Bruno Rates, University of São Paulo-USP, Brazil / Société des Amis de Bergson

Penser l’Évolution. Nietzsche, Bergson, Dewey (Thinking Evolution. Nietzsche, Bergson, Dewey), released in December 2019 by the prestigious publisher Vrin, is one of the latest contributions in French about the impact of evolutionism on philosophy. In addition to the extensive bibliography on the subject, the book, coordinated by Antoine Daratos and Paul Walter (both from Université Libre de Bruxelles), consists of nine articles and is divided into three sections, each dedicated to the thinkers present in the title. A short introduction is also offered to the readers, operating as a guide that aims, in addition to presenting the chapters, to demonstrate the novelty and pertinence in putting together names as distinct as Nietzsche, Bergson and Dewey vis-à-vis the multiple issues raised by evolutionism. According to Daratos and Walter, “the three authors, far from limiting themselves with importing the results of biology to philosophy, consider the question of evolution as a major strategic challenge for philosophy, as a trampoline that allows them to rethink both the object of philosophy as well as its concepts and methods” (p.9). It is from this thesis that we move to a bigger problem, since, from a broader point of view, the book intends to participate in the debate about the relation between philosophy and science, that, at the passage from the 19th to the 20th century, oscillates more or less between two poles (and what follows is on my behalf): philosophy as a rational justification or appendix of science (from philosophia ancilla theologiae to philosophia ancilla scientiae), or as an irreducible domain (whether ontological, metaphysical, logical, axiological, “experienced/lived”, etc.) immune to the discoveries that come from positive data. Recognizing the essential condition of the hypothesis of the evolution of life, Nietzsche, Bergson and Dewey, each in their own way, overcame such an oscillation by showing that it is “possible for philosophy to fully consider the results of the positive sciences while preserving its independence and speculative character” (p. 9). In this review, I will first describe the nine articles of the book and then concentrate on an overall critical analysis. It goes without saying that, despite my critiques, the book represents an important contribution to the topic it aims to explore.
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