Overview
Shows the strength and relevance of Bergson’s philosophy through systematic confrontations with phenomenology, Nietzscheism, neo-Kantianism, and dialectical thinking
Highlights faulty interpretations of followers as well as opponents of Bergsonism
Displays the critical reach and rich content of Bergsonian concepts
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book proposes a new reading of Bergsonism based on the admission that time, conceived as duration, stretches instead of passes. This swelling time is full and so excludes the negative. Yet, swelling requires some resistance, but such that it is more of a stimulant than a contrariety. The notion of élan vital fulfills this requirement: it states the immanence of life to matter, thereby deriving the swelling from an internal effort and allowing its conceptualization as self-overcoming. With self-overcoming as the inner dynamics of reality, Bergson dismisses all forms of dualism and reductionist monism because both the absence of negativity and the swelling nature of time posit a creative process yielding a qualitatively diverse world. This graded oneness is how the lower level activates intensification by turning into limitation, making possible higher levels of achievement, in particular through the union of mind and body and the integration of openness and closed sociability.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Messay Kebede is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dayton, Ohio. He has published five books and various articles dealing with African philosophy, philosophical issues of modernization, Ethiopia’s experience with social radicalism, and the philosophy of Bergson.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Bergson’s Philosophy of Self-Overcoming
Book Subtitle: Thinking without Negativity or Time as Striving
Authors: Messay Kebede
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15487-5
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-15486-8Published: 07 May 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-15487-5Published: 16 April 2019
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VII, 291
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Continental Philosophy, Metaphysics