Morality in Evolution: The Moral Philosophy of Henri Bergson

ISBN-13: 9789401700344 / Angielski / Miękka / 1970 / 112 str.

Idella J. Gallagher

Opis

Les Deux Sources de la Morale et de la Religion is not a book to leave one indifferent. Those who are persuaded by its argument or inspired by its message are prone to manifest the same enthusiasm as Georges Cattaui who praised it as one of the greatest and wisest books conceived by philo sophers. Even those who take exception to the doctrine it expounds are impelled to acknowledge its significance. It was in his critique of Les Deux Sources that Jacques Maritain was moved to call the philosophy of Henri Bergson one of the most daring and profound of our time. When many years ago I opened Les Deux Sources for the first time, I turned out of curiosity to the last page and beheld these words, "l'univers ... est une machine it faire des dieux." Bergson was an evolutionist, but surely this was no ordinary evolutionist speaking, I thought. What must be the moral philosophy of a man who would write these words? When much later I undertook the present study, it was this same question which con cerned me."

Spis treści

I. Introduction.- II. Scientific Knowledge and the Intuition of Duration.- The Intuition of Duration.- Critique of Intellect.- III. The New Philosophy.- Philosophy: The Whole of Experience.- Spirit: Subject Matter of Philosophy.- Intuition: Method of Philosophy.- IV. The Evolutionary Background of Morality.- The Elan Vital and Creative Evolution.- Intellect and Intuition in Evolution.- The Goal of Evolution — A Divine Humanity.- V. The Biological Origin of Moral Obligation.- Obligation and Social Pressure.- Morality and Freedom.- VI. Static and Dynamic Morality.- Moral Obligation and the Closed Society.- Moral Progress and the Open Society.- VII. The Rationality of Morality.- Reason and the Morality of Obligation.- Reason and the Morality of Aspiration.- VIII. The Evolution of Morality.- Moral Progress.- IX. Conclusion.- Select Bibliography.