Functionaries of Humanity? Phenomenology, UNESCO, and the Spanish Exile in Mexico

Abstract

The present paper examines the research project of the Husserl Archives in Leuven “‘Functionaries of Humanity’: Phenomenology, the UNESCO, and the Problem of Universalism in Science and Culture”. This project aims at a historiographicphilosophical reconstruction of the relationship between the early work of UNESCO (especially regarding its struggle for the foundation of a universal humanism after the end of World War II) and Husserl’s phenomenology. Additionally, the work at hand places special emphasis on the role played by the Republican exile of 1939 in Mexico in the history of that relationship. The following exposition is based on unpublished archival material and on the general outline of the project; its aim is to make this project known in the Spanish-speaking world; its theoretical conclusion is that there is an essential relationship historically materialized as an institutional link between Husserl’s philosophy and UNESCO’s cultural interests.