International argument: regarding the history of the development of international philosophical communication in the nineteenth century

Abstract

This article examines the internationalization of scientific and scholarly communication in the period before World War I, taking philosophy as an example. In the first part of the article, several general trends in internationalization during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are examined. This includes the importance of international experience for Russia’s policies today towards science and education. The main part of this article is devoted to the concept of the “international argument” and provides an analysis of three types of appeal to the international community: the pragmatic, the reputational, and the communicative. The increasing importance of international communication during this period is shown on the basis of examples drawn from German philosophical discussions that took place between the first third and the end of the nineteenth century (the case of Friedrich Eduard Beneke and Hermann Ebbinghaus). The last part of the article examines the impact on German science and philosophy of the cessation of international communication during World War I.