Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"Since the end of the last century," Walter Benjamin wrote, "philosophy has made a series of attempts to lay hold of the 'true' experience as opposed to the kind that manifests itself in the standardized, denatured life of the civilized masses. It is customary to classify these efforts under the heading of a philosophy of life. Towering above this literature is Henri Bergson's early monumental work Matter and Memory ."

Along with Husserl's Ideas and Heidegger's Being and Time , Bergson's work represents one of the great twentieth-century investigations into perception and memory, movement and time, matter and mind. Arguably Bergson's most significant book, Matter and Memory is essential to an understanding of his philosophy and its legacy.

This new edition includes an annotated bibliography prepared by Bruno Paradis.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. vii)
• Chapter I Of the Selection of Images for Conscious Presentation. What our Body Means and Does (p. 1)
• Real action and virtual action (p. 1)
• Representation (p. 8)
• Realism and Idealism (p. 14)
• The choice of images (p. 17)
• Relation between representation and action (p. 35)
• The image and reality (p. 45)
• The image and affective sensation (p. 51)
• Nature of affective sensation (p. 55)
• The image, apart from sensation (p. 59)
• Natural extension of images (p. 62)
• Pure perception (p. 69)
• Approach to the problem of matter (p. 73)
• Memory (p. 81)
• Chapter II Of the Recognition of Images. Memory and Brain (p. 86)
• The two forms of memory (p. 86)
• Movements and Recollections (p. 105)
• Recollections and movements (p. 118)
• Realization of memories (p. 145)
• Chapter III Of the Survival of Images. Memory and Mind (p. 170)
• Pure memory (p. 170)
• What the present is (p. 176)
• The unconscious (p. 181)
• Existence (p. 189)
• Relation of past and present (p. 191)
• Memory and general ideas (p. 201)
• The Association of Ideas (p. 212)
• The plane of action and the plane of dream (p. 217)
• The different planes of consciousness (p. 220)
• Attention to life (p. 225)
• Mental equilibrium (p. 227)
• The Office of the body (p. 231)
• Chapter IV The Delimiting and Fixing of Images. Perception and Matter: Soul and Body (p. 233)
• The problem of dualism (p. 233)
• Description of the Method (p. 238)
• Indivisibility of movement (p. 246)
• Real movement (p. 254)
• Perception and matter (p. 259)
• Duration and tension (p. 267)
• Extensity and extension (p. 277)
• Soul and body (p. 291)
• Summary and Conclusion (p. 299)
• Index (p. 333)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

A reissue of the original English translation of the fifth edition of Bergson's out-of-print Matiere et Memoire (Paris, 1908), this book includes an introduction that he wrote for the authorized translation. Chapter subheadings included at the top of the page in the French oeuvres as well as in previous English translation have been eliminated, and the five illustrative figures have been changed in minor details. One reason to buy this book could be the useful 12-page bibliography added by Bruno Paradis. In the new index, philosophers might regret the omission of terms such as "abstraction," "appreception," "cause," and "will," while scientists might applaud the inclusion of terms such as "auditory image," "inextension," and "place." This classic is of interest to anyone dealing with any aspect of the mind-body relation. For general and advanced readers. M. C. Morkovsky Wadhams Hall Seminary-College

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Born in Paris in 1859 of Jewish parents, Henri Bergson received his education there and subsequently taught at Angers and Clermont-Ferraud before returning to Paris. He was appointed professor of philosophy at the College de France in 1900 and elected a member of the French Academy in 1914. Bergson developed his philosophy by stressing the biological and evolutionary elements involved in thinking, reasoning, and creating. He saw the vitalistic dimension of the human species as being of the greatest importance.

Bergson's writings were acclaimed not only in France and throughout the learned world. In 1927 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. In defiance of the Nazis after their conquest of France, Bergson insisted on wearing a yellow star to show his solidarity with other French Jews.

Shortly before his death in 1941, Bergson gave up all his positions and renounced his many honors in protest against the discrimination against Jews by the Nazis and the Vichy French regime.

(Bowker Author Biography)