Henri Bergson 
Creative Evolution 

The most famous and influential work of distinguished French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941),
Creative Evolution features the fullest expression of the philosopher’s ideas about the problem of existence, propounding a theory of evolution completely distinct from these of earlier thinkers and scientists.

In discussing the meaning of life, Bergson considers the order of nature and the form of intelligence, including the geometrical tendency of the intellect, and examines mechanisms of thought and illusion. In addition, he presents a critique of the idea of immutability and the concept of nothingness, from Plato and Aristotle through the evolutionism of his contemporaries.

Bergson’s influence on Marcel Proust and other twentieth-century writers renders a grasp of his theories imperative to students of literature as well as philosophy. Historians of science and other readers will also appreciate the importance of this milestone in philosophical and evolutionary thought.

Jadual kandungan

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I THE EVOLUTION OFLIFE-MECHANISM AND TELEOLOGY

Of duration in general

Unorganized bodies and abstract time

Organized bodies and real duration

Individuality and the process of growing old

Of transformism and the different ways of interpreting it

Radical mechanism and real duration: the relation of biology to physics and chemistry

Radical finalism and real duration: the relation of biology to philosophy

The quest of a criterion

Examination of the various theories with regard to a particular example

Darwin and insensible variation

De Vries and sudden variation

Eimer and orthogenesis

Neo Lamarckism and the hereditability of acquired characters

Result of the inquiry

The vital impetus

‘CHAPTER II THE DIVERGENT DIRECTIONS OF THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE–TORPOR, INTELLIGENCE, INSTINCT’

General idea of the evolutionary process

Growth

Divergent and complementary tendencies

The meaning of progress and of adaptation

The relation of the animal to the plant

General tendency of animal life

The development of animal life

‘The main directions of the evolution of life: torpor, intelligence, instinct’

The nature of the intellect

the nature of instinct

Life and consciousness

The apparent place of man in nature

CHAPTER III ON THE MEANING OF LIFE–THE ORDER OF NATURE AND THE FORM OF INTELLIGENCE

Relation of the problem of life to the problem of knowledge

The method of philosophy

Apparent vicious circle of the method proposed

Real vicious circle of the opposite method

Simultaneous genesis of matter and intelligence

Geometry inherent in matter

Geometrical tendency of the intellect

Geometry and deduction

Geometry and induction

Physical laws

Sketch of a theory of knowledge based on the analysis of the idea of Disorder

Two oposed forms of order: the problem of genera and the problem of laws

‘The idea of ‘disorder’ an oscillation of the intellect between the two kinds of order’

Creation and evolution

Ideal genesis of matter

The origin and function of life

The essential and the accidental in the vital process and in the evolutionary movement

Mankind

The life of the body and the life of the spirit

CHAPTER IV THE CINEMATOGRAPHICAL MECHANISM OF THOUGHT AND THE MECHANISTIC ILLUSION–A GLANCE AT THE HISTORY OF SYSTEMS–REAL BECOMING AND FALSE EVOLUTIONISM

‘Sketch of a criticism of philosophical systems, based on the anaysis of the idea of Immutability and of the idea of ‘Nothing’

‘Relation of metaphysical problems to the idea of ‘Nothing’

Real meaning of this idea

Form and Becoming

The philosophy of Forms and its conception of Becoming

Plato and Aristotle

The natural trend of the intellect

Becoming in modern science: two views of Time

‘The metaphysical interpretation of modern science: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz’

The Criticism of Kant

The evolution of Spencer

INDEX