International Congress of Arts and Science, Volume 1: Philosophy and Metaphysics
Philosophy
International Congress of Arts and Science, Volume 1: Philosophy and Metaphysics
Conference proceedings; Medicine -- Congresses; Science and the humanities -- Congresses; Technology -- Congresses
We insisted that the effectiveness of the Congress showed itself in two
other directions still: on the one side, there was at last a congress
with a unified programme, a congress which stood for a definite thought,
and which brought all its efforts to bear on the solution of one
problem. There seemed a far-reaching agreement of opinion that this new
principle of congress administration had successfully withstood the test
of practical realization. Mere conglomerations of unconnected meetings
with casual programmes and unrelated papers cannot claim any longer to
represent the only possible form of international gatherings of
scholars. More than that, their superfluous and disheartening character
will be felt in future more strongly than before. No congress will
appear fully justified whose printed proceedings do not show a real plan
in its programme. And the consciousness of this mission of the Congress
will certainly be again reinforced by the publication of these volumes,
inasmuch as it is evident that they represent a substantial contribution
to the knowledge of our time which would not have been made without the
special stimulating occasion of the Congress.
And, finally, whether such a congress is held again or not, the impulse
of this one cannot be lost on account of the special end to which all
its efforts have been directed: the unity of scientific knowledge. We
had emphasized from the first that here was the centre of our purposes
in a time whose scientific specialization necessarily involves a
scattering of scholarly work and which yet in its deepest meaning
strives for a new synthesis, for a new unity, which is to give to all
this scattered labor a real dignity and significance; truly nothing was
more needed than an intense accentuation of the internal harmony of all
human knowledge. But for that it is not enough that the masses feel
instinctively the deep need of such unifying movements, nor is it enough
that the philosophers point with logical arguments towards the new
synthesis. The philosopher can only stand by and point the way; the
specialists themselves must go the way. And here at last they have done
so. Leaders of thought have interrupted their specialistic work and have
left their detailed inquiries to seek the fundamental conceptions and
methods and principles which bind all knowledge together, and thus to
work towards that unity from which all special work derives its meaning.
Whether or not their coöperation has produced anything which is final is
a question almost insignificant compared with the fundamental fact that
they coöperated at all for this ideal synthetic purpose. This fact can
never lose its influence on the scholarly effort of our age, and will
certainly find its strongest reinforcement in this unified publication.
It has fulfilled its noblest purpose if it adds strength to the deepest
movement of our time, the movement towards unity of meaning in the
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