Materials and Memory (Modern Western Thought Library)

Author: (French) Bergson/Chauvet
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: This series is part of the Modern Western Thought Library. It continues the legacy of translating classic Western philosophical works, providing essential resources for scholars and readers in China to understand and draw inspiration from the essence of modern Western thought. The translations strive to reflect the originality and depth of modern Western philosophical thought, emphasizing its comprehensiveness and enlightening value. In the formation of Bergson's philosophy of life, memory plays a crucial role, as it relates to whether the concept of duration is fully described. In the effort to transcend materialism and idealism, the author introduces the concept of "body" into the mind-body relationship, thereby bringing "action" into philosophy, which presents philosophy in a new form and opens new developmental pathways. While not all 20th-century philosophy is directly related to this form, most philosophical and intellectual movements cannot lack a certain genius similar to it. This book attempts to determine the relationship between the mind and the body through the study of memory. In the author's view, perception lies in separating the body from the whole of the object, which may then take action toward the relevant object. The brain merely continues perception: perception is a virtual action; the state of the brain belongs to an action that has already begun. In the course of his arguments, the author restores spatial extensibility to the body and duration to perception, thereby restoring the two constituent elements of consciousness—emotion and memory. The book examines pure memory and considers perception in its concrete form as a synthesis of pure memory and pure perception, i.e., a combination of thought and matter. The book argues that to elucidate any aspect of the relationship between the body and thought, one must eliminate or mitigate the triple opposition between spatial extensibility and non-spatial extensibility, quality and quantity, and freedom and necessity.