Henri Bergson

[DLaurent]

how long are they?

Time and Free Will is a 70 page essay. The other one less than 300 pages. I'll try to read them tonight.

 

[luka]

let us know what you find out then

 

[HannahB]

Thanks for posting on him - too busy to read now but will - interested in his film theory, also on time

 

[HannahB]

SEP would probably be better than Wikipedia, if you're not going to read the books.

Henri Bergson (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

plato.stanford.edu

😳he has the same birthday as Sufi!

 

[version]

It has been alleged that Bergson's knowledge of physics was insufficient and that the book did not follow up contemporary developments on physics. On the contrary, in "Einstein and the Crisis of Reason", a leading French philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, accused Einstein of failing to grasp Bergson's argument. This argument, Merleau-Ponty says, which concerns not the physics of special relativity but its philosophical foundations, addresses paradoxes caused by popular interpretations and misconceptions about the theory, including Einstein's own

this chimes with my sense of science being basically bad philosophy.

Virilio talks about this in The Administration of Fear. He says science and philosophy need to be brought back together and explicitly cites that meeting between Einstein and Bergson as a missed opportunity,

'In fact, in the early 20th century, the question of the relationship between philosophy and science became frayed: a misunderstanding occurred between two leading thinkers. The intellectual encounter between Henri Bergson, the theorist of duration, and Albert Einstein, the inventor of relativity, did not work. The two thinkers, both Jewish, both geniuses, were not able to understand each other when they met in Paris. Bergson did not interpret relativity in the same way as Einstein: he understood it from the perspective of the feeling of immediacy and the experience of time, not from the perspective of physics. Neither as special relativity, with the question of the respective position of two observers placed in situations of relative movement, nor from the point of view of the curve of space-time in general relativity. For me, this is the domination of the military-industrial complex: it is all the more frightening for political philosophy today because this philosophy has not thought about speed or speed articulated in space.

[...]

The source of the misunderstanding between Bergson and Einstein was mainly the fact that the philosopher was talking about "vif" [vivid, lively] and the physicist was talking about "vite" [quick] and "vide" [vacuum] which have scientific validity but lead people to be anxious about life, towards doubt and the relativity of life. It was a space-time that had until then escaped immediate consciousness; temporal compression crushed the euphoria of progress. Phenomenology, which could be hastily described as the science of phenomena as they are perceived by the consciousness, was caught short... '

 

[version]

The title of that book's a Graham Greene reference, btw.

 

[luka]

Καὶ εἴ τις δὲ τὴν φύσίν ἔροιτο τίνος ἔνεκα ποίεῐ
εἰ τοῡ ἐρωτῶντος ἐθέλοι ἐπαΐειν καὶ λέγειν, εἴποι
ἄν "ἐχρῆν μὲν μὴ ἐρωτἂν, ἀλλὰ συνιέναι καὶ αὐτὸν
σιωπῇ, ὤσπερ ἐγὼ σιωπώ καὶ οὐκ εἴθισμαι λέγειν."
PLOTINUS

 

[luka]

my general feeling is that there is no idea in philosophy you havent already come up with yourself while stoned.

 

[DLaurent]

I have eureka moments with philosophers, not reading too much, the last one was Wilhelm Reich but that soon passed as do most others.

 

[catalog]

my general feeling is that there is no idea in philosophy you havent already come up with yourself while stoned.

I agree with this but the trouble is in then trying to articulate it. You can see it but you can't bring it back.

 

[luka]

that is why it is useful to have what now seems to be referred to as a 'writing practice.'

 

[catalog]

You mean like woops and his morning pages? Yeah probably. So it becomes muscle memory.

 

[version]

my general feeling is that there is no idea in philosophy you havent already come up with yourself while stoned.

Yeah, but they put effort into pursuing it.

 

[luka]

Yeah, but they put effort into pursuing it.

what do you mean?

 

[DLaurent]

Errol Morris

"that if you want to believe some things, then we often find a way to do so, regardless of evidence to the contrary.^

Though I think he has also said something along the lines of comparing philosophy to 'beating each other up with ideas', but worded better than that.

 

[HannahB]

“…For me, this is the domination of the military-industrial complex: it is all the more frightening for political philosophy today because this philosophy has not thought about speed or speed articulated in space.”

What does this mean?
And what is Bergson’s time?

 

[luka]

we dont know Hannah, sorry. Unfortunately none of us have read him.

 

[linebaugh]

“…For me, this is the domination of the military-industrial complex: it is all the more frightening for political philosophy today because this philosophy has not thought about speed or speed articulated in space.”

What does this mean?
And what is Bergson’s time?

is that pure war?

 

[luka]

You mean like woops and his morning pages? Yeah probably. So it becomes muscle memory.

not so much that, but the act of always coming back to the page and trying to articulate the things you cant articulate.

 

[catalog]

Sort of same as version is saying in a sense. Just keep at it.