed it, presenting numerous perspectives and points of view.

In recent decades, the history of philosophy has undergone a profound transformation. The field once centred almost exclusively on the so-called translatio studii from Greece to Rome, medieval Christendom, and modern Europe has expanded to include major traditions of philosophical reflection from China, India, the Islamic world and beyond. These developments have challenged long-standing assumptions about not only the geography of philosophy, but even what constitutes a philosophical text.

Nevertheless, despite the huge number of new publications, some essential parts of the global history of philosophy remain neglected – those which are written in lesser studied languages and on the peripheries of the major linguistic traditions. The globalization of science, we may concede, results in fostering research on those branches of the tradition which are familiar to the representatives of the contemporary global centre, and historical centres, while the local and the marginal are under threat. Scholars from peripheries are formally required to meet the standards of scientific excellence defined by the anglophone centre, and it remains unclear whether and how they are to foster their aboriginal traditions.

In the face of these challenges, we have decided to launch a conference devoted to those philosophical traditions which remain underresearched and underrepresented in the history of philosophy literature, from Eastern Europe to East Asia, Africa and the Americas. The workshop will also bring together scholars working on global and multilingual histories of philosophy.

The conference will take place on 17–18 September in Room 268, Staszic Palace (ul. Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warszawa).

These conference programme and the book of abstracts are available at https://www.ahf.ifispan.pl/en/

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