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    Bergson and Whitehead Some Cross-Elucid PDF

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    The document discusses similarities and differences between the philosophies of Bergson and Whitehead. It notes that they shared cultural backgrounds and interests in science, language, perception, and pragmatism. Their ideas of "creative advance" and concepts of consciousness are also quite similar. However, one key difference is in their assessments of James's interpretation of Zeno - Bergson remained committed to the continuity of duration, while Whitehead adopted the "bud theory" of experience, which allows for creativity and freedom through creation rather than just transformation. This leads to a bifurcation - either accept Whitehead's theory and see Bergson's liberty as fictional, or stick to duration and see some of Whitehead's categories as useless outside their context.

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    Bergson and Whitehead Some Cross-Elucid PDF

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    The document discusses similarities and differences between the philosophies of Bergson and Whitehead. It notes that they shared cultural backgrounds and interests in science, language, perception, and pragmatism. Their ideas of "creative advance" and concepts of consciousness are also quite similar. However, one key difference is in their assessments of James's interpretation of Zeno - Bergson remained committed to the continuity of duration, while Whitehead adopted the "bud theory" of experience, which allows for creativity and freedom through creation rather than just transformation. This leads to a bifurcation - either accept Whitehead's theory and see Bergson's liberty as fictional, or stick to duration and see some of Whitehead's categories as useless outside their context.

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    The document discusses similarities and differences between the philosophies of Bergson and Whitehead. It notes that they shared cultural backgrounds and interests in science, language, perception, and pragmatism. Their ideas of "creative advance" and concepts of consciousness are also quite similar. However, one key difference is in their assessments of James's interpretation of Zeno - Bergson remained committed to the continuity of duration, while Whitehead adopted the "bud theory" of experience, which allows for creativity and freedom through creation rather than just transformation. This leads to a bifurcation - either accept Whitehead's theory and see Bergson's liberty as fictional, or stick to duration and see some of Whitehead's categories as useless outside their context.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    47 views1 page

    Bergson and Whitehead Some Cross-Elucid PDF

    Uploaded by

    Perched Above
    The document discusses similarities and differences between the philosophies of Bergson and Whitehead. It notes that they shared cultural backgrounds and interests in science, language, perception, and pragmatism. Their ideas of "creative advance" and concepts of consciousness are also quite similar. However, one key difference is in their assessments of James's interpretation of Zeno - Bergson remained committed to the continuity of duration, while Whitehead adopted the "bud theory" of experience, which allows for creativity and freedom through creation rather than just transformation. This leads to a bifurcation - either accept Whitehead's theory and see Bergson's liberty as fictional, or stick to duration and see some of Whitehead's categories as useless outside their context.

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    Bergson and Whitehead:

    some cross-elucidations
    Weber@Chromatika.org
    11th International Whitehead Conference “Nature in Process: novel
    approaches to Science and Metaphysics”, S2,
    Universidade dos Açores, Ponta Delgada

    The proximity that exists between the respective worldviews of Whitehead and Bergson is
    often underlined. As a matter of fact, it is difficult to deny that both thinkers share the same
    cultural background, the same concern for the philosophical relevance of XXth century
    (relativistic) science and for its mathematical core, and a similar interest for common-sense,
    the limitations of language, uncommon perceptions, religiosity, Post-Darwinian
    lebensphilosophie, and pragmatism. Polymaths they most definitively were.
    The outcome of their speculations is also strikingly similar : isn’t the “creative advance”
    directly interpretable with the “élan vital” and vice-versa ? Moreover, their respective
    understanding of consciousness (“durée” vs. “sense-awareness” and “pure perception” vs.
    “subjective form of an intellectual feeling”) are clearly entangled with the psychophysical
    concepts of threshold (Herbart, 1824) and the reflex arc theory (Hall, 1832).
    In truth, every phenomenology presupposes an ontology, but sometimes one does not make
    the right ontological requirements explicit. As a matter of fact, one single puzzle remains: the
    difference of Whitehead and Bergson respective assessment of James’s late ontological
    interpretation of Zeno. Both valued greatly James’s savage creative storms (to borrow Rilke’s
    expression), but while the former adopted the bud theory of experience, the latter remained
    uncompromisingly faithful to the continuity of the “durée.” Since only the bud theory can
    arguably allow us to understand the ontological requirements of creativity and freedom
    (continuity involves transformation, meta-morphosis, of existing materials, not creation), this
    is by no means a subsidiary question. It thus seems likely that contrasting Bergson and
    Whitehead leads us at a bifurcation: either we accept the epochal theory and Bergson’s liberty
    qua creation is a fairy tale, or we stick to duration and some of the late Whitehead’s core
    categories are idiosyncrasies factually useless outside of their genetic space.

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