Bergson's Scientific Metaphysics - by Yasushi Hirai

Book Synopsis

This volume brings Bergson's key ideas from Matter and Memory into dialogue with contemporary themes on memory and time in science, across analytic and continental philosophy. Focusing specifically on the application of Bergson's ideas to cognitive science, the circuit between perception and memory receives full explication in 15 different essays.

By re-reading Bergson through a cognitive lens, the essays provide a series of alternative analytic interpretations to the standard continental approach to Bergson's oeuvre, without fully discounting either approach. The relevance of philosophies of mind and memory sit alongside the role of a metaphysics of time in exploring connections to psychology, biology, and physics. This eclecticism includes an exciting focus on numerous topics that are not given sufficient attention in extant studies of Bergson, including the precise nature of his ideas on dualism, memory, and ecological theories of perception, especially in relation to his contemporaries. Led by leading Bergson scholars from France and Japan, this book maps the rich terrain of Bergson's contemporary relevance alongside the historical context of his ideas.

Review Quotes

"With Bergson's Scientific Metaphysics, not only do we have an essential text in the ongoing return to Bergson, but an exhaustive analysis that puts Matter and Memory back where it should be - at the heart of the most important debates in the metaphysics of time and the philosophy of mind. " --John Ó Maoilearca, Professor of Philosophy, Kingston University, UK

"Through its 16 chapters, Bergson's Scientific Metaphysics shows how Bergson's thought, and in particular his difficult Matter and Memory, remain relevant to contemporary cognitive science. Bergson's Scientific Metaphysics confirms Bergson's claims that science reaches the absolute. Bergson himself would have been very proud of this book." --Leonard Lawlor, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy, Penn State University, USA

"This volume gathers important contributions by a large team of renowned international scholars to a renewed, contemporary understanding of Bergson's metaphysics of time and memory. It offers a variety of new perspectives on the real issues and problems, while persistent misunderstandings are cleared away. A crucial text for Bergson studies." --Mark Sinclair, Lecturer in Philosophy, Queen's University Belfast, UK

"Yasushi Hirai is a sharp and authoritative reader of Bergson's work. He has curated an enormously valuable collection of writings on Matter and Memory, rightly placing the attention on its fruitfulness in the most current reflections on memory and perception. A source of inspiration for all trying to think in duration." --Caterina Zanfi, Researcher and President of the Society of Friends of Bergson, Scientific Research National Centre, France

About the Author