Creative Evolution - Couverture souple

Bergson, Henri

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1512316547 ISBN 13 : 9781512316544

Editeur : CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015

Synopsis

Creative Evolution (French: L'Évolution créatrice) is a 1907 book by French philosopher Henri Bergson. Its English translation appeared in 1911. The book proposed a version of orthogenesis in place of Darwin's mechanism of evolution, suggesting that evolution is motivated by an élan vital, a "vital impetus" that can also be understood as humanity's natural creative impulse. The book was very popular in the early decades of the twentieth century. The book also developed concepts of time (offered in Bergson's earlier work) which significantly influenced modernist writers and thinkers such as Marcel Proust and Thomas Mann. For example, Bergson's term "duration" refers to a more individual, subjective experience of time, as opposed to mathematical, objectively measurable "clock time." In Creative Evolution, Bergson suggests that the experience of time as "duration" can best be understood through intuition. Harvard philosopher William James intended to write the introduction to the English translation of the book, but died in 1910 prior to its completion. The history of the evolution of life, incomplete as it yet is, already reveals to us how the intellect has been formed, by an uninterrupted progress, along a line which ascends through the vertebrate series up to man. It shows us in the faculty of understanding an appendage of the faculty of acting, a more and more precise, more and more complex and supple adaptation of the consciousness of living beings to the conditions of existence that are made for them.

A propos du livre

From the Back Cover :

Anticipating not only modern scientific theories of psychology but also those of cosmology, this astonishing book sets out a impressive goal for itself: to reconcile human biology with a theory of consciousness. First published in France in 1907, and translated into English in 1911, this work of wonder was esteemed at the time in scientific circles and in the popular culture alike for its profound explorations of perception and memory and its surprising conclusions about the nature and value of art.

Contending that intuition is deeper than intellect and that the real consequence of evolution is a mental freedom to grow, to change, to seek and create novelty, Bergson reinvigorated the theory of evolution by refusing to see it as merely mechanistic. His expansion on Darwin remains one of the most original and important philosophical arguments for a scientific inquiry still under fire today.

About the Author :

Bergson won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1927.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Date d'édition: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1512316547
• ISBN 13: 9781512316544
• Reliure: Paperback
• Nombre de pages: 274