Books and Book Chapters by University of Dayton Faculty
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Description
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.
ISBN
978-3-030-15486-8
Publication Date
2019
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
Disciplines
Philosophy
Recommended Citation
Kebede, Messay, "Bergson’s Philosophy of Self-Overcoming" (2019). Books and Book Chapters by University of Dayton Faculty. 25.
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/books/25
Comments
The document available for download provides an abstract for each chapter. It is provided with the permission of the author and the publisher. Permission documentation is on file.