Abstract

The fact that Heidegger was finally absent from the ninth International Congress of Philosophy in 1937, despite having been invited, not only provides material for a biographical and sociological investigation into the practice of philosophy in the 1920s and 1930s, it is also of philosophical interest as far as the reception of Heidegger’s texts in France and the evolution of Heidegger’s thought are concerned. Two trajectories intersect and are examined here: that of Henry Corbin, who acted as Heidegger’s representative at the Congress, and that of Heidegger, whose philosophical position, particularly on history, was undergoing substantial transformation at this time.