Bergson Structuraliste – Atelier autour du livre de Sébastien Miravete – 27 mars 2024 – Zoom 9h-13h

L’atelier aura lieu le mercredi 27 mars 2024
9h-13h CET (17h-21h JST)
Lien zoom : https://shorturl.at/fltzO

Elie DURING, Hisashi FUJITA, Yasushi HIRAI, Kazunori KONDO, Sébastien Miravete
Kazunori KONDO, Sébastien MIRAVETE, Takuya NAGANO

Cet atelier est soutenu par la JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for
Scientific Research(C) (Hisashi Fujita, 22K00022) et en collaboration
amicale avec le SAB.

Recension: Getting Bergson Straight. The Contributions of Intuition – P. A. Y. Gunter

Clara Zimmermann

Getting Bergson Straight (2023, Vernon Press), the last book published by Pete. A. Y. Gunter (who sadly passed away in March 2024), intends to dismantle the most pervasive misinterpretations of Bergson’s thought. The image of Bergson as an “anti-intellectual”, or even an “anti-scientific” thinker, who attacked both intelligence and science while reducing rational thinking to mere feeling and instinct, relies on the miscomprehension of one of the most difficult but yet central concepts within Bergson’s philosophy, namely, intuition. If Bergson often criticized a particular use of our intellect, it does not follow —as Gunter rightly points out— that he condemned reason or intellect itself. Furthermore, intuition cannot do without the use of intellect, since the latter is a necessary condition of the former: “both of attaining it and, once attaining it, of expressing it” (p. 15). Intuition also reveals the “profound tension” at the center of Bergson’s thought, between the flux of duration, the dynamic side of reality—that which science cannot grasp—and the less dynamic side, which can only be apprehended by intellect: i.e., space. Since intuition participates in duration, it introduces creativity into its contrary, by giving birth to new possibilities and modes of thought; conversely, creativity is only able to express itself through the resistance and the limits imposed by matter and space (p. 16).

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Atelier Bergson – 21 mars 2024 – Bergson and new theories of temporality (Zoom 13h-15h30)

Yasushi Hirai (Keio University): Tense or Aspect: Reframing the Bergson-McTaggart Debate on Time

This presentation aims to provide a systematic organization of the concept of aspect, which characterizes Bergson’s philosophy of time. While McTaggart’s argument, representing tense-based philosophies of time, assumes seriality from the outset (specifically, a total order satisfying both antisymmetry and completeness), Bergson’s argument, starting with the imperfective aspect, establishes the internal temporal constitution of an event (Comrie) and treats series as a subsequent construction. Building on early interpretations by linguists who read Bergson from the perspective of aspect, this presentation proposes the introduction of a third aspect, the perfective aspect, as a crucial element alongside the more commonly recognized imperfective and perfect aspects. The perfective aspect contributes to the local unitization of time. By re-reading Bergson as an attempt to grasp the flow of time from the local perspective of aspect, it is shown that the paradoxes of time inherent in McTaggart’s theory can be avoided, and the flow of time can be understood independently of seriality.

Barry Dainton (University of Liverpool) : How to Live Forever

I will be focusing on a forthcoming (Analytic Philosophy) paper “Experience and Time: A Metaphysical Approach” by David Builes and Michele Odisseas Impagnatiello (henceforth B&OI). In their prizewinning paper B&OI develop an intriguing new line of argument relating to the nature of temporal experience. According to extensionalists our temporal experience is extended over brief intervals of time, in much the way it seems to be. The argument developed by B&OI puts the extensionalist in the awkward position of having to accept that their current stream of consciousness had no beginning – and hence that their life is infinitely long. Finding this result objectionable, the “metaphysical approach” defended by B&OI is a full-blooded version of retentionalism, according to which seemingly dynamic experience exists in durationless episodes of consciousness. Since Bergson would (probably) incline more to the extensional view than the instantaneous alternative the line of reasoning developed by B&OI will obviously be of interest to Bergsonians.

Modération : Anna Kuszmiruk (Nicolaus Copernicus University) 

Organisation de l’atelier : Caterina Zanfi et Mathilde Tahar

Dans le cadre de l’IRN CNRS « Un chapitre dans l’histoire globale de la philosophie : nouvelles perspectives sur le bergsonisme » 

Zoom Linkhttps://cnrs.zoom.us/j/95096060568?pwd=ek43aEpvYmFocGFOejlqc0tKdkd2UT09

Meeting ID: 950 9606 0568
mot de passe: hqxn4

 

 

Pete A. Y. Gunter (1936-2024)

 

It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of Pete A. Y. Gunter, a respected scholar renowned for his work on the philosophy of Henri Bergson. In 1969, he became the founding chairperson of the Department of Philosophy at North Texas State University, where he was professor until 2010.

His profound insights into Bergson’s philosophy, spanning over five decades, illuminated the intricate connections between Bergson’s ideas, process philosophy, and their implications for natural science and environmental thought.

His works, including his capital Bergson bibliography (1974 and 1986), “Bergson and the Evolution of Physics” (1969), “Bergson and Modern Thought” (1987), and “Getting Bergson Straight” (2023), will leave a lasting impact on the academic community and Bergson studies.
We extend our condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.

Atelier Bergson – 6 février 2024 – Bergson et la science contemporaine (ENS, salle Pasteur & Zoom 15h-18h)

 

Sylvain Billiard (Université de Lille) : L’Evolution : créatrice de la morale et de la religion ?

Je présenterai une tentative de croisement de certaines propositions de Bergson dans “L’Evolution Créatrice” et “Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion” avec ce que la biologie contemporaine dit de notions telles que la morale, la religion, la société ou le tabou. Dès 1960-1970, certains biologistes de l’évolution, généticiens, neurobiologistes ou éthologues ont étudié de manière systématique des phénomènes présentant des similitudes avec ces notions traditionnellement laissées aux sciences humaines et sociales. Je proposerai que ces recherches sont une extension de la méthode proposée par Bergson dans les “Deux sources” pour retrouver le naturel en l’Homme. J’insisterai notamment sur ce qui, à mon sens, est l’objet principal des “Deux Sources” : le mouvement incessant entre ‘individus’ et ‘sociétés’. Je présenterai quelques études contemporaines montrant comment évoluent ‘individus’ et ‘sociétés’ chez d’autres espèces. Je terminerai en mettant en regard l’état des recherches en biologie aujourd’hui et les intuitions et propositions de Bergson dans les “Deux sources” et l'”Evolution Créatrice ».


David Robbe (INSERM): Y a-t-il des horloges dans le cerveau? Revisiter l’approche neuroscientifique de la perception du temps avec Bergson

Dans le monde des neurosciences, il est largement accepté que les êtres humains et certaines autres espèces animales dites intelligentes sont capables de mesurer le passage du temps de manière purement interne, à l’aide de “représentations neuronales” du temps. Au cours de mon intervention, je présenterai des données expérimentales qui semblent contredire cette vision du temps comme information traitée par le cerveau. J’essaierai d’établir que ces données, souvent ignorées ou dédaignées par les neuroscientifiques, sont en fait en parfait accord avec les idées développées par Bergson dans son premier livre sur le temps et l’espace et comment ses réflexions peuvent nous permettre d’envisager une sortie des métaphores du cerveau-ordinateur, ou de l’homme neuronal.

Voir l’article de David Robbe: “Lost in time: Relocating the perception of duration outside the brain” ici

Modération : Mathilde Tahar (Université de Lille) & Pierre-Henri Gouyon (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle)

Organisation de l’atelier : Caterina Zanfi et Mathilde Tahar

Dans le cadre de l’IRN CNRS « Un chapitre dans l’histoire globale de la philosophie : nouvelles perspectives sur le bergsonisme » 

Zoom Linkhttps://cnrs.zoom.us/j/95096060568?pwd=ek43aEpvYmFocGFOejlqc0tKdkd2UT09

Meeting ID: 950 9606 0568
mot de passe: hqxn4

 

Recension: Expressões da Vida, as Natureza e Cultura na Filosofia de Bergson – Bruno Rates

Caterina Zanfi – ENS-Paris/CNRS

La distinction occidentale moderne entre nature et culture traverse, dans sa longue durée, la plupart des débats qui ont défini la philosophie européenne du début du vingtième siècle. Bruno Rates a reconnu les déclinaisons qu’a pris ce vaste débat dans l’œuvre de Bergson, et il a fait de la dualité nature/culture le fil rouge de son essai, qui observe toutes les subtiles métamorphoses que ce thème traverse dans la pensée de Bergson. Pour considérer ce débat, il a fallu prendre en compte des questions apparemment éloignées, comme le partage entre science et métaphysique (ou, comme on le disait dans l’Allemagne de l’époque, entre Naturwissenschaften et Geisteswissenschaften), l’articulation entre la dimension humaine et la dimension de la nature, la distinction de l’inné et de l’acquis en biologie, le statut de l’habitude, le rôle de la technique, du langage et des institutions sociales dans l’hominisation, l’épistémologie de l’histoire, et encore l’ancienne tension franco-allemande autour des deux concepts de Kultur et Zivilisation, qui explose de nouveau pendant la guerre de 1914-1918, et qui ne sont que des parties du grand débat autour de la « naturalité » de la nature, et de la « culturalité » de la culture, que Bergson contribue à repenser profondément, et qui connait dans la philosophie d’aujourd’hui une nouvelle – et peut-être ultime – phase de radicale redéfinition.

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Colloque international – Le clos et l’ouvert. Bergson, l’Afrique et le monde contemporain (Université de Yaoundé 1 et Zoom, 11-12 et 18-19 janvier 2024)

 

Les études africaines et africana sur Bergson ont guidé et enrichi depuis longtemps la réflexion sur les questions morales, humaines, religieuses, postcoloniales, épistémologiques, etc., à partir des travaux respectifs de Léopold S. Senghor, Ebénézer Njoh Mouelle, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Nadia Yala Kisukidi, Emile Kenmogne, etc., et ont développé des traditions d’études et d’écoles au Sénégal, au Cameroun, en Côte d’Ivoire, en République Démocratique du Congo, entre autres. Ces traditions nous offrent aujourd’hui des outils et des références précieux pour refléchir aux thèmes qui seront au cœur de notre rencontre, à partir d’une conscience profonde des itinéraires du bergsonisme en Afrique.

Barthélémy Toguo, Take a Green Breath, 2017

Programme :

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Recension: Bergson’s Philosophy of Biology. Virtuality, Tendency and Time – Tano Posteraro

Mathilde Tahar

Tano S. Posteraro est déjà un chercheur reconnu, à la fois pour ses contributions sur la philosophie bergsonienne de la biologie, et pour ses réflexions sur la philosophie du vivant. C’est pourquoi la parution de son ouvrage était très attendu dans les cercles bergsoniens comme auprès des historiens et philosophes de la biologie – et notamment par l’autrice de cette recension. Cet ouvrage vient en effet faire la synthèse des idées les plus saillantes de Posteraro, et permet d’appréhender de façon plus globale et systématique la portée des idées qu’il avait déjà diffusées à travers conférences et articles.

Bergson's Philosophy of Biology

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Atelier Bergson – Bergson et Sorel

La prochaine séance de l’Atelier Bergson aura lieu sur Zoom le 24 mai 2023 de 13h à 15h30 (CET)

Georges Sorel — Wikipédia

La dernière séance du cycle 2023 de l’Atelier Bergson se concentre autour des renvois entre les œuvres d’Henri Bergson et de Georges Sorel (1847-1922). Lecteur original de Proudhon, Marx et Vico, inspirateur du syndicalisme révolutionnaire, auteur d’un long et important commentaire à L’Evolution créatrice en 1908, Sorel inspira Benjamin, Hulme et d’autres intellectuels du début du vingtième siècle par ses théories du mythe et de la violence, qu’il élabora en dialogue avec la philosophie bergsonienne. 

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Atelier Bergson — Bergson et l’éducation

La prochaine séance de l’Atelier Bergson aura lieu sur Zoom le 12 avril 2023 de 14h à 16h30 (CET)

Lien Zoom : https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/95096060568?pwd=ek43aEpvYmFocGFOejlqc0tKdkd2UT09

Meeting ID: 950 9606 0568
mot de passe: hqxn4

Mélanie Weill (chercheuse indépendante) : Life and education: the influence of bergsonism on Montessori pedagogy

In the aftermath of the First World War, a great movement aiming to reform education took place in Europe, called “new” or “alternative” or “active” education. The new educators questioned the authoritarian way teachers related to their students in the 19th century, defended children’s rights, and renewed the notions of what it is to learn and to teach. Reading the works of medical doctor and pedagogue Maria Montessori, I noticed the repeated presence of bergsonian vocabulary. In the introduction of The formation of man (1949), an overview of her life’s work, the major figure of New Education places Bergson’s most famous concept at the heart of her pedagogy, stating that “Our first teacher will be (…) theélan vital”. In this talk I will defend the idea that a lot of aspects of New Education can be seen as practical applications of Bergson’s philosophy. 

Liselott-Mariett Olsson (Associate Professor in Pedagogy, Malmö University) : Becoming Pedagogue: Bergson and the Aesthetics of Early Childhood Education and Care

Throughout the history of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), aesthetics has played a prominent role, and it has been practically and theoretically treated as concerning the relation between matter and mind in a non-dualistic and integrated way. However, in the contemporary educational situation the aesthetic dimension is neglected, and the components of the relation are no longer “held together” (Olsson 2023). A certain kind of “abstract formalism” (Løvlie 2007), expressed not the least in ever-growing “neuromania” (Vandenbroeck et al. 2017) and “standards and accountability movements” (Taubman 2009) in ECEC, has taken over the discourse on education, obliterating the aesthetic dimension and relation as well as pedagogical practices and theories connected to these.

To address this, some decisive parts of Bergson’s major work Matter and Memory (1896/1991) are of value and use, not the least the critique of epiphenomenalism and parallelism in neuroscientific explanations of the human mind, as well as the critical and creative account of the relation between matter and mind herein displayed. Bergson approaches the problem by showing how the dualism between mind and matter becomes settled when space is allowed to intervene and through perception produce a distance and a division between mind and matter – between “our mind” and “our body” (including our material brain) as well as between “our mind” and “things”. This spatialized vision is due to how perception is directed towards action that pragmatically and reductively deforms matter. This, however, is not the only or even the true nature of matter and the quest that Bergson begins with this book concerns therefore to restore to matter (including our own body and its brain) its “ultimate reality”[1] (Worms 2013:112, my translation). The main thesis is double: “the critique of space is extended to the perception of matter, leading to a metaphysics of duration, that in turn is extended to the reality of matter[2] (Worms 2013a:113, my translation).

In this presentation I will further explore this thesis and its potential synergies with the aesthetics of ECEC by proceeding through three movements: 1) critically identifying abstract formalism as a badly stated problem in ECEC, 2) making an inventory of some pedagogical-aesthetical practices and theories in ECEC, and 3) suggesting some creative and contemporary contributions for how to practically and theoretically re-activate aesthetics in ECEC.

REFERENCES:

Bergson, H. (1896/1991) Matter and Memory. New York: Zone Books.

Løvlie, L. (2007) The pedagogy of place, Nordisk Pedagogik, 27 (1), 32-36. https://doi.org/10.18261/ISSN1891-5949-2007-01-03

Olsson, L. M. (2023) Becoming Pedagogue – Bergson and the Aesthetics, Ethics and Politics of Early Childhood Education and Care. London & New York: Routledge.

Taubman, P. M. (2009). Teaching by numbers: Deconstructing the discourse of standards and accountability in education. New York: Routledge.

Vandenbroeck. M., DeVos J., Fias, W., Olsson, L. M., Penn, H., Wastell, D., and White, S. (2017) Constructions of neuroscience in early childhood education. London: Routledge.

Worms, F. (2013 2e éd.) Bergson ou les deux sens de la vie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.


[1] réalité ultime 

[2] la critique de l’espace, étendue à la perception de la matière, conduit à une métaphysique de la durée, elle-même étendue à la réalité de la matière

Chair : Maria Adriana Camargo Cappello (Universidade Federal do Paraná)

Atelier Bergson — Bergson et la philosophie analytique

La prochaine séance de l’Atelier Bergson aura lieu sur Zoom le 28 mars 2023 de 14h à 16h30 (CET)

Lien Zoom : https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/95096060568?pwd=ek43aEpvYmFocGFOejlqc0tKdkd2UT09

Meeting ID: 950 9606 0568
mot de passe: hqxn4

Matyas Moravec (University of St. Andrews) — Analytic Bergsonism

The aim of my talk will be to discuss the prospects for a new philosophical movement entitled “Analytic Bergsonism.” I will do so by exploring the possibility of translating the thought of Bergson into the language of analytic philosophy.
Recent years have seen a heightened interest in the philosophy of Bergson (traditionally classified as a “continental” thinker due to the style of his writings and his later influence on the likes of Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, or Deleuze) from analytic philosophers. Bergson turns up in analytic discussions of temporal experience, biology, free will, or the philosophy of religion. This process is similar to the way in which the thought of Thomas Aquinas was taken up by analytic philosophers of religion, who have translated his thought from the language of scholastic metaphysics into the style of 20th-century analytic philosophy. This eventually crystallised into a movement now commonly known as “Analytical Thomism.” Naturally, the thought suggests itself: Can something like this be done with Bergson? As a matter of fact, the “Kyoto Manifesto” of Bergsonism published in 2020 explicitly encourages philosophers to take seriously the idea of a “philosophically clean-shaven analytic Bergson.”
My talk will proceed in three steps:

  • 1. In the first step, I will explore “Analytic Appropriations”—attempts by analytic thinkers to translate the philosophical systems of historical figures into the language and style of contemporary analytic philosophy. Examples will include the “rational reconstruction” of Spinoza by Jonathan Bennett, Humeanism in the philosophy of science, or the influence that Kant exerts on debates about constructivism in ethics.
  • 2. In the second step, I will focus on one specific case of such an appropriation: Analytical Thomism. I will discuss the benefits and pitfalls of converting sections of Aquinas’ metaphysical system into the argumentative structures and style of analytic philosophy.
  • 3. In the third step, I will explore whether Analytic Thomism could provide a feasible methodological blueprint for Analytic Bergsonism. I will do so by asking three questions: (i) Can Analytic Bergsonism be generated? (ii) If it can, what would it be? (ii) If it cannot, why not? I will argue that the style of analytic philosophy is both the reason why an analytic translation can be done in the case of Aquinas but not in the case of Bergson. This is because in the case of Aquinas, analytic philosophers start with theological (that is, extra-philosophical) doctrinal commitments to orthodoxy (e.g., the existence of God, the Incarnation, etc.) and then clarify those using the methodology and style of analytic philosophy. I will propose that in the case of Bergson, it is both hard to see what these “doctrinal” presuppositions would be and that Bergson’s philosophical style is not easily separable from the content of his philosophy and replaceable by the style in which analytic philosophy is usually conducted.

Thomas Bourdier (Université Bordeaux-Montaigne) — What does it mean that the past still exists? Bergson and the growing-block theory of time

That the past still exists is a familiar thesis for Bergson’s readers. In the field of “analytic bergsonism”, this claim naturally leads to a cautious rapprochement with the so called “growing block theory of time” (Broad, Tooley, Forrest and many others). However, it is doubtful that Bergson would endorse such a theory as it is. Firstly, the very name of the “growing block theory” seems to imply some misunderstanding concerning the nature of time because representation of the universe as a block of spacetime (even growing) is a mere representation and not an adequate description of reality, at least from a bergsonian point of view. Secondly, the growing block theory faces a famous “epistemic” objection (Braddon-Mitchell) which sounds very strange and off-topic regarding Bergson’s approach. Moreover, this approach itself is not clear and deserves some explanations.
In this communication, I propose to elucidate the survival of the past as Bergson seems to understand it in contrast with the growing block theory of time. I proceed as follows : (1) I present the growing-block theory of time and try to emphasize the limits of this theory from a bergsonian point of view ; this leads (2) to an attempt of exegesis of Matter and memory (chapter III) concerning the existence of the personal past, mainly in trying to conciliate the two pictures of qualitative multiplicity (where the past is in the present) and of the cone memory (where my present is the extreme point of my past) ; finally (3), I propose a more speculative reconstruction of “cosmic memory” (memory of the Universe as a whole) and of the survival of the past in an ontological sense (not only psychological) of which we have no detailed account from Bergson. In conclusion, I emphasize the contrast between growing block and bergsonian theories of time.

 

 

Appel à communications : Réunion africaine du projet sur le bergsonisme global — 11-12 et 18-19 Janvier 2024 — Université de Yaoundé 1 et Zoom

Barthélémy Toguo, Take a Green Breath, 2017

Colloque international: Le clos et l’ouvert. Bergson, l’Afrique et le monde contemporain (Université de Yaoundé 1 et Zoom)

11-12 et 18-19 Janvier 2024

Il est proposé, pour la rencontre de 2023 sur le bergsonisme dans l’histoire globale de la philosophie, piloté par l’Afrique à partir du Cameroun, de tenter d’utiliser une grille conceptuelle bergsonienne d’interprétation de l’évolution des affaires humaines centrée sur les concepts de « société ouverte » et de « société close ». La mondialisation, non pas comme ouverture, mais paradoxalement comme avènement d’un « village planétaire » d’une part et, d’autre part, l’apparition de nouvelles formes de revendications identitaires se fondant sur les principes de liberté, de respect des droits des êtres humains, tout autant que sur les grandes avancées dans la recherche scientifique et technologique, peuvent-elles être interprétées et comprises par référence en particulier aux concepts bergsoniens de « société ouverte » et de « société close », sans oublier celui d’un évolutionnisme par création d’imprévisibles nouveautés ?

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