Matter and memory
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~110,000 words · 525 passages
Cite this work
- APAHenri Bergson. (n.d.). Matter and memory. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/henri-bergson/matter-and-memory
- MLAHenri Bergson. "Matter and memory." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/henri-bergson/matter-and-memory.
- ChicagoHenri Bergson. Matter and memory. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/henri-bergson/matter-and-memory.
What it is about
Bergson's attempt, in 1896, to settle the relation between body and mind by going through one concrete case: memory.
Context and history
The French title is 'Matière et mémoire'. The strategy is shrewd: instead of arguing in the abstract about whether mind is material, Bergson takes the phenomenon where the problem can be touched with a finger, and distinguishes two kinds of memory that are usually run together. One is habit — knowing a lesson by heart, which is a disposition of the body; the other is the recollection of a single dated moment, which is not stored in the brain like a file. Hence his thesis that the brain does not contain memories but selects them for present action. The image of the inverted cone, in which the whole past contracts towards the point of the present, is among the most quoted in modern philosophy.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
'CO Xibran? of philosophy EDITED BY J. H. MUIRHEAD, LL.D. SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. " Though it can hardly be claimed that Bergson has completely solved the extra ordinary complex and difficult problem of memory and least of all the mystery of matter, it may be admitted ungrudg ingly that he has clarified the obscurities of the former problem to a considerable extent, and has, above all, rendered great service by the masterly way in which he points out the insuperable difficulties of the materi alistic position. . . . This excellent trans lation." — The Quest. " Of M. Bergson's three works the pre sent is that whuh appeals most to the educator because of the excellent treatment of the very practical subjects of memory and attention. We do not look for a final decision of such problems as art here dealt wtth, but no one can rise from reading this book and retain unchanged the vieu's with which he began it. To say this of a book of psychometaphysics is to say much." — Journal of Education. "As in the case of the former volume the translator of this second volume has the author's assistance and approval, and the author has also written for it a new Introduction, superseding that which ac companies the original work. In this volume, also, the translators have given a number of useful marginal summaries and a copious index." — Westminster Review. By the same Author, uniform with this volume, 10s. 6d. net. TIME AND FREE WILL: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.