Bergson's Scientific Metaphysics

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.

Yasushi Hirai is Professor in the Faculty of Letters at Keio University, Japan.

List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction, Yasushi Hirai (Fukuoka University, Japan) Part 1. Memory and Mind 1. A Secret Connection Between the Dualities Actual/Virtual, and Intelligence/Intuition in Bergson's Metaphysics, Paul-Antoine Miquel (Toulouse 2 University, France) 2. Bergson and the Rise of 'the Sciences of Memory', Takeshi Miyake (Kagawa University, Japan) 3. Bergson's Dualism Today, Joël Dolbeault (no affiliation) 4. Memory and History. Rereading Bergson from Ricoeur, Masato Goda (Meiji University, Japan) 5. "A Long-Accepted Foreigner, To Whom One Grants Refuge For a While": On Riquier's Interpretation of Bergson's Kantianism, Hisashi Fujita (Kyushu Sangkyo University, Japan) Part 2. Perception and Embodiment 6. Bergson, Gibson and the Image of the External World, Stephen E. Robbins (no affiliation) 7. Bergson and Ecological Psychology: Memory of the Body and of the Universe, Tetsuya Kono (Rikkyo University, Japan) 8. Defining Philosophy and Cognitive Psychology: Bergson and Bruner, Sébastien Miravète (Toulouse 2 University, France) 9. What Is The 'Thickness' Of The Present? Bergson's Dual Perception System and The Ontology of Time, Yasushi Hirai (Fukuoka University, Japan) 10. Affordance and Bergson, Tatsuya Higaki (Osaka University, Japan) Part 3. Time and Duration 11. Neutral Monism, Temporal Experience and Time: Analytic Perspectives on Bergson, Barry Dainton (Liverpool University, UK) 12. What Arranges Memories In a Line? Takahiro Isashiki (Nihon University, Japan) 13. Coexistence and the Flow of Time, Elie During (University Paris Nanterre, France) 14. Connection and Disconnection of Perception and Memory: Déjà vu, Bayesian and Inverse Bayesian Inference, Pegio-Yukio Gunji (Waseda University, Japan) 15. The Extensionalist View and Bergson's Notion of Contraction, Ryusuke, Okajima (Keio University, Japan) 16. We Bergsonians: The Kyoto Manifesto, Elie During and Paul-Antoine Miquel (University Paris Nanterre and University of Toulouse, France) Index