Skip to main content

points of contact

I noticed this:
In 1878, Bergson became a French citizen, although he could have chosen English citizenship. He was accepted at the École Normale along with Jean Jaurès and Émile Durkheim. He discovered Herbert Spencer with enthusiasm, and studied under Félix Ravaisson and Jules Lachelier. - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/
Bergson is kind of the great-grandpappy of Simondon-style thinking, it would be interesting to use Spencer as a common source (or at least reference point) with Malinowski, per the analysis at The plot thickens (with Herbert Spencer).

The SEP page above also makes this point:
Many philosophers today think that [Bergson's] concept of multiplicity, despite its difficulty, is revolutionary. It is revolutionary because it opens the way to a reconception of community.
 Is it possible that Bergson's idea of multiplicity is a cousin of Malinowski's idea of phatic communion?  Something to follow up on at some point.

Comments

  1. «In phenomenology, the multiplicity of phenomena is always related to a unified consciousness. In Bergsonism, “the immediate data of consciousness” (les données immédiates de la conscience) are a multiplicity.»

    An interesting quote in connection with *communication* theories.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Another remark:

    «According to Bergson, [...] conscious representation results from the suppression of what has no interest for bodily functions and the conservation only of what does interest bodily functions.»

    That seems like the essential idea in von Uexküll.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The plot thickens (with Herbert Spencer)

In a paper attempting to outline the conceptual domain of comparative psychology , Herbert Spencer discusses the quality of impulsiveness in relation with human races (bearded and unbearded). Among his "sundry questions of interests" about the relationship between mental energy, evolution, complexity, etc. are the following notes: ( b ) What connection is there between this trait and the social state? Clearly a very explosive nature - such as that of the Bushman - is unfit for social; and, commonly, social union, when by any means established, checks impulsiveness. ( c ) What respective shares in checking impulsiveness are taken by the feelings which the social state fosters - such as the fear of surrounding individuals, the instinct of sociality , the desire to accumulate property, the sympathetic feelings , the sentiment of justice? These, which require a social environment for their development, all of them involve imaginations of consequences more or less distant; and th...

Vitruvius Pollio, The origin of the dwelling house

 Chapter 1 of Book II of "Ten Books on Architecture", available from Project Gutenberg .  Sections 1, 2, and 7 (from the Richard Schofield translation published by Penguin rather than the one here) are quoted on pp. 218-219 of Spheres II by Peter Sloterdijk.  Pay particular attention to Section 2. 1. The men of old were born like the wild beasts, in woods, caves, and groves, and lived on savage fare. As time went on, the thickly crowded trees in a certain place, tossed by storms and winds, and rubbing their branches against one another, caught fire, and so the inhabitants of the place were put to flight, being terrified by the furious flame. After it subsided, they drew near, and observing that they were very comfortable standing before the warm fire, they put on logs and, while thus keeping it alive, brought up other people to it, showing them by signs how much comfort they got from it. In that gathering of men, at a time when utterance of sound was purely individual,...