Subject
Bergson's monism
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Leonard Lawlor and Valentine Moulard (Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy) on Bergson's monism:
"Because intuition in Bergson is “integral experience” (/The Creative
Mind/, p. 200), it is made up of an indefinite series of acts, which
correspond to the degrees of duration. This series of acts is why
Bergson calls intuition a method. The first act is a kind of leap, and
the idea of a leap is opposed to the idea of a re-constitution after
analysis. One should make the effort to reverse the habitual mode of
intelligence and set oneself up immediately in the duration. But then,
second, one should make the effort to dilate one's duration into a
continuous heterogeneity. Third, one should make the effort to
differentiate (as with the color orange) the extremes of this
heterogeneity. With the second and third steps, one can see a similarity
to Plato's idea of dialectic understood as collection and division. The
method resembles that of the good butcher who knows how to cut at the
articulations or the good tailor who knows how to sew pieces of cloth
together into clothes that fit. On the basis of the division into
extremes or into a duality, one can then confront our everyday
“mixtures” of the two extremes. Within the mixture, one makes a division
or “cut” into differences in kind: into matter and spirit, for instance.
Then one shows how the duality is actually a monism, how the two
extremes are “sewn” together, through memory, in the continuous
heterogeneity of duration."
Marina Grishakova
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Philosophy) on Bergson's monism:
"Because intuition in Bergson is “integral experience” (/The Creative
Mind/, p. 200), it is made up of an indefinite series of acts, which
correspond to the degrees of duration. This series of acts is why
Bergson calls intuition a method. The first act is a kind of leap, and
the idea of a leap is opposed to the idea of a re-constitution after
analysis. One should make the effort to reverse the habitual mode of
intelligence and set oneself up immediately in the duration. But then,
second, one should make the effort to dilate one's duration into a
continuous heterogeneity. Third, one should make the effort to
differentiate (as with the color orange) the extremes of this
heterogeneity. With the second and third steps, one can see a similarity
to Plato's idea of dialectic understood as collection and division. The
method resembles that of the good butcher who knows how to cut at the
articulations or the good tailor who knows how to sew pieces of cloth
together into clothes that fit. On the basis of the division into
extremes or into a duality, one can then confront our everyday
“mixtures” of the two extremes. Within the mixture, one makes a division
or “cut” into differences in kind: into matter and spirit, for instance.
Then one shows how the duality is actually a monism, how the two
extremes are “sewn” together, through memory, in the continuous
heterogeneity of duration."
Marina Grishakova
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm