Physical processes manifest an objective order that science manages to discover. Commonly, it is considered that these processes obey the “laws of nature.” Bergson disputes this idea which ultimately constitutes a kind of Platonism. In contrast, he develops the idea that physical processes are a particular case of automatic behaviors. In this sense, they imply a motor memory immanent to matter, whose actions are triggered by some perceptions. This approach is obviously panpsychist. It gives matter a certain consciousness, even if (...) the latter is different in nature from our consciousness. In some respects, this approach is similar to contemporary panpsychism because it claims that the psychic is a fundamental characteristic of nature, causally active. But it is also original because it does not constitute a theory of the origin of mind in nature. (shrink)

Partimos da perspectiva que nos convida a observar que a leitura que Bergson faz sobre Leibniz tanto nos seus cursos, quanto em Possível e o Real e em A Evolução Criadora participam da construção de um modelo de individuação no âmbito filosofia bergsoniana. No curso sobre o opúsculo De rerum natura originatione, Bergson propõe uma avaliação sobre o finalismo metafísico leibniziano a partir da noção do possível e sua relação com o princípio da harmonia pré-estabelecida. Neste artigo, pretende-se mostrar que (...) as implicações decorrentes da leitura de Leibniz são conservadas até as proposições sobre o elã vital e as tendências. (shrink)

Bergson identifies multiple forms of memory throughout his work. In Matter and Memory, Bergson considers memory from the perspectives of both psychology and metaphysics, and he describes what we might refer to as contraction memory, perception memory, habit memory, recollection memory, and pure memory. Further, in subsequent works, Bergson discusses at least two additional forms of memory – namely, a memory of the present and a non-intellectual memory of the will. However, it is often not clear how these different forms (...) of memory relate to one another. With the aim of providing an overview of Bergson's philosophy of memory that can also serve as a point of entry to his philosophy as a whole, this article explores the different senses and forms of memory that Bergson describes, paying special attention to how they are distinct from one another and how they are unified. It is my intention to show that, although these various senses and forms of memory are different from one another , they are also continuous and unified insofar as they are equivalent to different tones of one's mental life and to different tensions of one duration. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to consider biobanks through the conceptual tools of French Thought and twentieth-century French philosophy of technology. Firstly, two pairs of authors and their respective conceptions of the relationship between technics and memory are considered: on the one hand, Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler, who thought of memory and technics on the model of writing; on the other hand, Henri Bergson and André Leroi-Gourhan, who thought of memory as linked to biological life, and of technics (...) as an exteriorization of life. On the basis of this discussion, a philosophical analysis of biobanks is then provided, understanding them as exteriorized memories of life, and some conceptual problems raised by biobanks are addressed: the question of exteriorization and its relation with the organic and the inorganic matter; the relation between the living and the environment; the mode of existence of biological data; and the distinction between natural and artificial memory. (shrink)

Determinar a relação entre ciência e metafísica na teoria bergsoniana da memória parece ser bem mais problemático que expor, pura e simplesmente, o teor crítico com o qual o filósofo geralmente abordou tanto a ciência quanto a metafísica, em seu esforço de determinação do significado da lembrança e da natureza do reconhecimento. Sem dúvida, a relação que Bergson manteve, em toda sua obra, com as tradições científica e metafísica foi predominantemente polêmica. Contudo, a crítica não dissimula o uso positivo que (...) ele fez da ciência para alimentar uma metafísica que vai de encontro às concepções tradicionais da atividade filosófica. Foi justamente a partir da apreciação crítica de ambas as atividades que o filósofo elaborou a ideia de uma metafísica regulada pelos fatos, isto é, de alguma maneira controlada pela experiência. Ao que tudo indica, Bergson quis liberar a metafísica do ‘campo cerrado da dialética pura’, tornando-a uma disciplina positiva, tal como as demais ciências. Com efeito, as hipóteses sustentadas no âmbito da teoria da memória não foram aventadas especulativamente e afirmadas dogmaticamente; foram, ao contrário, conclusões obtidas com base na crítica e na reinterpretação dos resultados da pesquisa científica, mais exatamente, da psicologia empírica. Neste sentido, a teoria de Bergson é, ao mesmo tempo, avanço teórico e correção das concepções anteriores, na medida em que tais hipóteses metafísicas passam a orientar a leitura dos dados empíricos. É desta perspectiva que se pretende analisar a teoria da memória, a fim de compreender a relação entre ciência e metafísica como uma simbiose epistêmica. (shrink)

Emile Durkheim and Henri Bergson, two of the most important thinkers of early 20th-century France, give us different accounts of the relationship between habits, society and life. The article focuses on their use of embodied metaphors to illustrate how each thinker conceives of habit as a force of life. It argues that Durkheim uses the metaphor of ‘lifting’ to describe how social life creates habits capable of transcending bodily instinct. Bergson also recognizes the force of habits; he uses the language (...) of leaping to describe the kind of action required to transcend them. The article makes three claims. First, it argues that these metaphors are central to each thinker’s understanding of the means by which habits attach us to life. Second, they offer a means of revisiting, and explicating, Bergson’s tacit critique of Durkheim in his Two Sources of Morality and Religion. Third, they both symbolize processes of conversion that inform each thinker’s diagnosis of the moral challenges faced in modern social life. (shrink)

Este texto tem como objetivo descrever aspectos da filosofia moral de Bergson em sua relação direta com a renovação de metafísica estabelecida pelo filósofo. Mais explicitamente, buscamos elucidar como a biologia compreensiva de A Evolução Criadora funda a análise da moralidade na obra As Duas Fontes da Moral e da Religião, ao delinearmos as variáveis teóricas que se mobilizam na elaboração da noção de todo da obrigação. Nossa hipótese mais geral defende que a incorporação de avanços das ciências sociais no (...) início do século XX é a etapa prevista e definitiva de uma filosofia que se relacionou intimamente com os avanços das ciências naturais, especificamente as biológicas, configurando também um programa de diálogo com ciências eminentemente humanas. (shrink)

Examines the role of experience within Adorno’s philosophy of language and epistemology.

RESUMO: O objetivo deste artigo é tomar a crítica de Durkheim ao epifenomenismo em psicologia para demonstrar o modo pelo qual sua sociologia mobiliza questões e problemas característicos da filosofia francesa de finais do século XIX. Primeiramente, descreveremos o recurso de Durkheim a teses advindas da filosofia, visando a apontar as insuficiências da psicofisiologia na definição da vida psíquica. Nessa ocasião, apresentaremos a consonância do ponto de vista de Durkheim com as concepções de seu contemporâneo, Bergson. Em seguida, demonstraremos que (...) não se trata para Durkheim de simplesmente duplicar as teses da filosofia. A partir de uma analogia entre a consciência individual e a consciência coletiva, Durkheim tomará um pressuposto fundamental retirado da crítica filosófica ao epifenomenismo - a saber, a autonomia e a independência relativa do espírito para com seu substrato - e o estenderá à sua concepção de sociedade. Por fim, autorizados por Durkheim, que admite que o problema da gênese do coletivo a partir do individual é um problema sociologicamente insolúvel, destinado à metafísica resolver, evidenciaremos como a filosofia espiritualista, comemorada por Durkheim como prestando grandes serviços à ciência, poderia contribuir na elucidação desse problema. ABSTRACT: The purpose of this article is employing Durkheim's criticism of epiphenomenalism in psychology to demonstrate the way his sociological work mobilizes characteristic subjects and problems of the late nineteenth century French philosophy. Firstly we will describe Durkheim's approach to the philosophical thesis in order to point out the insufficiencies of the psychophysiology on the definition of psychic life. We proceed to present the consonance of Durkheim's point of view with the conceptions of his contemporary, Bergson. We are willing to demonstrate that Durkheim is not concerned with the mere reproduction of philosophical theses. After establishing an analogy between the individual and collective consciousness, Durkheim will take a fundamental assumption inspired by a philosophical critique of epiphenomenalism - namely, the autonomy and the relative independence of spirit toward his substrate - and extend it to their own conception of society. Finally, in accordance with Durkheim, who admits that the problem of the genesis of the collective from individual is a sociologically insoluble problem, and that its resolution is a metaphysical task, we intend to demonstrate how the spiritualistic philosophy, celebrated by Durkheim as providing great services to science, could contribute for the elucidation of this enigmatic process. (shrink)

Este artigo examina a concepção bergsoniana de direitos humanos [les doits de l’homme] em As Duas Fontes da Moral e da Religião. Proponho que Bergson apresenta uma visão original quanto aos direitos humanos. Mais do que entendê-los como um dispositivo para proteger os seres humanos de sérios abusos sociais, legais e políticos, Bergson os concebia como um meio de transformação pessoal. Em particular, argumento que para Bergson o verdadeiro potencial dos direitos humanos é iniciar toda a humanidade numa vida predisposta (...) ao amor e à alegria. (shrink)

This article examines Henri Bergson’s conception of human rights in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion. I claim that he provides an original view of human rights. Rather than understand human rights primarily as an institution to protect all human beings from serious social, legal, and political abuse, Bergson conceives of them as a medium of personal transformation. In particular, I argue that for him the true potential of human rights is to initiate all human beings into a way (...) of life open to love and joy. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to show that in Merleau-Ponty’s lesser known works, one can find a path leading toward a phenomenology of the body that would not risk the “ambiguity of the flesh,” as The Visible and the Invisible is often charged with, but instead would sustain the ontology of nature that one finds in the “Working Notes” added to Merleau-Ponty’s last writings. Analyzing first his concept of nature, as it was developed in his courses at the Collège (...) de France, the proposed aim of this text is to question anthropological difference by focusing on Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of the contemporary sciences, whereby the Ineinander between the physical, living, and human orders is re-founded by a new, negative concept of nature. By deconstructing classical ontology and its understanding of space, time, and objectivity, and by returning to the domain of perception, this new concept offers a novel way to reveal the advent of life in nature, its institution, and the emergence of a new corporeity in life itself. The model of Merleau-Ponty’s essential concept of institution becomes birth, and therefore the human body will no longer be interpreted as “one’s own body,” but rather will be understood, in a radically a-subjective way, as from, and based on, the participation of our perception with animality. Thereby, the concept of “ownness” becomes secondary; however, the notion of institution, established against the lexicon of consciousness and subjectivity, opens another sense of anthropological difference, one that is based only on the experiences of corporeity. (shrink)