Bergson's Scientific Metaphysics: Matter and Memory Today

by Yasushi Hirai (Editor)

Overview

This volume brings Bergson's key ideas from Matter and Memory into dialogue with contemporary themes on memory and time in science, across analytic and continental philosophy. Focusing specifically on the application of Bergson's ideas to cognitive science, the circuit between perception and memory receives full explication in 15 different essays.

By re-reading Bergson through a cognitive lens, the essays provide a series of alternative analytic interpretations to the standard continental approach to Bergson's oeuvre, without fully discounting either approach. The relevance of philosophies of mind and memory sit alongside the role of a metaphysics of time in exploring connections to psychology, biology, and physics. This eclecticism includes an exciting focus on numerous topics that are not given sufficient attention in extant studies of Bergson, including the precise nature of his ideas on dualism, memory, and ecological theories of perception, especially in relation to his contemporaries. Led by leading Bergson scholars from France and Japan, this book maps the rich terrain of Bergson's contemporary relevance alongside the historical context of his ideas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350341975
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/18/2023
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Yasushi Hirai is Professor in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Fukuoka, Japan.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations

Introduction, Yasushi Hirai (Fukuoka University, Japan)

Part 1. Memory and Mind
1. A Secret Connection Between the Dualities Actual/Virtual, and Intelligence/Intuition in Bergson's Metaphysics, Paul-Antoine Miquel (Toulouse 2 University, France)
2. Bergson and the Rise of 'the Sciences of Memory', Takeshi Miyake (Kagawa University, Japan)
3. Bergson's Dualism Today, Joël Dolbeault (no affiliation)
4. Memory and History. Rereading Bergson from Ricoeur, Masato Goda (Meiji University, Japan)
5. “A Long-Accepted Foreigner, To Whom One Grants Refuge For a While”: On Riquier's Interpretation of Bergson's Kantianism, Hisashi Fujita (Kyushu Sangkyo University, Japan)

Part 2. Perception and Embodiment
6. Bergson, Gibson and the Image of the External World, Stephen E. Robbins (no affiliation)
7. Bergson and Ecological Psychology: Memory of the Body and of the Universe, Tetsuya Kono (Rikkyo University, Japan)
8. Defining Philosophy and Cognitive Psychology: Bergson and Bruner, Sébastien Miravète (Toulouse 2 University, France)
9. What Is The 'Thickness' Of The Present? Bergson's Dual Perception System and The Ontology of Time, Yasushi Hirai (Fukuoka University, Japan)
10. Affordance and Bergson, Tatsuya Higaki (Osaka University, Japan)

Part 3. Time and Duration
11. Neutral Monism, Temporal Experience and Time: Analytic Perspectives on Bergson, Barry Dainton (Liverpool University, UK)
12. What Arranges Memories In a Line? Takahiro Isashiki (Nihon University, Japan)
13. Coexistence and the Flow of Time, Elie During (University Paris Nanterre, France)
14. Connection and Disconnection of Perception and Memory: Déjà vu, Bayesian and Inverse Bayesian Inference, Pegio-Yukio Gunji (Waseda University, Japan)
15. The Extensionalist View and Bergson's Notion of Contraction, Ryusuke, Okajima (Keio University, Japan)
16. We Bergsonians: The Kyoto Manifesto, Elie During and Paul-Antoine Miquel (University Paris Nanterre and University of Toulouse, France)
Index

Editorial Reviews

With Bergson's Scientific Metaphysics, not only do we have an essential text in the ongoing returban to Bergson, but an exhaustive analysis that puts Matter and Memory back where it should be – at the heart of the most important debates in the metaphysics of time and the philosophy of mind.” —John Ó Maoilearca, Professor of Philosophy, Kingston University, UK

“Through its 16 chapters, Bergson's Scientific Metaphysics shows how Bergson's thought, and in particular his difficult Matter and Memory, remain relevant to contemporary cognitive science. Bergson's Scientific Metaphysics confirms Bergson's claims that science reaches the absolute. Bergson himself would have been very proud of this book.” —Leonard Lawlor, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy, Penn State University, USA

“This volume gathers important contributions by a large team of renowned international scholars to a renewed, contemporary understanding of Bergson's metaphysics of time and memory. It offers a variety of new perspectives on the real issues and problems, while persistent misunderstandings are cleared away. A crucial text for Bergson studies.” —Mark Sinclair, Lecturer in Philosophy, Queen's University Belfast, UK

“Yasushi Hirai is a sharp and authoritative reader of Bergson's work. He has curated an enormously valuable collection of writings on Matter and Memory, rightly placing the attention on its fruitfulness in the most current reflections on memory and perception. A source of inspiration for all trying to think in duration.” —Caterina Zanfi, Researcher and President of the Society of Friends of Bergson, Scientific Research National Centre, France

From the Publisher