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COPYRIGHT 2004 Sage Publications, Inc.
This is a transcription of Jean d'Ormesson's speech at UNESCO at the 50th anniversary celebrations of Diogenes in 2003. He describes the journal's origins, inspirations and editors, and the unique place it occupies in the promotion of international, interdisciplinary scholarship.
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Normally a journal is the work of enthusiastic young people and more often than not it is a short-lived enterprise. And in my lifetime--and in yours too, I suppose--we have seen many journals live and die that survived for only one or two issues. We are now at the 200th issue of Diogenes. Why has it been so successful and lasted so long? Well, first of all, for the key to this success we have to give thanks where thanks are due, to UNESCO. Without UNESCO Diogenes could not have come into being. Diogenes was created by UNESCO and relies on UNESCO's assistance and trust.
In the aftermath of war UNESCO was supported by some great non-governmental organizations, of which the most famous and important was the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), the celebrated ICSU that had already reigned for very many years over the intellectual scientific world. On that model UNESCO wished to create a meeting-place for intellectuals from the literary, artistic and social world that would be responsible for meeting the need for a critical assessment of the humanities worldwide. And that was how the Conseil International de la Philosophie et des Sciences Humaines came about. Its first president was Jacques Rueff, father of the 'new franc', which now seems in the far-off past.
Then all of a sudden, again at UNESCO's behest, the question of a journal arose, a journal for the humanities worldwide, and various solutions were put forward. I recall there was a very prominent journal called Erasmus, and negotiations took place with that journal and with others, but then there came on to the scene an exceptional character, a one-time surrealist turned...
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