Henri Bergson

one of the great inquiries into perception and memory, movement and time, matter and mind. Bergson surveys these independent but related spheres, exploring the connection of mind and body to individual freedom of choice.

Matter and Memory

The classic philosophical study of the selection, recognition, survival and fixing of images within the mind and their relationship with matter in movement.

While intelligence treats everything mechanically, instinct proceeds, so to speak, organically. If...we could ask and it could reply, it would give up to us the most intimate secrets of life. -from Chapter II Anticipating not only modern scientific theories of psychology but also those of cosmology, this astonishing book sets out a impressive goal for itself: to reconcile human biology with a theory of consciousness. First published in France in 1907, and translated into English in 1911, this work of wonder was esteemed at the time in scientific circles and in the popular culture alike for its profound explorations of perception and memory and its surprising conclusions about the nature and value of art. Contending that intuition is deeper than intellect and that the real consequence of evolution is a mental freedom to grow, to change, to seek and create novelty, Bergson reinvigorated the theory of evolution by refusing to see it as merely mechanistic. His expansion on Darwin remains one of the most original and important philosophical arguments for a scientific inquiry still under fire today. French philosopher HENRI BERGSON (1859-1941) was born in Paris. Among his works are Matter and Memory (1896), An Introduction to Metaphysics (1903), and The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927.

Creative Evolution

Time and Free Will

Cloudesley Brereton

Fred Rothwell

."..Originally published in 1911 by the Macmillan Company, New York."--T. p. verso.

An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic

Laughter

Mabelle L. Andison

The final published book by Nobel Prize-winning author and philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941), La pensée et le mouvant (translated here as The Creative Mind), is a masterly autobiography of his philosophical method. Through essays and lectures written between 1903 and 1923, Bergson retraces how and why he became a philosopher, and crafts a fascinating critique of philosophy itself. Until it leaves its false paths, he demonstrates, philosophy will remain only a wordy dialectic that surmounts false problems. With masterful skill and intensity, Bergson shows that metaphysics and science must be rooted in experience for philosophy to become a genuine search for truth. And in the quest for unanswered questions, the spiritual dimension of human life and the importance of intuition must be emphasized. A source of inspiration for physicists as well as philosophers, Bergson's introduction to metaphysics reveals a philosophy that is always on the move, blending man's spiritual drive with his mastery of the material world.

An Introduction to Metaphysics

The Creative Mind

En même temps que j'ai voulu déterminer les procédés de fabrication du risible, j'ai cherché quelle est l'intention de la société quand elle rit. Car il est très étonnant qu'on rie, et la méthode d'explication dont je parlais plus haut n'éclaircit pas ce petit mystère. Je ne vois pas, par exemple, pourquoi la " désharmonie ", en tant que désharmonie, provoquerait de la part des témoins une manifestation spécifique telle que le rire, alors que tant d'autres propriétés, qualités ou défauts, laissent impassibles chez le spectateur les muscles du visage. Il reste donc à chercher quelle est la cause spéciale de désharmonie qui donne l'effet comique, et on ne l'aura réellement trouvée que si l'on peut expliquer par elle pourquoi, en pareil cas, la société se sent tenue de manifester. Il faut bien qu'il y ait dans la cause du comique quelque chose de légèrement attentatoire (et de spécifiquement attentatoire) à la vie sociale, puisque la société y répond par un geste qui a tout l'air d'une réaction défensive, par un geste qui fait légèrement peur. C'est de tout cela que j'ai voulu rendre compte.

essai sur la signification du comique

Le rire

Nancy Margaret Paul

W. Scott Palmer

A monumental work by an important modern philosopher, Matter and Memory (1896) represents one of the great inquiries into perception and memory, movement and time, matter and mind. Nobel Prize-winner Henri Bergson surveys these independent but related spheres, exploring the connection of mind and body to individual freedom of choice. Bergson's efforts to reconcile the facts of biology to a theory of consciousness offered a challenge to the mechanistic view of nature, and his original and innovative views exercised a profound influence on other philosophers--including James, Whitehead, and Santayana--as well as novelists such as Dos Passos and Proust. Matter and Memory is essential to an understanding of Bergson's philosophy and its legacy.

The history of the evolution of life, incomplete as it yet is, already reveals to us how the intellect has been formed, by an uninterrupted progress, along a line which ascends through the vertebrate series up to man. It shows us in the faculty of understanding an appendage of the faculty of acting, a more and more precise, more and more complex and supple adaptation of the consciousness of living beings to the conditions of existence that are made for them. Hence should result this consequence that our intellect, in the narrow sense of the word, is intended to secure the perfect fitting of our body to its environment, to represent the relations of external things among themselves -- in short, to think matter.

التطور الخالق

Reprints the 1949 publication of the 1912 translation of the essay Introduction a la metaphysique, which appeared in a French journal in January 1903. While not an epitome of Bergson's (1859-1941) work in general, it provides a good introduction to it, and sets out his meaning of intuition at greater length than elsewhere. There is no index or bibliography. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

“The book is filled with extraordinary illustration and, as always in Bergson, exact and luminous metaphor.” —Journal of Philosophy “Fresh and living . . . this translation is first-rate.” —New Statesman & Nation “Exquisitely simple . . . the English version startles one by its sheer beauty. Here is a volume crowning a series of philosophical works which have molded the thinking of a whole generation.” —Christian Century “This book is so rich with historical, poetical, and human illustration, so packed with repeated psychological subtleties and dreaming precisions, that to miss it is to miss, as Bergson says of the prophets and Christian mystics, one of the voices of Life itself.” —Catholic World "This book offers pleasurable access to an important way of thinking which dominant analytic and linguistic philosophical traditions in England and America have eclipsed, and which nonetheless still has current expression in many forms throughout contemporary culture." --Reprint Bulletin

The Two Sources of Morality and Religion

Henri Bergson, the French philosopher known for a series of lighthearted but rigorous studies of human behavior, such as Laughter, tackles the subject of dreams in this volume. Bergson traces the significance of dreams throughout human history and ponders their deeper meaning and significance. A must-read for dream-interpretation buffs and students of epistemology.

Dreams

Arthur Mitchell

Bergson's famous study of the philosophical implications of biological evolutionary theory, presenting the idea of a creative life force shaping both the world and itself.

Frank Lubecki Pogson

Bergson argues for free will by showing that the arguments against it come from a confusion of different conceptions of time. As opposed to physicists' idea of measurable time, in human experience life is perceived as a continuous and unmeasurable flow rather than as a succession of marked-off states of consciousness-something that can be measured not quantitatively, but only qualitatively. His conclusion is that free will is an observable fact.

An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness

Excerpt from Matter and Memory The translation of Monsieur Bergson's Matière et Mémoire has been made from the fifth edition of 1908, and has had the great advantage of being revised in proof by the author. Monsieur Bergson has also written a new introduction for it which supersedes that which accompanied the original work. The translators offer their sincere thanks to the author for his invaluable help in these matters and for many suggestions made by him while the book was in manuscript. They beg leave to call the reader's attention to the fact that all the marginal notes are peculiar to the English edition; and that although Monsieur Bergson has been good enough to revise them, he is not responsible for their insertion or character, since they form no part of his own plan for the book. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

José Awning

"Matéria e Memória" é uma obra filosófica de Henri Bergson, um dos mais renomados pensadores do século XX, sobre a relação complexa entre corpo e espírito, oferecendo uma perspectiva sobre a natureza da consciência e da experiência humana. Na obra, Bergson investiga como a matéria e a memória se entrelaçam para dar origem à nossa percepção do mundo. Ele desafia as concepções convencionais sobre a mente e o corpo, propondo uma visão dinâmica e fluida da realidade, argumentando que a memória desempenha um papel fundamental na nossa compreensão do presente, conectando nosso passado ao momento atual. Com uma linguagem rica e acessível, o autor nos leva a uma jornada intelectual por questões que vão desde a natureza da percepção até a relação entre o tempo e a experiência subjetiva.

Henri Bergson

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