Ratcliff, Marc J.
The utopian city: The origin and genesis of the International Center for Genetic Epistemology
- 2019.
55
From 1950 to 1955, the Swiss psychologist and philosopher Jean Piaget worked on the creation of a new place of knowledge in Geneva, the International Center for Genetic Epistemology. This Center took over the project of his youth, where he laid the theoretical foundations in his 1950 three volume work Introduction à l’épistémologie génétique. Yet there is a gap between theory and practice. To close this, from 1952 Piaget travelled to many European countries to present his works and project, as well as to connect with many scholars coming from groups of scientific disciplines. During these travels, Piaget explored several models of the Center and groups of scientific actors in philosophy of science, human sciences and epistemology, in Paris, Zurich, Manchester, Milan, Oslo, Amsterdam, Brussels and elsewhere. Four geographical axes would become instrumental (Paris, Manchester, Brussels, Amsterdam) to supply the main contingents of actors who would attend the Center during its first decade. Piaget also took much care to secure financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, first for his European explorations of models of centers, and second for the opening of the Center in October 1955. Hence, this paper examines both the conditions of creation of a new place of knowledge during the early years of the Cold War in its relationships with scientific circulation, and the genesis of a new centrality for epistemology practiced as a scientific discipline.