MATTER AN D MEMORY HENRI BERGSON MEMBIR OF THE INSTITUTE PKOFE8SOR
AT THE COLLEGE DE I-RANGE Authorized Translation by NANCY MARGARET
PAUL AND W. SCOTT PALMER LONDON GEORGE ALLEN UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN
HOUSE, MUSEUM STREET, W, C. NEW YORK i THE MACMILLAN CO. FIRST
PUBLISHED January 191 1 REPRINTED January 1912, March 1913
September 1919 TRANSLATORS NOTE THIS translation of Monsieur
Bergsons Matibre et MSmoire has been made from the fifth edition of
1908, and has had the great advantage of being revised in proof by
the author. Monsieur Bergson has also written a new Introduction
for it, which supersedes that which accompanied the original work.
The translators offer their sincere thanks to the author for his
invaluable help in these matters and for many suggestions made by
him while the book was in manuscript. They beg leave to call the
readers attention to the fact that all the marginal notes are
peculiar to the English edition and that, although Mon sieur
Bergson has been good enough to revise them, he is not responsible
for their insertion or character, since they form no part of his
own plan for the book N. M. P. W. S. P. INTRODUCTION THIS book
affirms the reality of spirit and the reality of matter, and tries
to determine the rela tion of the one to the other by the study of
a defi nite example, that of memory. It is, then, frankly
dualistic. But, on the other hand, it deals with body and mind in
such a way as, we hope, to lessen greatly, if not to overcome, the
theoretical difficulties which have always beset dualism, and which
cause it, though suggested by the immediate verdict of
consciousness and adopted by common sense, to be held in small
honour among philoso phers. Thesedifficulties are due, for the most
part, to the conception, now realistic, now idealistic, which
philosophers have of matter. The aim of our first chapter is to
show that realism and idealism both go too far, that it is a
mistake to reduce matter to the perception which we have of it, a
mistake also to make of it a thing able to produce in us
perceptions, but in itself of another nature than they. Matter, in
our view, is an aggregate of images And by image we mean a certain
existence which is more than that which the idealist calls a
representation, but less than that which the realist calls a thing,
an vii VU1 INTRODUCTION existence placed half-way between the thing
and the representation This conception of matter is simply that of
common sense. It would greatly astonish a man unaware of the
specula tions of philosophy if we told him that the object before
him, which he sees and touches, exists only in his mind and for his
mind, or even, more gener ally, exists only for mind, as Berkeley
held. Such a man would always maintain that the object exists
independently of the consciousness which perceives it. But, on the
other hand, we should astonish him quite as much by telling him
that the object is entirely different from that which is perceived
in it, that it has neither the colour as cribed to it by the eye,
nor the resistance found in it by the hand. The colour, the
resistance, are, for him, in the object they are not states of our
mind they are part and parcel of an existence really independent of
our own. For common sense, then, the object exists in itself, and,
on the other hand, the object is, in itself, pictorial, as we
perceive it image it is, but a self-existing image. This isjust the
sense in which we use the word image in our first chapter. We place
ourselves at the point of view of a mind unaware of the dis putes
between philosophers, Such a mind would naturally believe that
matter exists just as it is perceived and, since it is perceived as
an image the mind would make of it, in itself, an image. In a word,
we consider matter before tibe dissocia tion which idealism and
realism have brought INTRODUCTION Ix about between its existence
and its appearance...
General
Imprint: |
Read Books
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
March 2007 |
First published: |
March 2007 |
Authors: |
Henri Bergson
|
Dimensions: |
216 x 140 x 20mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
360 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-4067-3445-4 |
Categories: |
Books >
Science & Mathematics >
Science: general issues >
General
|
LSN: |
1-4067-3445-4 |
Barcode: |
9781406734454 |
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