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In Search of a Journal: Caillois and Diogenes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Alexandre Pajon

Extract

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To commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Diogenes is, above all, to honor Roger Caillois. From 1952 until his death in 1978, this periodical was the heart of his working life. In July 1948 Caillois had become an international public servant, working for a brand new institution, UNESCO, as a member of its “ideas office” responsible for program planning. UNESCO and the nongovernmental organizations clustered around it adopted a grand and magnificent objective: to promote peace through education and culture. One avenue to pursue this goal was the publication of books and periodicals. Diogenes was therefore the fruit of the interaction between the plans of UNESCO and the International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies and the life experience of Roger Caillois.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 40 , Issue 160 , September 1992 , pp. 113 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

Notes

1. L'Histoire du développement culturel et scientifique de l'Humanité finally appeared in the 1960s. Robert Laffont published the French version from 1967 to 1969.

2. Formula of Dr. Torres-Bodet, director general of UNESCO in 1949, cited in ICPHS's presentation booklet, 1989, p. 10.

3. The evolution of Roger Caillois can be seen clearly in his correspondence: G. Bataille, Lettres à Roger Caillois, presented and annotated by J.-P. Le Bouler (Romillé, Éd. Folle Avoine, 1987); Correspondance Jean Paulhan—Roger Caillois, presented and annotated by Odile Felgine and Claude-Pierre Pérez; Cahiers Jean Paulhan, v. VI (Paris, Gallimard, 1991). Information can also be found in the references provided by the bio-bibliography of Cahier pour un temps: R. Caillois (Paris, Centre G. Pompidou, 1978), p. 250-59, as well as in the “Notice biographique,” written by O. Felgine in La Pensée aventurée, L. Jenny (ed.) (Paris, Belin, 1991), p. 271-77.

4. Contre-Attaque, A. Breton and G. Bataille (eds.), was published in the spring of 1936; Inquisitions was reissued by H. Béhar, Inquisitions. Du surréalisme au Front Popu laire (Paris, CNRS, 1990); T. Tzara, “Introduction” in Inquisitions, June 1936, no. 1, p. 65.

5. A. Pajon, “L'intrépidité politique de R. Caillois avant-guerre,” in Les Cahiers Chronos, “Roger Caillois” (Paris, La Différence, 1991), pp. 165ff.

6. Dominique Rabourdin, “Roger Caillois et les Lettres françaises: points de repère, suivis d'exemples,” in Sud, special edition. “Roger Caillois ou la traversée des savoirs” (1981), pp. 165ff.; Odile Felgine, “Lettres françaises: le virage américain,” in Les Cahiers Chronos, op. cit., p. 314-27; Laura Ayerza de Castilho and Odile Felgine, Victoria Ocampo (Paris, 1991), p. 346.; Denis Rolland, “Politique, culture et progagan da françaises en Argentine. L'univers de R. Caillois entre 1939 et 1944” in Les Cahiers Chronos, op. cit., p. 404-22.

7. Diogène: A Historic, Philosophic And Literary Paper. August 1828, no.1. Arsenal: 4° Jo. 10.031.B

8. Diogène: Satiric Portraits and Biographies of Nineteenth Century Men, 1856-1864. Arsenal: Fol. Jo. 375.J. Takes the subtitle International Political and Literary Periodical after 1864; Diogène, Politics, Society, Finance, Industry, from 1882 to 1910. Arsenal: Fol. Jo. 281.C.

9. Paul Hazard, La Crise de la conscience européenne (Paris, Boivin et Cie., 1935), vol. 1, pp. 100-13.

10. The editors of Diogenes provided us with the figures they had. More copies were printed of the first editions in French before various translations were adopted.

11. R. Caillois, “Illusions à rebours,” NRF (I) December 1954, no. 24, pp. 1010-24 and (II), January 1955, no. 25, pp. 58-70.

12. In 1949 UNESCO launched the Bulletin international des sciences sociales and the Index Translationum. Beginning in 1952, researchers in the social sciences had their own Bibliographie internationale. Bibliographies for political science and economics appeared in 1954. One could add as well Sociological Abstracts, CIVRS's Bulletin sig nalétique. Sociologie. Ethnologie, created in 1947. In France as well, L'Année sociologique published numerous reviews.

13. M. Foucault, Les Mots et les Choses (Paris, Gallimard, 1966).

14. For all these questions see the work of D. Hollier on Le Collège de sociologie (Paris, Gallimard, 1979).

15. R. Caillois, “Description du marxisme” (1950) and “Infaillible psychanalyse” (1957) were reprinted in Approches de l'imaginaire (Paris, Gallimard, 1974).

16. R. Caillois, “Reconnaissance à Mendeleïev” (1969), reprinted in Cases d'un échiquier (Paris, Gallimard, 1970), pp. 74-81.

17. For texts by Caillois published in Diogenes, see Appendix A at the end of this article.

18. R. Caillois, Le Rocher de Sisyphe, “Athènes devant Philippe” (Paris, Gallimard, 1946), pp. 27-54.

19. C. Rosset, Le Même et l'Autre. Quarante-cinq ans de philosophie française, 1933-1978 (Paris, Éd. de Minuit, 1979).

20. R. Caillois, “Nouveau plaidoyer pour les sciences diagonales” in Cases d'un échiquier, op. cit. pp. 53-59. This text repeats in part “After Six Years of a Doubtful Combat,” Diogenes, no. 26, April-June 1959, disseminated as well by NRF under the title “Les sciences diagonales” in April 1959, no. 76, pp. 679-83, and in a text pub lished in Italy in 1965. Caillois's desire to give this manifesto the broadest possible distribution reveals once again a certain militancy on his part and his attachment to periodicals for spreading his ideas.

21. R. Caillois, Esthétique généralisée (Paris, Gallimard, 1962).

22. R. Caillois, an article that appeared in Terre des Hommes, 8 December 1954.

23. Sociology, ethnography, ethnology, and anthropology defined themselves only gradually in comparison with one another and other disciplines. Furthermore, the discussions of their ambit and that of the social sciences and humanities are still con tinuing. G. Gusdorf published in Diogenes, “For a History of the Sciences of Man,” no. 17, January 1957; “The Ambiguity of the Sciences of Man,” no. 26, April-June 1959; and “Project for Interdisciplinary Research,” no. 42, April-June 1963.

24. P. Veyne, “Contestation of Sociology” in Diogenes, no. 75, July-September 1971.

25. The references in the article by R. Caillois are given in note 11. Claude Lévi-Strauss, “Diogène couché” in Temps Modernes, no. 110, May 1955, pp. 1187-1220. The choice of J.-P. Sartre's journal to mount this counterattack had a sting of its own. Roger Caillois, “À propos de ‘Diogène couché”'; Claude Lévi-Strauss, “Réponse à Roger Caillois” in Les Temps Modernes, no. 111, April 1955, pp. 1553-56.

26. H. Margenau, “Causality in Quantum Electrodynamics” in Diogenes no. 6; J. Nicolle, “On Symmetry,” no. 12; E. H. Hutton, “Symmetry Physics and Information Theory,” no. 72; B. Kouznetsov, “Einstein and Epicurus,” no. 81; M.J. Carella, “Heisenberg's Concept of Matter as Potency,” no. 96, October-December 1976; N. Dallaporta, “The Crisis of Contemporary Physics,” no. 95; P.G. de Gennes, “Chance and Necessity in Cooperative Phenomena,” no. 100.