Matter and Memory

by David G Payne (Editor), Nancy M Paul (Translator), W Scott Palmer (Translator)

Overview

"Though it can hardly be claimed that Bergson has completely solved the extraordinary complex and difficult problem of memory and least of all the mystery of matter, it may be admitted ungrudgingly that he has clarified the obscurities of the former problem to a considerable extent, and has, above all, rendered great service by the masterly way in which he points out the insuperable difficulties of the materialistic position... This excellent translation." (The Quest) "Of M. Bergson's three works the present is that which appeals most to the educator because of the excellent treatment of the very practical subjects of memory and attention. We do not look for a final decision of such problems as are here dealt with, but no one can rise from reading this book and retain unchanged the views with which he began it. To say this of a book of psychometaphysics is to say much." (Journal of Education) "As in the case of the former volume the translator of this second volume has the author's assistance and approval, and the author has also written for it a new Introduction, superseding that which accompanies the original work. In this volume, also, the translators have given a number of useful marginal summaries and a copious index." (Westminster Review)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781537046846
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	08/11/2016
Pages:	194
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.41(d)

About the Author

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1927. His works include Time and Free Will , An Introduction to Metaphysics , Creative Evolution , and The Creative Mind .

Table of Contents

	Introduction	vii
Chapter I	Of the Selection of Images for Conscious Presentation. What our Body Means and Does	1
	Real action and virtual action	1
	Representation	8
	Realism and Idealism	14
	The choice of images	17
	Relation between representation and action	35
	The image and reality	45
	The image and affective sensation	51
	Nature of affective sensation	55
	The image, apart from sensation	59
	Natural extension of images	62
	Pure perception	69
	Approach to the problem of matter	73
	Memory	81
Chapter II	Of the Recognition of Images. Memory and Brain	86
	The two forms of memory	86
	Movements and Recollections	105
	Recollections and movements	118
	Realization of memories	145
Chapter III	Of the Survival of Images. Memory and Mind	170
	Pure memory	170
	What the present is	176
	The unconscious	181
	Existence	189
	Relation of past and present	191
	Memory and general ideas	201
	The Association of Ideas	212
	The plane of action and the plane of dream	217
	The different planes of consciousness	220
	Attention to life	225
	Mental equilibrium	227
	The Office of the body	231
Chapter IV	The Delimiting and Fixing of Images. Perception and Matter: Soul and Body	233
	The problem of dualism	233
	Description of the Method	238
	Indivisibility of movement	246
	Real movement	254
	Perception and matter	259
	Duration and tension	267
	Extensity and extension	277
	Soul and body	291
	Summary and Conclusion	299
	Index	333

What People are Saying About This

Gilles Deleuze

Matter and Memory was the diagnosis of a crisis in psychology. Movement, as physical reality in the external world, and the image, as psychic reality in consciousness, could no longer be opposed. The Bergsonian discovery of a movement-image, and more profoundly, of a time-image, still retains such richness today that it is not certain that all its consequences have been drawn.

Walter Benjamin

Since the end of the Last century, philosophy has made a series of attempts to lay hold of the 'true' experience as opposed to the kind that manifests itself in the standardized, denatured life of the civilized masses. It is customary to classify these efforts under the heading of a philosophy of life. Towering above this literature is Bergson's early monumental work, Matter and Memory.

From the Publisher

Matter and Memory was the diagnosis of a crisis in psychology. Movement, as physical reality in the external world, and the image, as psychic reality in consciousness, could no longer be opposed. The Bergsonian discovery of a movement-image, and more profoundly, of a time-image, still retains such richness today that it is not certain that all its consequences have been drawn.

— Gilles Deleuze

Since the end of the Last century, philosophy has made a series of attempts to lay hold of the 'true' experience as opposed to the kind that manifests itself in the standardized, denatured life of the civilized masses. It is customary to classify these efforts under the heading of a philosophy of life. Towering above this literature is Bergson's early monumental work, Matter and Memory.

— Walter Benjamin

Endorsement

Since the end of the Last century, philosophy has made a series of attempts to lay hold of the 'true' experience as opposed to the kind that manifests itself in the standardized, denatured life of the civilized masses. It is customary to classify these efforts under the heading of a philosophy of life. Towering above this literature is Bergson's early monumental work, Matter and Memory.

—Walter Benjamin