‘La Philosophie Analytique’ at Royaumont:Gilbert Ryle’s Ambivalent Phenomenology

Abstract

In 1958, a colloquium was held at Royaumont Abbey titled ‘La Philosophie Analytique’.¹ In its attempt to bring French philosophers face-to-face with a certain Anglo-American trend in philosophy, the colloquium was analogous to the attempt, thirty years earlier, to bring together the French and German philosophical establishments at Davos. But where Davos had succeeded in bringing the disciples of phenomenology to the forefront of both French and German academic philosophy, Royaumont has been viewed as an example of miscommunication and misunderstanding. Its mission had been to bring together the two national philosophical cultures in ‘une tentative de dialogue’ (Beck et al., 1962, p. 7). Instead, the colloque de Royaumont presented an array of resources to those who wished to keep the philosophers of the two nations in cultural apartheid.² As Charles Taylor notes in his review of its published proceedings, Royaumont can be seen as a ‘dialogue de sourds’ (dialogue of the deaf) (1964, p. 132).³