|
August 18, 2005
This looks interesting. On reflection I've mentioned the article here, where I questioned the misreading of Hegel's conception of becoming as organic self-development through time. The misreading of Hegel is standard form in 20th century French philosophy--just as it is in Anglo-American analytic philosophy. Giovanna Borradori goes along with this misreading.
I'm only noting Giovanna Borradori's, 'The Temporalization of Difference: Reflections on Deleuze's Interpretation of Bergson' here,
as I have to catch a plane to Adelaide in an hour or so. I'll address it tomorrow at home, if ADSL-2 has been connected whilst I've been away in Canberra setting up an office. Surely ten days is long enough for that?
Update: 19 August
No ADSL. The wireless modem is still being configured by Internode. And it has taken me most of the afternoon to get dial-up as an emergency stopgap. I'm not very happy about the length of time the changeover to ADSL-2 is taking to be set up.
Back to Bergson. Giovanna says:
For Bergson, tendencies, or types of temporality, cover both phenomenological and ontological functions in the following way: the phenomenological function regards the workings of memory and perception, while the ontological function derives from Bergson's vitalistic reading of the concept of evolution .... Both functions, though distinct, have a common ground in what is perhaps Bergson's firmest commitment: the commitment to the metaphysical asymmetry between time and space.
What does the metaphysical asymmetry between time and space mean?
"While space is, metaphysically speaking, homogeneous extension, time is, because of its passing character, irreducibly heterogeneous" is Giovanna's take. I reckon I will give that a miss. I have the flu this afternoon and that paragraph is just too hard to think through.
What interests me is this paragraph:
This ontological reach of tendencies is embedded in Bergson's critique of the concept of evolution. As commonly interpreted, Darwinian evolution is a process by which the individuals less fit to survive the challenges of the environment are genetically weeded out. The question regarding how the natural selection of the fittest translates into significant permanent change----a question answered, long after Darwin, by modern genetics---does not address, for Bergson, the crucial point: what kind of force is evolution? His answer is: a creative and productive power (élan vital), a power that, while not embodying a teleological end, stands in ontological contrast with the resistance of matter.
The strength of Bergson in relation to Hegel is that the latter did not conceptualize evolution as the mutation of species and natural selection.
Despite being a philosospher of process species remained fixed for Hegel. Whilst Hegel's philosophy is based on the notions of historical progress, of evolutionary development, he only sees He it clearly when it comes to people, society and history. He misses it in the organic (biological) world. This is a serious flaw Hegel's philosophy as it means that it is in human-centered and anthropocentric.
|
