For 15 years, Henri Bergson, the most important French philosopher of the early 20th-century, taught at the Collège de France. Speaking without notes, most of his classes are now lost to history, but records of a handful of courses fortuitously survived thanks to stenographic transcripts. Conveying Bergson’s very voice, these extraordinary documents are finally presented here in English. The 1904–1905 lectures are dedicated to the topic of freedom, or as Bergson put it, “the evolution of the problem of freedom.” Building on the philosophy of freedom from his first book, Time and Free Will, he proposes that freedom is not only a fundamental human experience but characteristic of all life as such. By retracing how ancient and modern philosophers have dealt with the delicate question of freedom, Bergson demonstrates the necessity, and also the radically new character, of his own theory of freedom. Bergson’s lectures are a feast for many audiences. For philosophers, they give a fuller picture of his thought and contain deep reflections on many core topics in philosophy today, from the nature of time to the difference between brain and mind, the relation between memory and perception, and the vindication of freedom over determinism. For intellectual historians, the lectures are a treasure trove: as a slice of the living thought of a great thinker; as an extended analysis of the natural and human sciences of his day; and as a rich commentary on the history of ancient and modern philosophy. Finally, for cultural historians and literary scholars, the lectures were the cultural capital of Belle Époque France, consumed by elites and a vast educated public. They are also part of an exceedingly rare genre in modern philosophy: spoken, not written, lectures and expressed as a veritable stream of philosophical consciousness that is remarkably structured and analytically lucid.

Matter and Memory is a book of cognitive philosophy by Henri Bergson which discusses the classic problem of how the human mind and its memories are related to the spirit. Bergson uses the phenomena of memory to construct arguments in favor of the spirit's existence. The various types of memory, and how they are related to the physical world, are discussed. Bergson analyses how memories are formed, what bearing they have on the world, and how they ultimately come to constitute their possessor's innate spirit. This book was originally written by Bergson in response to an essay by Th odule Ribot, who held that all memory could be traced back to the brain's nervous system. Thus, the essence of human memory could be reduced to mere matter, rather than containing a higher, spiritual element. Bergson fervently disagreed with this opinion, and strove to write this thesis as a counter to the notion that the spirit can be reduced to only molecular activity.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

Henri-Louis Bergson (1859-1941) was a major French philosopher, influential in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1901 Felix Alcan published a work which had previously appeared in the Revue de Paris, entitled Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (Le Rire), one of the most important of Bergson's minor productions. This essay on the meaning of comedy was based on a lecture which he had given in his early days in the Auvergne. The study of it is essential to an understanding of Bergson's views of life, and its passages dealing with the place of the artistic in life are valuable. A presidential address, The Meaning of the War (1915), was delivered in December, 1914, to the Acadmie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. He also won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

The Dictionary of Dreams provides the necessary tools to interpret almost every dream object and its hidden meaning to better understand what your subconscious is telling you. Now in a pocket-size edition for easy, on-the-go instruction. Dreams can be fun and adventurous, but also frightening and distorted, and still again, they can be an endless combination of both. From spitting teeth out (a sign of aging), to creepy, crawly spiders (a sign that one feels like an outsider), dreams can mean much more to us once we learn how to decipher their hidden meanings. Whether positive or negative, The Dictionary of Dreams gives you all the tools, symbols, and their true meanings to translate our cryptic nightly images. Starting with selections from classic texts like Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and 10,000 Dreams Interpreted by Gustavus Hindman Miller, one of the first authors to complete a thorough study of all the symbols that appear in our dreamscape, this updated edition features revisions (such as the addition of cell phones, computers, televisions, and more) of Miller's original interpretations to bring the book up to speed with our modern life.

A major new translation of one of the an important philosophical work of the twentieth century, presenting Bergson's masterwork to a new generation of readers This new translation improves enormously on the quality of the previous translation, the only one available since 1911 Includes a host of additional new features, many translated for the first time including a comprehensive table of contents; a translation glossary; letters and reviews by William James, Georges Canguilhelm and Gilles Deleuze; full scholarly notes to each chapter Responses by Bergson to many of these, and many of which have been translated for the first time. Translated by Donald Landes, whose translation of Phenomenology of Perception (Routledge 2011, 2013) has already achieved classic status.

For 15 years, Henri Bergson, the most important French philosopher of the early 20th-century, taught at the Collège de France. Speaking without notes, most of his classes are now lost to history, but records of a handful of courses fortuitously survived thanks to stenographic transcripts. Conveying Bergson’s very voice, these extraordinary documents are finally presented here in English. The 1904–1905 lectures are dedicated to the topic of freedom, or as Bergson put it, “the evolution of the problem of freedom.” Building on the philosophy of freedom from his first book, Time and Free Will, he proposes that freedom is not only a fundamental human experience but characteristic of all life as such. By retracing how ancient and modern philosophers have dealt with the delicate question of freedom, Bergson demonstrates the necessity, and also the radically new character, of his own theory of freedom. Bergson’s lectures are a feast for many audiences. For philosophers, they give a fuller picture of his thought and contain deep reflections on many core topics in philosophy today, from the nature of time to the difference between brain and mind, the relation between memory and perception, and the vindication of freedom over determinism. For intellectual historians, the lectures are a treasure trove: as a slice of the living thought of a great thinker; as an extended analysis of the natural and human sciences of his day; and as a rich commentary on the history of ancient and modern philosophy. Finally, for cultural historians and literary scholars, the lectures were the cultural capital of Belle Époque France, consumed by elites and a vast educated public. They are also part of an exceedingly rare genre in modern philosophy: spoken, not written, lectures and expressed as a veritable stream of philosophical consciousness that is remarkably structured and analytically lucid.