The Great Chain of Being and Italian Phenomenology

The Center maintained its international contacts in 1979 by inviting num- erous foreign scholars to the National Conference at Viterbo, including H. Kochler (Austria), R. Magliola (U.S.A.), J. C. Piguet (Switzerland), M. R. Barral (U.S.A.) and M. Petit (France), and also by extending hospitality at its April Seminar (held at the Teacher Training Faculty of Rome University) to Prof. H. Meyn of The World Phenomenology Institute, who spoke on His- toricism and the Idea of Philosophy as a Rigorous Science. The activities organized by The Italian Center since its foundation have given a considerable new impulse to phenomenological research in Italy. They have made established contacts between numerous Italian scholars who pre- viously worked in isolation without a continued and effective exchange of the results of their researches, and they have also strengthened and extended relations with the international phenomenological community, thereby creat- ing a cultural pattern of cooperation which becomes more and more concrete and fruitful.