Book Description
This is a new critical edition of the 1907 work which made Bergson world-famous, re-set, annotated, and replete with critical introduction, glossary, and appendices. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Recommended for fans of Rupert Sheldrake's theories
Bergson's thesis is that Darwinian and Lamarkian evolution are only half the story and that there is a creative urge inherent in life that defines the direction of evolution.It is distinguished from Creationism in that his system does not posit and eschaton or final perfect form, nor an external agent (God).

It has some similarity with biologist Rupert Sheldrake's theory of morphic fields.In his theory, there is an energy field (as yet undetected by modern physics) that controls the shape of organic molecules, i.e., one protein is shaped one way and the same collection of atoms gets shaped another way under the same pH and temperature.

Aldous Huxley mentions Bergson's theory of consciousness several times in his writings.Bergson thinks that consciousness pervades everything, and that intellect serves as a filter that presents only what is comprehensible to mental categories.This has several implications.One is the possibility for a monistic metaphysic.The other is that it leaves open the possibility of perceiving an alternate reality (what excited Huxley).

Chapter 3 is about his metaphysics, which are not very clearly expressed.There appear to be avenues unexplored by him.What are the consequences of matter being infused with consciousness?Magic?Why is it that intellect and geometrical thinking is what produces objects in perception?What is the mechanism.

What does have value is his theory that chaos is not the absence of repeatability, but is a stochastic process that can be understood as an aggregate of individual "wills."This is used to support his vital theory of evolution.That each organism "wills" its variation in seemingly random fashion, but at a higher order, it produces the regularity of genera.

Chapter 4 is a critique of various philosophic systems after establishing his "cinematographic" theory of perception.His basic point is that matter is in continual flux, yet we are only able to perceive it as a sequence of discrete states, hence the illusion of permanence.

inspiring
this book is beautifully written, which is only fitting given the beautiful ideas contained within. philosophy that tries to find meaning in life rather than complicate it.

A work of monumental importance
Creative Evolution is not so much a work, but a milestone in print of a new direction of thought. It is a book that is of immense importance to anyone who wants to understand the mystery of humanity.

From Miller to Ibsen
I first came across Ibsen's monumental work when reading 'Tropic of Capricorn' by Henry Miller.Despite my complete lack of evolutionary and biological knowledge, I found Ibsen's eschatology mind blowing.Several times I was forced to leave the book for days in order to fully contemplate the philosophical ramifications of his insights.From this great stride forward into the fringes of human understanding Ibsen states: 'A conduct that is truly our own, on the contrary, is that of a will which does not try to counterfeit intellect, and which, remaining itself - that is to say, evolving - ripens gradually into acts which the intellect will be able to resolve indefinitely into intelligible elements without ever reaching its goal.The free act is incommensurable with the idea, and its "rationality" must be defined by this very incommensurability, which admits the discovery of much intelligibility within it as we will.Such is the character of our own evolution; and such also, without doubt, that of the evolution of life."No one, despite their educational backgrounds or lack thereof, should feel intimidated by the possibility of transcending one's very own intellect.

the opus of the advocate of vitality....
Despite Lord Russell's criticism that "intuition works best in bats, bees, and Bergson," in this work Bergson not only finishes the uprooting of the Western and Platonic disembodied intellect (adeconstruction taken only so far by Kant), he presents us with thespectacle of unbridled life creatively shaping, not only its world, butitself in accord with its own telos:the need for eyesight creating theeye, so to speak.Difficult in places but a treasure, although one couldwish he gave more credit to Nietzsche's obviously great impact on him. Jungians would do well to peruse Bergson too. ... Read more

Book Description
Reissue from the classic Muirhead Library of Philosophy series (originally published between 1890s - 1970s). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

An awesome achievement
A heady treatise on altered states of being and how free will plays a role in our time space continuum.I highly recommend this book.

Never isolate present and past ...
Aged 80, already ill, Henri Bergson (1859-1941) went downstairs to the street (in his slippers and a sleep skirt) to underwrite a Nazi-registration-form, that he was one of the so called unworthy living creatures, a Jew, having no rights, being discharged, honourless, defenseless, unprotected. When in the "Etat Francais" also a Jew statute had been announced, the French government had offered an exception treatment to Bergson, that famous citizen of Jewish birth. However professor Bergson refused receiving such a gift from such hand. 1920, on the occasion of the establishment of the United Nations, Henri Bergson had been a first president of the commission for mental co-operation (when times were to be called still worthy to human beings). 1927 he had received the Nobelprize of literature regarding to his main-publication "Creative Evolution". At the end of his life the public ethic level had been fallen down immeasurably deep. Commissions for "mental co-operation" (1920) evidently had disappeared and instead had been replaced by tanks, execution committees, gasification camps and other genocide methods. The esteem of an human being you cannot measure exactly via empiric sciences (i.e. Nazi biological race sciences). An anthropology of such a bedeviled horizon of course fails his subject. The risk of every empiric, specialized science (i.e. psychology, social and political sciences) is to underestimate human beings via shortened views, operating with the handicap of false subtle ideologies, conceptions, definitions - and the practice to analyze only a small section of time. To seize the "life melody" of a human being, it is not sufficient to emerge ridiculously only one or two notes. The entire "SPAN", if possible from the birth to the end of a biography, - only such a span (the complete melody, not a single note) is able to illuminate the secret of a human personality to a sympathizing viewer. Only via this method you can discover the dynamics, movements, changing spirals, the will to carry through, the persistent believe at the own worth of a person - even if the social associates have lost such a horizon long time ago. Bergson's father had been a music teacher and a composer - considering this fact, the idea of talking metaphorically about "single notes" and a complete "life-melody" touches the heart. The upcoming of the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud surely inspired Bergson - and though there are some mad, too punctual views in this Vienna theories: this specialized science delivered a plenty of hypotheses better than the usual biological ones. Otherwise Bergson inspired a lot of novelists: Marcel Proust or James Joyce, Sartre (his writings about Flaubert) or Nikos Kazantzakis' movie "Alexis Sorbas" (featuring Anthony Quinn as the pure embodiment of "elan vital"). Erik H. Erikson with his innovative book "Identity and life cycle" also is one of the innumerable researchers, who developed knowledge into this advanced direction: the concept of duration, of showing a complete life-melody. A quotation out of a lecture held 1911 by Bergson at the university of Oxford: "Via philosophy we can get accustomed, never to isolate the present from the past. Via philosophy all things gain a depth of field, something like a fourth dimension, which permits to associate the earlier perceptions with the present." In the title of Bergson's book "Creative Evolution" the nature of this unusual human is as crystallizing as in that delivered gesture, underwriting the Nazi-registration-form, just as the inhumanity of German occupiers required. Surely none of them understood the nonchalant irony of this doing (in the spirit of a mind, which never loses a sort of a "BIRDS VIEW"). I like to compare this scene with a fragment of Emile Cioran, another French author; he wrote: "Did you see, how the birds, at first hunting in the roads, suddenly did ascend high above the roofs: to regard Paris in a distance?" This is a remarkable metaphor: visually strong - alike the "LIFE-MELODY", giving a hint to the long time memory of ears ...

Superb as always.
Bergson's works are always inspirational and the remarkable thing is that he doesn't assume anything he always explains what is needed (almost always) unlike the standard treatises on philosophy by other philosophers. It is never that much of an effort to read Bergson and as such it makes his works far more accessible than usual for a philosopher, probably one of the reasons he was all the rage in the early 20th Century, people can actually understand what he was talking about. What is the reason for this ? I think much of it has to do with his unwillingness to separate his insights into distinct pieces as is the norm in philosophy. His essays tend to flow along nicely without being stuck in difficult terminology which must be remembered as you progress, anything such as the word duration which has a special significance in Bergson work becomes part of the flow of the essay rather than being in any way special it is always reinforced through the dialogue. Another interesting aspect is his lack of references to others, possibly a result of the French way of Education which encourages self reliance and expression as much as possible.

In this work, one of his earliest (1887), Bergson introduces his concept of duration which is less of a concept than a real lived sense that is happening in your life right at this moment. But first he introduces the reader to the intensities of psychic states such as beauty, grace, joy, sorrow, pain etc and how a misinterpretation of real lived experience gives rise to a way of philosophy which separates real duration as it is experienced into space-like time, this is also evident in feelings which are modified through the space-like construction of experience. Although this first chapter fails to convince once you proceed onto the construction of the idea of duration you feel on much safer ground, one feels Bergson has seriously studied this phenomenon, not of course just in thought or conceptualisation but, in his own lived experience present at every moment. He goes on to explain the falseness of the spacialisation of time which inevitably leads to the paradoxes of Zeno in ancient days anddeterminism with its lack of human freedom. He overcomes the usual arguments of determinism by simply just not defining freedom or its prior conditions since this would once again introduce determinism and spacialise duration.

Bergson's work is simply highly insightful of the human condition far more than any dry attempt at it through the usual approaches such as Descarte's or Kant's. He literally lives his work using his own experience to enliven it, I mean literally enliven it, Bergson's work is living in a sense. It is less an argument than a movement through your own feelings and intuitions which then allow you to understand what he is saying, it isn't difficult concepts you can't wrap yourself round. It does occasionally suffer from a lack of clarity wich is an advantage other philosophers have over him but a careful reading will help.

Superb as always.

The duree: life-flow
Bergson, all the rage in the early 1900's, has nowbeen rediscovered,thanks in part to the work of Deleuze et al. Time and Free Will is a great exemplar of Bergson's work and his idea of the duree andthe spatialization of time. Bergson presents to the reader an energeticflux which is the precondition of our more vulgar concept of time. Withthis flux, the past is pulled along by the future and presented toconsciousness in the present as a heterogeneous conglomeration, inseperableand uncategorizable. It is this work which inspired the stream ofconsciousness novelists, especially Proust. But the most remarkable elementof Time and Free Will is its demand on the reader to live the duree, toreturn to the duree and forget oneself in it. The goal is freedom andauthenticity and this can only be achieved when letting oneself go, flyinglike a bird, and despatializing time. This book does not only open the doorto phenomenology, but it also contributes in a significant way to frenchexistentialist thought. ... Read more

Book Description
In one of his most important philosophical writings, Henri Bergson here discusses how the matter of the brain and the world external to the body create mental impressions and memories. Matter and Memory, first published in 1912, introduced the current selectionist theories of memory, which postulate that there is a part of the brain that generates all possible images to be stored in memory and a part of the brain that chooses which images to store. Crossing academic disciplines and touching on matters that concern us all-how do we remember, and why?-this essential work will enthrall students of philosophy and psychology and lay readers alike. French philosopher HENRI BERGSON (1859-1941) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927, and is said to have influenced thinkers such as Marcel Proust, William James, Santayana, and Martin Heidegger. Among his works are Matter and Memory (1896), An Introduction to Metaphysics (1903), and The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Actually, not a review but a suggestion
Read Elizabeth Grosz's new book, In the Nick of Time, for a lucid account of Matter and Memory that could serve as a guidebook for the uninitiated who might find Deleuze equally tricky.

extremely difficult work by a forgotten genius
Matter and Memory is often taken as the cornerstone of Bergson's work by the few who still read him, and I can't disagree with them.This is certainly his most radical work, but unfortunately, it is also his most difficult.Speaking for myself, even though I was very well read in the literature on Bergson--especially Deleuze's--I still had to read the first chapter almost four times before I felt comfortable enough to move on to the second.And it really isn't that Bergson is just obscure here.He does not use neologisms, and he tries very hard to be as precise as possible.I would say, I guess, that this is why it is still necessary to bother with this work, because it's difficulty is quite evidently related to its profundity.The concepts of matter and memory developed at length by Bergson in this work were so novel in his time that they're pretty much still as novel today.That's partly because, as some reviewers below say, there's a general feeling that science has made his "queer" views obsolete.This is palpably false.And then, on the other hand, it's because this book is terribly dry and, as Leonard Lawlor has said, doesn't have any entertaining "characters," like Merleau-Ponty's Schneider, to keep people plastered to the page.Consequently, not many people, even professional philosophers, have read the book in its entirety.
In sum: unless you're some sort of deity, you probably won't be drooling with a thirst for Bergson after reading this for the first time.The book is poorly organized and the chapters are all around 70-80 pages long, so ideas and arguments are jumbled about like lottery balls, and oftentimes Bergson just seems to write whatever pops into his mind at the moment.However, I re-iterate that with an open mind and some patience, the difficulty will be forgiveable, and the effort to get inside of it well worth your time.This gets five stars for the ideas, three for style.

Ho-hum
Gabriel Clark-Leach's comments reveal his ignorance of not only of "English students" but also of Damasio. His snide generalizing is indicitive of the quality of his thinking.

As always, fascinating ideas
Athough some of the reviewers pick up some very important points such as the lack of clarity in "Matter and Memory", which is very evident, this is contrasted with "Creative Evolution" (CE) which was far clearer, but then different translators were involved in each case. I do believe some of the translations suffer as a result of this. However I have also found that Bergson must be read at least twice in order to grasp the, at times, convoluted concepts. I found this book to be far less whole as a complete text in comparison with CE but nonetheless there were some fascinating ideas. Some of these ideas were developed but others I felt were left to lie idle. There is much depth in Bergson and one feels maybe that ordinary language is not very good at expressing his ideas which are dynamic, process based rather than, as European languages are, on nouns, a static concept.

I disagree with one of the reviewers saying how his science has been surpasssed, since almost all of his psychology is still valid as are the most important points related to a human beings own perception, I see no reason or any information which makes one state categorically that the brain must be the centre of the mind, a tool perhaps or a way of allowing the mind to come into expression but nothing like as solid which is needed for a proof of a mechanistic paradigm.

I also feel that Bergson coud be easily updated and made less convoluted by someone willing to take on his mode of thought and take into account the new science since Bergson's day, it has been 80 years or so. I believe that most of Bergson's work will in fact still be relevant, maybe even more so.

Bergson argues well that both materialism and idealism are bound to fail for in fact much the same reasons and that they are products of the same mode of thought even though their concepts are at polar opposites, sometimes a mode of thought is easily hidden by a different concept which maintains the same underpinning implicit/unconsciuous way of thinking.

Bergson is always worth reading not simply for his ideas which are fascinating even if outmoded but because of his radical thought process which allows a remarkable degree of expansion eg "There are real movements" this has many possible connotations in physics, psychology, metaphysics the realms of interest are endless. As such Bergson should be read for the ideas and the development which can occur from his work. As always with Bergson patience and multiple reads are the ways to a rewarding understanding and expansion of the mind.

To locate myself (body and soul) back in the universe!
many philosophical thoughts amaze readers but often we found ourselves "lost" in following the philosopher's thought.Bergson, on the contrary, constantly calls the reader's attention to our own existence,better yet, "being" in the material world that many otheridealist thinkers have tended to ignore.he gives us an answer to thequestion of body and soul (mind) with his key concept of"duration," with which we can locate ourselves both in space and"time."his idea is greatly immersed in many other thinkers,such as Deleuze, Merleau-Ponty, and even Foucault.the most importantconnection with the contemporary application of visual representationtheory would be the idea of "time-image" which Deleuze did a goodjob to articulate.were it not for the understanding of"time-image," a great part of epistemological pursuit in cinemastudies couldn't be possible.the 20th century's usurpage of subjectivityand abstract reason and restoration to body previously deprived itsphysicality under the psychological violence are surely debted to Bergsonto a great extent. the more amazing is, that we could do that, still on andin the axes of time and memory, so that history can go on. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Clem Kadiddlehopper wore a funny hat. Even animals other than humans seem to laugh, because they, too, possess emotions. And sometimes, when you're by yourself, you just start giggling for no reason. But that's not funny. As Henri Bergson, proto-existentialist French philosopher and author of Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, would say, you can stop laughing now. We must rethink what tickles us. For Bergson, laughter is a purely intellectual response that serves the social purpose of assuaging discomfort over the unaccustomed and unexpected. We chuckle at Lucy attempting to wrap the bonbons speeding by on a candy-factory conveyor belt because she's stuck in one place, performing the same task over and over, and failing; we hope that in similar situations we could be more flexible. Bergson recaps: "Rigidity is the comic, and laughter is its corrective."

Bergson's thinking typifies a peculiarly Gallic tendency to rationalize the apparently ephemeral and subjective (in this case, humor), discussing it in exquisitely rarefied language in order to assert that which defies common sense (a funny hat is not funny, laughter expresses no emotion, no one laughs alone) but partakes nonetheless of a logical inevitability. Laughter, first published in 1911, clearly draws upon the early years of European modernism, yet also prefigures the movement in some ways. In recognizing the comic as it embodies itself in a "rigid," absentminded person, locked into repetitious, socially awkward behavior, Bergson--even as he looks backward, primarily to Molière--seems to be spawning the sophisticated visual and physical comedy of Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd; the transformation of Léger's figures into anthropoid machines; and Nijinsky's starring role in Stravinsky's satirical clockwork ballet Pétrouchka.

This little book resurrects a British translation that has long been out of print. While Laughter won't quite explain why the French love Jerry Lewis, or keep you in stitches, it's a bracing read that will make you think twice about laughing the next time someone stumbles into a lamppost. --Robert Burns Neveldine Book Description
Philosophy.In this great philosophical essay, Henri Bergson explores why people laugh and what laughter means. First translated into English in 1911, this important work has long been unavailable.Download Description
What does laughter mean? What is the basal element in the laughable? What common ground can we find between the grimace of a merry-andrew, a play upon words, an equivocal situation in a burlesque and a scene of high comedy? What method of distillation will yield us invariably the same essence from which so many different products borrow either their obtrusive odour or their delicate perfume? The greatest of thinkers, from Aristotle downwards, have tackled this little problem, which has a knack of baffling every effort, of slipping away and escaping only to bob up again, a pert challenge flung at philosophic speculation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Early, provocative, but slight work on the subject.
One of the more accessible books by an underrated philosopher whose usefulness, especially with regard to literary narrative, is being rediscovered, "Laughter" must qualify as one of Bergson's slighter works.Much of its importance stems from its place among the very first essays to take seriously an elusive and slippery subject.As a result, the author's thesis that laughter derives from "the mechanical encrusted upon the living" is at once somewhat dated and limiting.A reader wishes more distinctions between "comedy" and "laughter" (since many of the most revered comedies, from Shakespeare to Keaton, no longer provoke laughter from their modern audiences).Moreover, the author's thesis, though consistent with his views of "real time" (la duree), is applied too broadly to illuminate the dark let alone grey areas of "black comedy" along with numerous sub-genres, ranging from witty and garrulous, so-called "screw-ball comedy" to parody and the mock-heroic (both of the latter presenting major obstacles to appreciation let alone laughter because of what the post-modernists call "cultural amnesia").

Nevertheless, it's a readable start.

Admirable
The blessed healing of laughter and of those who are gifted in bringing it to us.A great read for anyone who wants to live and look at the lighter side of life.

A bit dated.Somewhat incomplete.Astoundingly insightful
Before reading this essay, you should be forewarned that it was written by the same great opponent of Cartesian dualism that resisted the reduction of psychological phenomena to physical states.In other words, this is an early 20th century French philosophical essay.To go further, it's a bit dry.Still, it is hard to argue with many of the axioms that Bergson espouses in this essay.For the most part, the laughter caused by much of modern comedy can be explained using one of his primary axioms or their many corollaries.Bergson's biggest miss here, however, is that although he adequately explains why a comic may cause an individual to laugh at either the comic himself or a third party, he doesn't sufficiently explain, or even realize, that much of what the comic intends is for his audience to laugh at themselves.Even so, youcan still ascribe Bergson's incisive deductions to include the comic audience and still come to the heart of why people laugh.In any event, to my knowledge the subject has never been tackled so logically.Certainly, no (funny) comedian will ever attempt to publicly disclose the nature of laughter, but don't suppose that there aren't many famous comedians out there today who are familiar with this essay.It is obvious that many comedians and writers are familiar with this essay and that they have put these axioms directly to the test to great comic effect on many occasions.A word of advice to anyone who has difficulty wading through the chapters of Bergson's dry, recondite language: Read it in your head with the voice of baby Stewie from the Family Guy in mind.This technique amused me through the first half of the book, and by that time the language didn't bother me so much anymore.

Still profound after all these years
Why is a pun amusing?In brief, it treats something human as if it were something mechanical.Language is a way of conveying meanings from one human to another, and the most inflexible, most mechanical, most artifiial POSSIBLE way of looking at words is to classify them by their sound alone.That's precisely what a pun does.

When Mel Brooks is playing a Polish actor playing Hitler, he says: "All I want is peace.A little piece of Poland, a tiny piece of France...."That is amusing -- the juxtaposition of the vital and the mechanical.

More sophisticated jokes than such puns are based on the same juxtaposition.Here is one of Bergson's example, from a play by Labiche."Just as M. Perrichon is getting into the railway carriage, he makes certain of not forgetting any of his parcels: 'Four, five, six, my wife seven, my daughter eight, and myself nine.'"

first since Aristoteles
Bergson is the second philosopher who consider laughter and try to find out the reasons why we laugh. Aristoteles didalso this in his book about comedy, but here we have a more modern view on it. I recommend this to all who are interested in why and from what we laugh. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
This masterly autobiography of Bergson's philosophical method: how he became a philosopher, why he is a philosopher, and what philosophy must be These, the man and his work, constitute a definitive critique of philosophy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Intellectual Intuition
I haven't read this work in a while, though I read it many times at various points in my adult life.It does, however, stand out for me as the most difficult subject that Philosophy has yet to answer.Or, can it be answered, is probably closer to the point.This is the problem of what we call Intuition.For Bergson, Intuition is a definite, cognative thing.While it might not reflect modern thinking on the mind-brain as a bio-mechanism, this does not mean that it is wrong.In fact, it might well be better to ask is the current view wrong because Bergson doesn't fit within it?

Bergson is set apart from most of his French counterparts like Sartre because his philosphy tends to go after niche subjects, such as Time, Laughter, and Intuition.Issues that rarely get attention by "serious" Philosophy.His works have been discredited by Bertrand Russell only to see a rennaisance of sorts in view of the darkness left by Russell and his logically minded cronies.

This specific book is probably an interesting starting point for Bergson.It allows the reader to ask questions along the way.Since these are lectures, there is a broad latitude given to the subject at hand.Metaphysics is not a subject that anyone has successfully defined, unless its by negation, so I will not endeavor to explain it.But, the clear area that Bergson seems to wish to cover is that Intuition is not some primal instinct nor is it a superstition, but rather a complex function of the mind.

Waiting for proper translation
Great stuff from Bergson, as always, but the publisher needs to be reprimanded for their lack of effort. No bibliographic information, no footnotes (present in the French), no notes of translation, and no index. How can such a work be given so little care?

great intro to Bergson
This is the English edition of a book called "La Pensee et le mouvant" in its original French. It is a collection of essays, written across quite a long period. The first two essays, which are called I and II (they are the two parts of the title essay, that is "Le Pensee et le mouvant") are the heart of the book. They amount to an intellectual autobiography by Bergson, and they actually provide important clarifications to some points of his thought, that is, they don't merely recapitulate his earlier writings, but in some cases add important further information (hence this book is essential not just for beginners, but for serious Bergson scholars as well). The title requires a remark. This book (the same translation) has been in and out of print in English several times. It has appeared as "The Creative Mind" and as "Introduction to Metaphysics". This edition appears to combine the two titles. Of course neither of the two English titles is a translation of the French title. Presumably the original translator didn't feel that "Time and Movement" was catchy enough. The original French is literally "Time and the Moving," with "moving" in the sense of "that which is moving" or "the moving thing". Perhaps the original translator felt that since the title couldn't felicitously be rendered directly into English, that he might as well completely re-title it. In any event the title isn't that important. Where the translator really did us a disservice is in leaving out the footnotes. The French text includes a number of quite lengthy footnotes, that provide lots of interesting commentary by Bergson himself. This collection was assembled by Bergson toward the end of his life, and it includes essays, such as "Introduction to Metaphysics" that were written some thirty-five years earlier. The early essays are reprinted as they were first published, but Bergson uses the footnotes to draw attention to where and how his views have changed. Perhaps the lay reader won't miss the footnotes, but the serious scholar should be advised to consult a French copy to look at alongside this.

An example of intuitive writing.
As has been noted by others in previous reviews this book is about several issues: one a kind of autobiography of his life's work and as well a lesson in what philosophy is and should be in comparison to science. Bergson points out that science much as other fields such as literature, philosophy, art and so on rely on two ways of approaching reality one is the scientific systematic, mechanical way which is practiced by the majority of researchers and the intuitive way which is used occasionally to make headway. The first of these approaches clarifies succinctly what has been discovered in a systematic way which aims to make the phenomenon explicit as a whole, the second of these, the intuitive approach, is that which is required to make the initial leap, the creative surge needed to make sense of a phenomenon which no longer makes sense when old approaches are applied. As such, both of these approaches need to be practised side by side with scientists and artists both making use of them. Unfortunately the first of these, the standard methodical approach, is prone to be considered the only way of attack on a problem given the intellect which is a system to analyse and make use of the world's phenomena. This ensures a mechanical way of thought comes to the fore. Bergson stresses that this method is well and good where it applies, mostly after a discovery has been made, but in the stages where something is to be understood as a whole rather than as made of parts, intuition comes in providing the guiding light, a sort of vague feeling of rightness or truth which cannot be denied. From this pont it is developed using the first method, but the first method cannot succeed without this creative step.

It needs to be noted that the systematic approach is relatively easy to implement for a mind trained in it, as are most of today's researchers, and unfortunately it is difficult to escape the confining modes of thought which prevail once this method has gained a firm foothold of the mind. The creative approach is vague and fleeting seeming to glide past you as you attempt to grab hold. This is the wrong approach, it needs to be cultivated without a method otherwise it is a sham intuition and just another form of the first method. Strangely enough once such an intuition has overwhelmed the mind it convinces not by argument or proof but by a strong sense of rightness, "this is true and that is all", it cannot be denied. Any attempt to deny this makes no sense as even those who argue against this possibility themselves suffer from these intuitions which they cannot explain either.

Bergson was a man who lived this intuitive mode more than most, especially through his experience of duration. He is qualified more than most in describing this way of "thinking", actually sensing, and he brings it out in this fine book. Although not as illuminating as his "Creative Evolution" it is still a very well written book and he deserves his Nobel prize for literature. Compare this with for example "Process and Reality" by Whitehead which is so full of obscurity it stands as a prime example of how not to write. It is Whitehead's attempt to be clear which is his downfall in fact.

As always Bergson's books are themselves examples of intuitive writing if there is such a thing.

valuable despite of any flaws
This book is composed of two introductory essays accompanied by several other essays from various period's in Bergson's life. Thus, there is no flow in the book; one can probably start on any of the essays. However, because the book lacks a direct flow of thought, I found it necessary to often go back and reread sections that are further elaborated on elsewhere. Prior to this book, i was only familiar with Bergson through Deleuze, yet Bergson does not assume that his reader is familiar with concepts such as "duration" that are developed more completely elsewhere and gives adequate explanations in "The Creative Mind." Bergson's main task in this book is to explore "philosophical intution". He admirably points out the necessity for such a way of knowing, namely, its abilty to grasp pure movement, duration. He argues against the idea that philosophy should attempt to be a grand synthesis of positive science and instead argues that philosophy should be complementary to science, such that they have "points in common" at which they can verify one another. In addition to this, there are several other topics discussed, such as the "possible" in relation to the "real". Overall, although i really enjoyed reading this book as it is full of clever insights and is written with an honesty and passion that is rare in philosophy, i find that Bergson ultimately fails to distinguish metaphysics from science in the manner in which he desires. Despite this, as the title suggests, this is a book that encourages us to recognize what is unique and novel in things, including our own thought, as opposed to thinking of ourselves and other thinkers as merely part of a historical norm and things as existing only in relation to some higher essence-- that is, what is unique and novel in things, their essence, comes from within and is immanent to the things themselves and does not come "from above". ... Read more

Book Description
There is currently a major renaissance of interest in Henri Bergson's unduly neglected texts and ideas amongst philosophers, literary theorists, and social theorists. Introduction to Metaphysics (1903) contains Bergson's classic statement that to philosophize is to reverse the habitual directions of our thinking, as well as his claim that a true empiricism amounts to a true metaphysics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

The definitive text on Metaphysics
William James hailed Bergson as an ally. In 1903 he wrote: "I have been rereading Bergson's books, and nothing that I have read since has so excited and stimulated my thoughts. I am sure that that metaphysical philosophy has a great future, it breaks through old cadres and brings things into a solution from which new crystals can be got."

Bergson is a master in this field - I highly recommend that you read him.

Informative
A great starting place for someone considering the study of metaphysics. This short treatise will help your understanding of the field and propel you into further and deeper study.

Underappreciated
Sure, Bergson's ideas may not have been as revolutionary as Descartes' or Kant's, but I find them just as intriguing.In fact, it is his critique of the Empiricists (one of my favorite "ists") which I found most interesting in this work, along with his distinction between intellect and intuition.Scarcely sixty pages, "An Introduction to Metaphysics" is the type of work that can be read in one sitting (at your local Commercial Book Store if you are short on dinero) and I think you will find well worth the time.

An Interesting work of Metaphysics/Epistemology
"An Introduction to Metaphysics," is less an introduction to metaphysics than a criticism of its previous ideas.Bergson provides very interesting criticisms of empiricism and rationalism as well as interesting solutions to these problems.Bergson is one of the more intriguing of 20th Century Philosophers and I found this work enjoyable enough to recommend it to anyone with an interest in AND knowledge of the subject.However, if you are looking for an ACTUAL introduction to metaphysics, look elsewhere.Might I suggest starting with Aristotle?

Great book for students considering Metaphysics.
The author Bergson has written a book that is ideal for students and or anybody considering studying or learning about "Metaphysics". However, I personally feel that somebody who is not a philosopher would dobetter to study some of Aristotle before looking into studying metaphysics.Nevertheless this book does it's job and does it well in the introductionof metaphysics by telling the reader what it's good for and why it'sworthless. Having a good understanding of the benefits of studyingmetaphysics is truly the best way to pursued somebody into studyingmetaphysics. If your considering studying of metaphysics, good for you, Isuggest you buy this book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A brilliant exposition by a great thinker.
In Bergson's "Two Sources," the famous french thinker applies his relational methodology and metaphysic to an analysis of religion and morality. Bergson himself was certainly very careful about how he presented his own religious sentiments, and this book continues to show that care, coupled now with his meticulous attention to phenomenological detail. Hence, this is not a proselytizing sermon, but a close analysis of phenomenological *sources* of religious and moral sentiment.

This is a later work of Bergson's, and as such, it might not be the best introduction to his work. One can see a great deal of Bergson's previous metaphysical thought operating in the background if one knows what to look for. To catch up on that background, one might want to read _Time and Freewill_ or _Matter and Memory_, for instance.

However, its also not clear that one really needs that background to appreciate this book. For one thing, this volume gives one of the clearest examples of Bergson's methodology that I have encountered (in my admittedly limited studies). This method has come to be known as Bergson's "qualitative calculus" (QC). The QC has certain obvious similarities with Hegel's dialectic: a phenomenon gets analyzed as a product of two tensional poles which define a spectum of relations between them. But the differences are also manifest. The poles, for Bergson, have none of the ontological status of Hegel's objective idealism. Nor are they so much Ideal Opposites, as they are the two ends of a relational spectrum. Bergson's relational approach is not built around a sharp, black/white oppositional structure the way Hegel's is (or at least appears to be in some readings).

The two poles for Bergson are, in this instance, what might be called "habit" and "inspiration," which lead to, respectively, static and dynamic structures. These structures are rarely if ever encountered in their pure forms, and as such the two poles are the abstracted ideal elements of a phenomenological analysis. Chapter one of _Two Sources_ focuses on morality, and gives the initial development of QC structures that Bergson will then apply throughout the rest of the book. Chapter two takes religion in its static, habit based form, and further delves into this structure along the lines of Bergson's QC. (Here, again, we see the debt to Hegel, where each stage of the dialectic leads to a deeper analysis.) Chapter three takes religion in its dynamic phase, and the final chapter summarizes and offers conclusions.

Once again, this is not a book looking to convert the faithless, nor is it preaching to the choir. It is a careful analysis along the lines of James' _Varieties of Religious Experience_. (By the by, for those who don't already know, Bergson and James were frequent correspondents, and admirers of one anothers work.)It may not be the best introduction to Bergson's thought, but it is certainly worthy of reading.

Judge For Yourself
This book is an evangelical revival for intellectuals.Here's a quote:

"And all great mystics declare that they have the impression of a current passing from their soul to God, and flowing back again from God to mankind.
Let no one speak of material obstables to a soul thus freed!"

It might delight a religious scholar but what little I was able to penetrate left me desparate for clear meaningful statements. ... Read more

Book Description
Bergson's essay looks at comedy within a wider field of vision, focusing on laughter and on what makes us laugh. His study examines comic characters and comic acts, comedy in literature and in children's games, comedy as high art and base entertainment, to develop a psychological and philosophers theory of the mainsprings of comedy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Two major theories of ' comedy'
This review is partial, and does not include the major essay of Wylie Sypher that serves as epilogue for the essays of Meredith and Bergson.
Meredith, Bergson, and Freud are among the few who so far as I knowhavepresented major theories of comedy and laughter. Meredith's discussion of comedy involves a distinction between the low comedy of laughing, slapstick and its varieties, and the high comedy of intellectual perception. This latter is his main interest and involves as he understands it our discernment of some distinction between ideal and real. It is this high comedy which is a moral corrective and enables us to put the arrogant, and rude in their place.
For Bergson the theory is a theory of laughter. It has to do with his own major philosophical distinction between the 'mechanical ' and the ' spontaneous' between the rigid and that which flows. For Bergson laughter can come at our observation of someone walking along and falling down, comes as some kind of break in the expected pattern of motion and action.
Neither of these theories begins to cover all the different kinds and ways we smile and laugh at others. They are , as I understand it a start at trying to find the essence of a set of realities which may in fact have more than one essence.
These works then as I understand it are invaluable starting points for thinking more deeply about the subjects of what comedy and laughter are .
And writing this I am quite dismayed how humorless it is.
And this as if to remind that true comedy ( at least as literature( requires a power of invention and creation out of the ordinary.
Is this perhaps the ' germ' of another way of thinking about comedy i.e. as a special kind of human inventiveness involving surprise

The best theoretical study of comedy available
Bergson's _Laughter_ has been out of print for too long. It's the best theoretical study of comedy available. A meditation by the great philosopher of "elan vital" about our natural response to humansacting mechanically, _Laughter_ is also about the nuts and bolts of comedy.Moliere is the main model, but it works for Shakespeare, Chaplin andPreston Sturges just as well.

Euphoria
Bergson offers a taxonomy of laughter.The description is concise, realistic, and rife with examples.He begins with a broad definition of anything that is laughable and further narrows the definition where appropriate.Never have I encountered an example not explainable by this.

Henri Bergson is brilliant.
Henri Bergson describes why we laugh, and subdivides this description further into three characteristics.Each of these characteristics is then divided further occassionally.Example: >We laugh at mechanical rigidity.The three typesare repetition, inversion, and reciprocal interference of series.An example of repetition is a frozen facial expression (repetition) and is comical only if it's imitatable.Read more

Product Description
Underneath and beyond the method you have caught the intention and the spirit; states Bergson in a letter to the translator. ... Read more

Book Description
Translated from the French ... Read more

Book Description
"In recent years, we have grown accustomed to philosophical language that is intensely self-conscious and rhetorically thick, often tragic in tone. It is enlivening to read Bergson, who exerts so little rhetorical pressure while exacting such a substantial effort of thought. . . . Bergson's texts teach the reader to let go of entrenched intellectual habits and to begin to think differently—to think in time. . . . Too much and too little have been said about Bergson. Too much, because of the various appropriations of his thought. Too little, because the work itself has not been carefully studied in recent decades."—from Thinking in Time

Henri Bergson (1859-1941), whose philosophical works emphasized motion, time, and change, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927. His work remains influential, particularly in the realms of philosophy, cultural studies, and new media studies. In Thinking in Time, Suzanne Guerlac provides readers with the conceptual and contextual tools necessary for informed appreciation of Bergson's work.

Guerlac's straightforward philosophical expositions of two Bergson texts, Time and Free Will (1888) and Matter and Memory (1896), focus on the notions of duration and memory—concepts that are central to the philosopher's work. Thinking in Time makes plain that it is well worth learning how to read Bergson effectively: his era and our own share important concerns. Bergson's insistence on the opposition between the automatic and the voluntary and his engagement with the notions of "the living," affect, and embodiment are especially germane to discussions of electronic culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Read the original(s)
A introductory book on the philosophy of Bergson, which ends with two (short) chapters discussing the recent "return to Bergson." Guerlac's monograph reads as though it were rather hastily put together, as though she ran out of time to properly develop the material.
An example: chapter 5 (Channels of Contemporary Reception) is a particularly useful subject and the chapter begins well, but it swiftly descends to uselessness, stitched together by a series of quotes and paraphrases from various theorists, as well as endless footnotes which include further quotes and paraphrases (there are 97 footnotes for a chapter 23 pages long). (It doesn't help either that Guerlac moves much too quickly through the Bergsonian influence on Deleuze's Cinema books - relying, it seems to me, too heavily on Mark Hansen's commentary - as well as Deleuze and Guattari's concept of "the machinic.")
Worse is the treatment of Bergson's texts, but for a different reason. The majority of Guerlac's book is an explication of two Bergson works: Time and Free Will and Matter and Memory. (Why Creative Evolution is not given the same treatment is a mystery to me.) Having just re-read Matter and Memory, I have to say that I found Guerlac's chapter on this great work completely without point: she simply repeats his argument but in her own words (except when she is directly quoting the original). Why not read the original instead, which is exquisitely written and endlessly fascinating?
The purpose of such an introductory work should be to clarify and contextualize; to give a student some footholds as they explore the difficult (but richly rewarding) original texts. What is the purpose of a 67-page paraphrase of Matter and Memory except to discourage the student from reading the original (by having the student believe they have somehow already done so - and not by reading the 200 page original but the 67 page copy)?
The book is not without some merit, but it needed several more rewrites and some judicious pruning. (And instead of 2 LONG chapters on Bergson's first two philosophical texts, it should have had 4 shorter chapters on ALL of his major philosophical works: Time and Free Will, Matter and Memory, Creative Evolution, and Two Sources of Morality and Religion.)
I'd give the book 2 1/2 stars, if it were possible, but since it is not I will go for the lower rating, because it is closer to 2 stars than 3. ... Read more

Book Description
Henri Bergson was an early 20th century French philosopher. Bergson's essay on laughter states that laughter is an intellectual response.We laugh because we feel uncomfortable when the unexpected occurs.When in a situation over which we have no control laughter is a release. ... Read more

Book Description
THIS 86 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Landmarks For Beginners In Philosophy V2, by Irwin Edman. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 141917391X. ... Read more