Henri Bergson: Evolution,time and philosophy

Evolutionary theory is hindered by the conflict between the apparently antagonistic principles of its two founding figures, Darwin and Lamarck. Bergson's Creative Evolution outlines the means of transcending this impasse. If the evolutionary process is conceived as enduring then the atomistic model of static genetic states is never fully realisable. In the light of this, Bergson considers the germ‐plasm to be essentially “fluid.” If there is to be influence on the germ‐line it will be primarily in terms of the manner in which the genetic data is unfolded. In order to designate this influence Bergson introduces the concept of the “tendency.” The tendency will be explicated in relation to contemporary evolutionary biology. However, as the concept signifies that which is given only in the duration in which information is elaborated, it is precluded from representation. Bergson demonstrates that it is the evolutionary principle of continuous transformation which constitutes the limit to any scientific of view. For this reason, science needs to be complemented by a philosophical account of the duration of process.     

Bergson and the holographic theory of mind

Bergson’s model of time (1889) is perhaps the proto-phenomenological theory. It is part of a larger model of mind (1896) which can be seen in modern light as describing the brain as supporting a modulated wave within a holographic field, specifying the external image of the world, and wherein subject and object are differentiated not in terms of space, but of time. Bergson’s very concrete model is developed and deepened with Gibson’s ecological model of perception. It is applied to the problems of consciousness, direct realism, qualia and illusions. The model implies an entirely different basis for memory and cognition, and a brief overview is given for the basis of direct memory, compositionality and systematicity.     

Bergson and Athleticism

The work of Henri Bergson has gone almost completely unnoticed in philosophy of sport literature. This in no way indicates the level of relevance his programme may carry for the subject. Many of the entrenched debates that have historically helped to shape the field are mirrored by Bergson's own concerns regarding perception and skill acquisition. As such, a thorough study of how the Bergsonian programme might approach the topic of athletic action is in no wise an idle pursuit – in fact, very much the opposite. My intention in this paper is twofold: first, to indicate the natural commerce that exists between Bergson's philosophy and the philosophy of sport; second, and perhaps more ambitiously, to demonstrate that his approach to perception and action not only anticipates, but in some cases may help to edify, certain unresolved issues within the field. The paper develops in three parts. In part I, I provide a brief summary of Bergson's theory of perception as it is developed in Matter and Memory (1896). Parts II and III will apply that theory to two of the central aspects of human motor activity: in part II, I investigate what it is to be in possession of skilled motor behaviour – to make that behaviour ‘automatic’, as it were; in part III, the controversial subject of what it is to acquire and modify skilled motor behaviour will be examined.     

Sartre and Bergson: A Disagreement about Nothingness

Abstract

Henri Bergson's philosophy, which Sartre studied as a student, had a profound but largely neglected influence on his thinking. In this paper I focus on the new light that recognition of this influence throws on Sartre's central argument about the relationship between negation and nothingness in his Being and Nothingness. Sartre's argument is in part a response to Bergson's dismissive, eliminativist account of nothingness in Creative Evolution (1907): the objections to the concept of nothingness with which Sartre engages are precisely those raised by Bergson. Even if Sartre's account of nothingness in its entirety is found to be flawed, I argue that the points he makes specifically against Bergson are powerful.

My discussion concludes with a brief examination of the wider philosophical background to Sartre's and Bergson's discussion of nothingness: here I point to some important aspects of Sartre's early philosophy, including some features of his conception of nothingness, that may testify to Bergson's positive influence on his thought.     

Inheritance,Originality and the Will: Bergson and Heidegger on Creation

Abstract

In the work of Henri Bergson and Martin Heidegger we find different responses to traditional ideas of ‘creation’. Bergson advances a philosophy of creation, wherein ‘creation’ is presented as the production of a ‘radical’ or ‘absolute’ novelty, not only in art, but in all forms of human experience and biological life. Heidegger, in contrast, comes to criticise ideas of ‘creation’ in art as the expression of an alienated ‘humanism’ and ‘subjectivism’ essential to the modern age. This paper illuminates this divergence by showing how Bergson and Heidegger, despite appearances, grapple with the question of art-production – and with the attendant issues of inheritance and originality – in similar ways. It is only in recognising this proximity, I argue, that it is possible to perceive adequately what essentially distinguishes their approaches: Bergson’s conception of creation as a function of the will.     

Sense data and logical relations: Karin Costelloe-Stephen and Russell’s critique of Bergson

ABSTRACT

Though scholarship has explored Karin Costelloe-Stephen’s contributions to the history of psychoanalysis, as well as her relations to the Bloomsbury Group, her philosophical work has been almost completely ignored. This paper will examine her debate with Bertrand Russell over his criticism of Bergson. Costelloe-Stephen had employed the terminology of early analytic philosophy in presenting a number of arguments in defence of Bergson’s views. Costelloe-Stephen would object, among other things, to Russell’s use of an experiment which, as she points out, was first conducted by Carl Stumpf. Russell appeals to Stumpf's experiment in his attempt to prove that sense data are terms in logical relations, a thesis presupposed by the project of logical analysis outlined in Our Knowledge of the External World. A reformulated version of Costelloe-Stephen's argument put forth by this paper shows that Russell's argument fails to provide adequate proof for his thesis. Further modifications of the argument can also address a reconstruction (based on contemporary reports) of Russell's reply to Costelloe-Stephen. In his reply, Russell would use, already in 1914, the term ‘analytic philosophy’ in contrasting his and Moore’s approach to a continental one, exemplified by Bergson and Costelloe-Stephen.     

Habit and persistence

Voluntary behaviors (operants) can come in two varieties: Goal-directed actions, which are emitted based on the remembered value of the reinforcer, and habits, which are evoked by antecedent cues and performed without the reinforcer's value in active memory. The two are perhaps most clearly distinguished with the reinforcer-devaluation test: Goal-directed actions are suppressed when the reinforcer is separately devalued and responding is tested in extinction, and habitual behaviors are not. But what is the function of habit learning? Habits are often thought to be strong and unusually persistent. The present selective review examines this idea by asking whether habits identified by the reinforcer-devaluation test are more resistant to extinction, resistant to the effects of other contingency change, vulnerable to relapse, resistant to the weakening effects of context change, or permanently in place once they are learned. Surprisingly little evidence supports the idea that habits are permanent or more persistent. Habits are more context-specific than goal-directed actions are. Methods that make behavior persistent do not necessarily work by encouraging habit. The function of habit learning may not be to make a behavior strong or more persistent but to make it automatic and efficient in a particular context.     

大学生习惯性负性自我思维与自尊的相关研究

采用实验法和测验法,让186名大学生完成内隐联想测验、SES量表和习惯性负性自我思维量表,探讨了中国文化背景下大学生习惯性负性自我思维与自尊的关系。结果发现:1)大学生有强烈的内隐自尊;2)内隐、外显自尊是相对独立的;3)习惯性负性自我思维存在显著性别差异;内隐、外显自尊及ZIAT-ZSES性别差异不显著;4)男大学生习惯性负性自我思维与外显自尊存在显著负相关,女大学生相关不显著;习惯性负性自我思维与内隐自尊及ZIAT-ZSES相关不显著。     

Time for action versus action in time: time estimation differs between motor preparation and execution

Theories relating to time perception and motor performance predict very different temporal distortions depending on the synchronisation or succession of temporal processing and motor behaviour. However, our knowledge about the temporal difference between motor preparation and execution is still scarce. In order to expand on prior studies, two different time reproduction tasks were utilised to measure motor preparation and motor execution. We found that motor preparation of a planned action allows participants to complete the time reproduction task more accurately and, in short duration trials, less variably than for motor execution. Furthermore, under-reproduction was found in motor preparation compared to motor execution, which may be caused by increased temporal information processing. According to the attentional gate theory, more attention allocated to time processing and reduced motor distraction leads to less temporal distortion in the motor preparation. The findings are also important for designing to study consciousness, temporal and visual processing.     

The intersubjective responsibility of durational trauma: Contributions of Bergson and Levinas to the philosophy of trauma

Continental Philosophy Review - In public discourse trauma is predominantly framed as an overwhelming event undergone by the individual. In this article I first provide a brief genealogy to trace...     

Pierre Hadot on Habit,Reason, and Spiritual Exercises

This essay is a reappraisal of Pierre Hadot's concept of spiritual exercises in response to recent criticisms of his work. The author argues that contrary to the claims of his critics, Hadot articulates a compelling argument that spiritual exercises that employ imaginative, rhetorical, and cognitive techniques are both necessary for and successful at producing a subject in which reason is integrated into human character. Such exercises are critical for overcoming the effects of habit, as a result of which everyday conduct resists rational control, and Hadot provides a nuanced account of how particular practices affect different aspects of emotion, behavior, and thought. The concept of spiritual exercises remains a viable component of theoretical frameworks for the study of religious ethics, though the author concludes that Hadot's position on habit and its role in ethical practice requires further investigation.     

The memory of another past: Bergson,Deleuze and a new theory of time

Through the philosophies of Bergson and Deleuze, my paper explores a different theory of time. I reconstitute Deleuze’s paradoxes of the past in Difference and Repetition and Bergsonism to reveal a theory of time in which the relation between past and present is one of coexistence rather than succession. The theory of memory implied here is a non-representational one. To elaborate this theory, I ask: what is the role of the “virtual image” in Bergson’s Matter and Memory? Far from representing the simple afterimage of a present perception, the “virtual image” carries multiple senses. Contracting the immediate past for the present, or expanding virtually to hold the whole of memory (and even the whole of the universe), the virtual image can form a bridge between the present and the non-representational past. This non-representational account of memory sheds light not only on the structure of time for Bergson, but also on his concepts of pure memory and virtuality. The rereading of memory also opens the way for Bergsonian intuition to play an intersubjective role; intuition becomes a means for navigating the resonances and dissonances that can be felt between different rhythms of becoming or planes of memory, which constitute different subjects.     

Correlation between inspection time and psychometric abilities: A personal interpretation

More than 25 years of research suggests that the measure inspection time (IT) does capture low-level aspects of cognitive functioning that contribute to human intelligence. However, recent evidence does not support earlier claims that IT estimates the speed of a single mechanism like “sampling input” or “apprehension.” Rather, together with other tasks that employ pattern backward masking to limit the duration for which information is available for processing, IT is probably sensitive both to focused attentional capacities to detect organization and change under severe time constraints and to decision processes, ongoing beyond mask onset, that monitor responding. Among normal young adults, IT is correlated with the broad psychometric factor Gs (“speediness”). This mediates correlation with general intelligence. In this group, IT is not correlated with Gf. However, whether this outcome generalizes to samples of persons with an intellectual disability, to young children, or to elderly persons is not yet known. Psychological processes underpinning IT are currently only speculatively defined, but it should prove possible to unravel these by experimentation. To this end, backward masking procedures are arguably more theoretically tractable than reaction time tasks because they reduce the impact of higher-level cognitive strategies on performance. On this basis, IT may hold promise as a means for developing partial explanations for intelligence in psychological terms. However, whether this is realized depends on identifying the psychological functions that support IT.     

Meta-analysis of the relationship between intelligence and inspection time

This study replicated and extended Kranzler and Jensen's [Intelligence 13 (1989) 329] meta-analysis of the relationship between inspection time (IT) and intelligence (IQ). Separate meta-analyses were conducted on obtained correlations (r's) between IT and general IQ for the total sample and for studies using samples of adults and children. Two new meta-analyses were also conducted. The first compared the IT–IQ r between visual and auditory IT; the second compared the r between strategy users and nonusers. For the total sample (N>4100), the r was −.51 after correction for artifactual effects (−.30 prior to correction). No statistically significant difference was observed between the mean corrected r of −.51 for adults and −.44 for children. The mean corrected r for visual and auditory IT measures were −.49 and −.58, respectively, suggesting that the relationship between IT and IQ is comparable across type of IT task. The mean corrected r of −.77 for strategy nonusers was statistically significantly higher than the r of −.60 for strategy users. Implications of these findings for future research are discussed.     

Impure temporalities in the history of political philosophy: the historiography of dēmokratia in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain

ABSTRACT

Building on Bernard Williams’ thesis about the intertwining of history and political philosophy, the essay explores how the problem of the history of dēmokratia after the late-eighteenth and over the nineteenth-century in Britain constituted a primary and critical field in which the philosophical meaning of democracy was debated. Configuring a new temporal perspective grounded in the relationship between ancient and modern democracy, historiographical works by John Gillies, William Mitford, and George Grote put forth an understanding of the concept as a battlefield, involving several conflicting meanings, narratives and historical forces. This historiographical tradition highlighted the tensions underpinning the definition of democracy in the long-term temporal frame linking antiquity and modernity. So even more than contemporary philosophical and political writings, historical understanding constituted a unique concept of democracy that both concentrated and dispersed meaning; it was not just one vision of democracy, among others, but one that acquired the paradoxical power to forge some semantic stability and coherence over time, and to accentuate the threat of the concept’s break up into distinct political premises and historical moments that constituted it.     

Relationships between three auditory inspection time tasks and processing speed

This study investigated the relationship between a spatial auditory inspection time task and previous versions of AIT, as well as the relationships of these tasks with visual inspection time (VIT) and general speediness (Gs). A total of 96 university undergraduates (age mean (M) = 20.0 years, standard deviation (SD) = 4.0 years) completed three AIT tasks, VIT, auditory reaction time (ART) and visual reaction time (VRT), and two Gs marker tests. Auditory inspection time‐spatial (AIT‐S) did not relate to VIT, but it did relate to the Gs marker tests. It also loaded moderately on a Gs factor along with VIT. Neither of the alternate AIT tasks showed any consistent relationships to reaction time (RT) or Gs measures. The AIT‐S task did, however, share substantial variance with its predecessors, suggesting that performance on all AIT tasks relies to some extent on similar processes. Further research is required to determine the nature of these processes.     

Habit reversal as a treatment for chronic skin picking in typically developing adult male siblings.

In this study, habit reversal was evaluated as a treatment for skin picking in typically developing adult male siblings using a nonconcurrent multiple baseline across participants design. Results showed socially valid decreases in reported picking as a result of treatment.