The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics (Dover Books on Western Philosophy)

Read 51 years ago; just wanted to read again...

Bergsen had to be a philosopher. He is obsessed with how to make a science out pf philosophy (the study of everything). Since I am a scientist trying to educate myself, the book was chosen because he stated his concepts in a relatively modern way. He bloviates though. But if you don't get the case for the import of intuition in your life, you will live in a swamp of scientific facts the rest of it. The book isn't as dry as you first think. The study of everything has come a long way since Aristotle and Plato.

Henri-Louis Bergson (1859-1941) was a French philosopher, who was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature. His other works include 'Creative Evolution,'  Matter and Memory , Time and Free Will , etc.He wrote in the Preface, “This collection comprises first of all, two introductory essays written especially for it, and consequently heretofore unpublished. They make up a third of the volume. The rest are articles of lectures, mostly out of print, which appeared in France or other countries. Taken as a whole, they date from the period between 1903 and 1923. They bear mainly upon the method I believe should be recommended to the philosopher. To go back to the origin of this method, to trace the direction it impresses upon research, is the particular object of the two essays which make up the introduction.”He states, “It makes little difference to me whether one says ‘Everything is mechanism’ or ‘Everything is will’; in either case everything is identical. In both cases, ‘mechanism’ and ‘will’ become synonyms of ‘being’ and consequently synonyms of each other. Therein lies the initial vice of philosophical systems. They think they are telling us something about the absolute by giving it a name. But once again the word can have a definite meaning when it designates a thing; it loses that meaning as soon as you apply it to all things… When finally the word arrives at the point where it designates everything that exists, it means no more than existence. What advantage is there then in saying that the world is will, instead of simply saying that it is?” (Pg. 49)He says, “If we pass now to the complete general idea, I mean conscious, reflected, created with intention, we shall find most often at its base this automatic extraction of resemblances which is the essential of generalization. In one sense, nothing resembles anything, since all objects are different. In another sense, everything resembles everything, since one will always find, by climbing high enough on the ladder of generalities, some artificial genus into which two different objects taken at random can go. But between impossible generalization and useless generalization there is another which is called forth in a prefiguration by the tendencies, habits, gestures and attitudes, the complexes of movements automatically accomplished or sketched, which are at the origin of most human general ideas.” (Pg. 54-55)He argues, “I believe that the great metaphysical problems are in general badly stated, and that they frequently resolve themselves of their own accord when correctly stated, or else are problems formulated in terms of illusion which disappear as soon as the terms of illusion which disappear as soon as the terms of the formula are more closely examined… I would say that there are pseudo-problems, and that they are the agonizing problems of metaphysics. I reduce them two. The first false problem consists in asking oneself why there is being, why something or someone exists. The nature of what is is of little importance; say that it is matter, or mind, or both, or that matter and mind are not self-sufficient and manifest a transcendent Cause: in any case, when existences and causes are brought into consideration and the causes of these causes, one feels as if pressed into a race---if one calls a halt, it is to avoid dizziness. But just the same one sees, or thinks one sees, that the difficulty still exists, that the problem is still there and will never be solved. It will never, in fact, be solved, but it should never have been raised. It arises only if one posits a nothingness which supposedly precedes being… ‘Nothing’ is a term in ordinary language which can only have meaning in the sphere, proper to man, of action and fabrication.” (Pg. 96-97)He points out, “no two moments are identical in a conscious being. Take for example the simplest feeling, suppose it to be constant, absorb the whole personality in it: the consciousness which will accompany this feeling will not be able to remain identical with itself for two consecutive moments, since the following moment always contains, over and above the preceding one, the memory the latter has left it. A consciousness which had two identical moments would be a consciousness without memory. It would therefore die and be re-born continually. How otherwise can unconsciousness be described?” (Pg. 164)At the end of the book, he summarizes his general principles, including: “I. There is an external reality which is given immediately to our mind… II. This reality is mobility. There do not exist THINGS made, but only things in the making, not STATES that remain fixed, but only states in the process of change… III. Our mind … substitutes for the continuous the discontinuous, for mobility stability, for the tendency in process of change it substitutes fixed points which mark a direction of change and tendency… IV. The difficulties inherent in metaphysics… are due in large part to the fact that we apply the disinterested knowledge of the real the procedures we use currently with practical utility as the aim… fixed concepts can be extracted by our thought from the mobile reality; but there is no means whatever of reconstituting with the fixity of concepts the mobility of the real… V…. The demonstrations … of the relativity of our knowledge … assume… that all knowledge must necessarily start from rigidly defined concepts in order to grasp by their means the flowing reality… VI. … To philosophize means to reverse the normal direction of the workings of thought…VII… one of the objects of metaphysics is to operate differentiations and qualitative integrations… VIII. … Relative is the symbolic knowledge which establishes itself in the moving reality and adopts the life itself of things. This intuition attains the absolute…. IX. That there are not two different ways of knowing things thoroughly, that the various sciences have their roots in metaphysics, is what the philosophers of antiquity, in general, believed.” (Pg. 189-192)This is one of Bergson’s major works, and will be of great interest to anyone studying his philosophy.

This collection of philosophy is a decent (but perhaps somewhat outdated in some mind-matter concepts) introduction to Metaphysics. In general it is a valuable source and interesting read. It shows us the eternal change, or flux, of reality. Constant creativity, or, eternity. If movement isn't everything, it is nothing. This is a book about Duration. He sees time as only that which prevents everything from happening at once. But the broader perspective of this book is noteworthy. Philosophy needs precision and the genuine search for truth which is held by science. Without scientific precision, we preoccupy ourselves with false, unanswerable questions. And he goes over some of these, and by resolving them shows such things as it is absurd to suppose that disorder logically or chronologically precedes order. He sees science and philosophy as capable of being complementary."Science and metaphysics will differ in object and method, but will commune in experience." It seems that the precision is needed to actually arrive at answers to our questions as opposed to giving birth to even more new questions. His works are against the widespread solely dialectic philosophizing which applies its facts to all other areas outside of its investigation. The difference between metaphysics and science will be, namely, that whereas science relies on analysis metaphysics will use Intuition. He holds them as definitely two distinct arts, but both of equal value and both capable of reaching the bottom of reality. He makes a big claim: that he rejects the accepted consensus of the relativity of knowledge and our inability to reach absolutes. Between the two fields of precise knowledge, he places moral, social, and even organic life. This should be a well appreciated book to the philosopher of any level. The philosopher neither obeys nor commands, but seeks to be one with nature.

I haven't read this work in a while, though I read it many times at various points in my adult life. It does, however, stand out for me as the most difficult subject that Philosophy has yet to answer. Or, can it be answered, is probably closer to the point. This is the problem of what we call Intuition. For Bergson, Intuition is a definite, cognative thing. While it might not reflect modern thinking on the mind-brain as a bio-mechanism, this does not mean that it is wrong. In fact, it might well be better to ask is the current view wrong because Bergson doesn't fit within it?Bergson is set apart from most of his French counterparts like Sartre because his philosphy tends to go after niche subjects, such as Time, Laughter, and Intuition. Issues that rarely get attention by "serious" Philosophy. His works have been discredited by Bertrand Russell only to see a rennaisance of sorts in view of the darkness left by Russell and his logically minded cronies.This specific book is probably an interesting starting point for Bergson. It allows the reader to ask questions along the way. Since these are lectures, there is a broad latitude given to the subject at hand. Metaphysics is not a subject that anyone has successfully defined, unless its by negation, so I will not endeavor to explain it. But, the clear area that Bergson seems to wish to cover is that Intuition is not some primal instinct nor is it a superstition, but rather a complex function of the mind.