Matter and Memory: Essay on the Relationship of Body and Spirit

by Henri Bergson

Overview

Matter and Memory (French: Matière et mémoire) (1896) is one of the four main works by the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941). Its subtitle is "Essay on the relation of body and spirit", and the work presents an analysis of the classical philosophical problems concerning this relation. Within that frame the analysis of memory serves the purpose of clarifying the problem. Matter and Memory was written in reaction to the book The Maladies of Memory by Théodule Ribot, that appeared in 1881. Ribot claimed that the findings of brain science proved that memory is lodged within a particular part of the nervous system; localized within the brain and thus being of a material nature. Bergson was opposed to this reduction of spirit to matter. Defending a clear anti-reductionist position, he considered memory to be of a deeply spiritual nature; the brain serving the need of orienting present action by inserting relevant memories. The brain thus being of a practical nature. Certain lesions tend to perturb this practical function, but without erasing memory as such. The memories are, instead, simply not 'incarnated', and cannot serve their purpose.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940015128642
Publisher:	Balefire Publishing
Publication date:	09/05/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	339
File size:	12 MB
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About the Author

Henri-Louis Bergson (18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.

He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented".

Bergson rejected what he saw as the overly mechanistic predominant view of causality (as expressed in, say, finalism). He argued that we must allow space for free will to unfold in an autonomous and unpredictable fashion. While Kant saw free will as something beyond time and space and therefore ultimately a matter of faith, Bergson attempted to redefine the modern conceptions of time, space, and causality in his concept of Duration, making room for a tangible marriage of free will with causality. Seeing Duration as a mobile and fluid concept, Bergson argued that one cannot understand Duration through "immobile" analysis, but only through experiential, first-person intuition.

Bergson's other philosophical concepts include Élan vital, or the living, creative force that he saw as driving evolution and also as showing up in mankind's impulse to create[citation needed]. Bergson also discussed the nature and mechanism of laughter.