_''Philosophy' is a word which has been used in many ways, some wider, some narrower. I propose to use it in a very wide sense, which I will now try to explain.'_ - _ Bertrand Russell Nearly forty years since its first publication, History of Western Philosophy_ remains unchallenged as the ultimate introduction to its subject, while claiming classic status in its own right. It is the bestselling philosophy book of the twentieth century and one of the most important philosophical (...) works of all time. This compact and affordable paperback edition makes this comprehensive and brilliantly-written text readily available for a new generation of readers. As part of our commitment to Russell publishing, the delux version of this bestselling title will continue to be available. 1961: 848pp: Pb: 0-145-07854-7: £16.99. (shrink)

First published in 1946, _History of Western Philosophy_ went on to become the best-selling philosophy book of the twentieth century. A dazzlingly ambitious project, it remains unchallenged to this day as the ultimate introduction to Western philosophy. Providing a sophisticated overview of the ideas that have perplexed people from time immemorial, it is 'long on wit, intelligence and curmudgeonly scepticism', as the _New York Times_ noted, and it is this, coupled with the sheer brilliance of its scholarship, that has made (...) Russell's _History of Western Philosophy_ one of the most important philosophical works of all time. (shrink)

First published in 1946, _History of Western Philosophy_ went on to become the best-selling philosophy book of the twentieth century. A dazzlingly ambitious project, it remains unchallenged to this day as the ultimate introduction to Western philosophy. Providing a sophisticated overview of the ideas that have perplexed people from time immemorial, it is 'long on wit, intelligence and curmudgeonly scepticism', as the _New York Times_ noted, and it is this, coupled with the sheer brilliance of its scholarship, that has made (...) Russell's _History of Western Philosophy_ one of the most important philosophical works of all time. (shrink)

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) is one of the truly great philosophers of the modernist period, and there is currently a major renaissance of interest in his unduly neglected texts and ideas amongst philosophers, literary theorists, and social theorists. Creative Evolution (1907) is the text that made Bergson world-famous in his own lifetime; in it Bergson responds to the challenge presented to our habits of thought by modern evolutionary theory, and attempts to show that the theory of knowledge must have its basis (...) in a theory of life. (shrink)

"In recent years, we have grown accustomed to philosophical language that is intensely self-conscious and rhetorically thick, often tragic in tone. It is enlivening to read Bergson, who exerts so little rhetorical pressure while exacting such a substantial effort of thought.... Bergson's texts teach the reader to let go of entrenched intellectual habits and to begin to think differently—to think in time.... Too much and too little have been said about Bergson. Too much, because of the various appropriations of his (...) thought. Too little, because the work itself has not been carefully studied in recent decades."—from Thinking in Time Henri Bergson, whose philosophical works emphasized motion, time, and change, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927. His work remains influential, particularly in the realms of philosophy, cultural studies, and new media studies. In Thinking in Time, Suzanne Guerlac provides readers with the conceptual and contextual tools necessary for informed appreciation of Bergson's work. Guerlac's straightforward philosophical expositions of two Bergson texts, Time and Free Will and Matter and Memory, focus on the notions of duration and memory—concepts that are central to the philosopher's work. Thinking in Time makes plain that it is well worth learning how to read Bergson effectively: his era and our own share important concerns. Bergson's insistence on the opposition between the automatic and the voluntary and his engagement with the notions of "the living," affect, and embodiment are especially germane to discussions of electronic culture. (shrink)

All the attempts to find the justification of the privileged evolution of phenomena exclusively in the external world need to refer to the inescapable fact that we are living in such an asymmetric universe. This leads us to look for the origin of the “arrow of time” in the relationship between the subject and the world. The anthropic argument shows that the arrow of time is the condition of the possibility of emergence and maintenance of life in the universe. Moreover, (...) according to Bohr’s, Poincaré’s and Watanabe’s analysis, this agreement between the earlier-later direction of entropy increase and the past-future direction of life is the very condition of the possibility for meaningful action, representation and creation. Beyond this relationship of logical necessity between the meaning process and the arrow of time the question of their possible physical connection is explored. To answer affirmatively to this question, the meaning process is modelled as an evolving tree-like structure, called “Semantic Time”, where thermodynamic irreversibility can be shown. (shrink)

Although it may seem like a truism to assert that biology is the science that studies organisms, during the second half of the twentieth century the organism category disappeared from biological theory. Over the past decade, however, biology has begun to witness the return of the organism as a fundamental explanatory concept. There are three major causes: (a) the realization that the Modern Synthesis does not provide a fully satisfactory understanding of evolution; (b) the growing awareness of the limits of (...) reductionism in molecular biology; and (c) the renewed interest in the nature of life as a genuine scientific problem. This essay examines these recent developments and considers the new epistemological roles being played by the organism in each of them. It also reflects on what the present resurgence of the organism means for the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

Bergson's engagement with evolutionary theory was remarkably up to date with the science of his time. One century later, the scientific and social landscape is undoubtedly quite different, but some of his insights remain of critical importance for the present. This paper aims at discussing three related aspects of Bergson's philosophy of evolution and their relevance for contemporary debates: first, the stark distinction between the affirmation of the reality of change and becoming, on the one hand, and any notion of (...) progress on the other; second, the insistence on the intimate interplay between forms of knowledge and forms of life; third, his idea that machines and organisms, technology and biology, are not separate domains but, rather, stem from and answer to the same problems and needs that living beings express. Such a Bergsonian framework may prove very helpful in reassessing the implicit assumptions of several contemporary debates on the ethical and political stakes of evolution, biosciences, and technologies, as well as the increasingly problematic boundary between “biology” and “culture.”. (shrink)

The common opinion has been that evolution results in the continuing development of more complex forms of life, generally understood as more complex organisms. The arguments supporting that opinion have recently come under scrutiny and been found wanting. Nevertheless, the appearance of increasing complexity remains. So, is there some sense in which evolution does grow complexity? Artificial life simulations have consistently failed to reproduce even the appearance of increasing complexity, which poses a challenge. Simulations, as much as scientific theories, are (...) obligated at least to save the appearances! We suggest a relation between these two problems, understanding biological complexity growth and the failure to model even its appearances. We present a different understanding of that complexity which evolution grows, one that genuinely runs counter to entropy and has thus far eluded proper analysis in information-theoretic terms. This complexity is reflected best in the increase in niches within the biosystem as a whole. Past and current artificial life simulations lack the resources with which to grow niches and so to reproduce evolution’s complexity. We propose a more suitable simulation design integrating environments and organisms, allowing old niches to change and new ones to emerge. (shrink)

Cet article met l’accent sur la notion de création, entendue comme cercle vertueux dans l’œuvre de Bergson. La figure du cercle vertueux désigne un processus qui tire de soi rétrospectivement son identité à travers les événements présents. Nous montrerons que ce schème est à l’œuvre dans l’acte libre, puis dans l’action des vivants, et surtout au niveau du processus évolutif lui-même. Nous verrons ensuite s’il est possible d’élargir la perspective au-delà de ce schème traditionnel amené par le spiritualisme bergsonien. Nous (...) montrerons que, contrairement à ce que souhaitait Bergson, nous pouvons en élargir l’extension au monde matériel lui-même.In this paper, I focus on the notion of creation in Bergson’s works, and I characterize it as a virtuous circle. The pattern of the virtuous circle displays a process that retrospectively finds its identity in itself through present events. I show that this pattern is at work in the free act, in the actions of living organisms, and mostly in the evolutionary process itself. I then move on to ask weather it is possible to broaden the perspective beyond the traditional pattern associated with Bergson’s spiritualism. I show that, contrary to what Bergson envisioned, this virtuous circle can be broadened as to include even the material world. (shrink)

In 1912, Julian Huxley published his first book The Individual in the Animal Kingdom which he dedicated to the then world-famous French philosopher Henri Bergson. Historians have generally adopted one of two attitudes towards Huxley’s early encounter with Bergson. They either dismiss it entirely as unimportant or minimise it, deeming it a youthful indiscretion preceding Huxley’s full conversion to Fisherian Darwinism. Close biographical study and new archive materials demonstrate, however, that neither position is tenable. The Bergsonian elements in play in (...) Julian Huxley’s early works fed into his first ideas about progress in evolution and even his celebrated theories of bird courtship. Furthermore, the view that Huxley rejected Bergson in his later years needs to be revised. Although Huxley ended up claiming that Bergson’s theory of evolution had no explanatory power, he never repudiated the descriptive power of Bergson’s controversial notion of the élan vital. Even into the Modern Synthesis period, Huxley represented his own synthesis as drawing decisively on Bergson’s philosophy. (shrink)

Darwinian matters : life, force and change -- Biological difference -- The evolution of sex and race -- Nietzsche's Darwin -- History and the untimely -- The eternal return and the overman -- Bergsonian differences -- The philosophy of life -- Intuition and the virtual -- The future.

Emergence develops a novel account of diachronic ontological emergence called transformational emergence and locates it in an established historical framework. The author shows how many problems affecting ontological emergence result from a dominant but inappropriate metaphysical tradition and provides a comprehensive assessment of current theories of emergence.

On April 6, 1922, in Paris, Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson publicly debated the nature of time. Einstein considered Bergson’s theory of time to be a soft, psychological notion, irreconcilable with the quantitative realities of physics. Bergson, who gained fame as a philosopher by arguing that time should not be understood exclusively through the lens of science, criticized Einstein’s theory of time for being a metaphysics grafted on to science, one that ignored the intuitive aspects of time. The Physicist and (...) the Philosopher tells the remarkable story of how this explosive debate transformed our understanding of time and drove a rift between science and the humanities that persists today. -/- Jimena Canales introduces readers to the revolutionary ideas of Einstein and Bergson, describes how they dramatically collided in Paris, and traces how this clash of worldviews reverberated across the twentieth century. She shows how it provoked responses from figures such as Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger, and carried repercussions for American pragmatism, logical positivism, phenomenology, and quantum mechanics. Canales explains how the new technologies of the period—such as wristwatches, radio, and film—helped to shape people’s conceptions of time and further polarized the public debate. She also discusses how Bergson and Einstein, toward the end of their lives, each reflected on his rival’s legacy—Bergson during the Nazi occupation of Paris and Einstein in the context of the first hydrogen bomb explosion. -/- The Physicist and the Philosopher reveals how scientific truth was placed on trial in a divided century marked by a new sense of time. (shrink)

In the past decades, reductionism has dominated both research directions and funding policies in clinical psychology and psychiatry. The intense search for the biological basis of mental disorders, however, has not resulted in conclusive reductionist explanations of psychopathology. Recently, network models have been proposed as an alternative framework for the analysis of mental disorders, in which mental disorders arise from the causal interplay between symptoms. In this target article, we show that this conceptualization can help explain why reductionist approaches in (...) psychiatry and clinical psychology are on the wrong track. First, symptom networks preclude the identification of a common cause of symptomatology with a neurobiological condition; in symptom networks, there is no such common cause. Second, symptom network relations depend on the content of mental states and, as such, feature intentionality. Third, the strength of network relations is highly likely to depend partially on cultural and historical contexts as well as external mechanisms in the environment. Taken together, these properties suggest that, if mental disorders are indeed networks of causally related symptoms, reductionist accounts cannot achieve the level of success associated with reductionist disease models in modern medicine. As an alternative strategy, we propose to interpret network structures in terms of D. C. Dennett's (1987) notion ofreal patterns, and suggest that, instead of being reducible to a biological basis, mental disorders feature biological and psychological factors that are deeply intertwined in feedback loops. This suggests that neither psychological nor biological levels can claim causal or explanatory priority, and that a holistic research strategy is necessary for progress in the study of mental disorders. (shrink)

For many years, biology was largely descriptive (natural history), but with its emergence as a scientific discipline in its own right, a reductionist approach began, which has failed to be matched by adequate understanding of function of cells, organisms and species as whole entities. Every effort was made to explain biological phenomena in physico-chemical terms.It is argued that there is and always has been a clear distinction between life sciences and physical sciences, explicit in the use of the word biology. (...) If this distinction is real, it implies that biological phenomena can never be entirely satisfactorily explained in terms of extant physicochemical laws. One notable manifestation of this is that living organisms appear to -- actually do -- behave in purposeful ways, and the inanimate universe does not. While this fundamental difference continues to be suppressed, the purposiveness (or teleology) which pervades biology remains anathema to almost all scientists (including most biologists) even to the present day. We argue here that it can, however, become a perfectly tenable position when the Theory of Natural Selection is accepted as the main foundation, the essential tenet, of biology that distinguishes it from the realm of physical sciences. In accepting this position, it remains quite legitimate to expect that in many but not all circumstances, extant physical laws (and presumably others still to be discovered) are in no way breached by biological systems, which cannot be otherwise since all organisms are composed of physical material. (shrink)

Arguments for or against a trend in the evolution of complexity are weakened by the lack of an unambiguous definition of complexity. Such definitions abound for both dynamical systems and biological organisms, but have drawbacks of either a conceptual or a practical nature. Physical complexity, a measure based on automata theory and information theory, is a simple and intuitive measure of the amount of information that an organism stores, in its genome, about the environment in which it evolves. It is (...) argued that physical complexity must increase in molecular evolution of asexual organisms in a single niche if the environment does not change, due to natural selection. It is possible that complexity decreases in co‐evolving systems as well as at high mutation rates, in sexual populations, and in time‐dependent landscapes. However, it is reasoned that these factors usually help, rather than hinder, the evolution of complexity, and that a theory of physical complexity for co‐evolving species will reveal an overall trend towards higher complexity in biological evolution. BioEssays 24:1085–1094, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This is a book about evolution from a post-Darwinian perspective. It recounts the core ideas of French philosopher Henri Bergson and his rediscovery and legacy in the poststructuralist critical philosophies of the 1960s, and explores the confluences of these ideas with those of complexity theory in environmental biology. The failings in the development of systems theory, many of which complex systems theory overcomes, are retold; with Bergson, this book proposes, some of the rest may be overcome too. It asserts that (...) Bergson’s ideas can further our understanding of evolution, and of complex systems, and aid the work of scientists working in the field of ecological complexity. See http://www.creativeemergence.info/ for more detail and sample chapter. "The claim is that Bergson's notions of duration and élan vital resonate with and provide interesting metaphysical speculations complementing a process structuralist biology of the Goodwin and Kauffman stripe. This is certainly provocative and worth further thought. The key claim is that the openness and unpredictability of systems "at the edge of chaos" (where a system can be said to "choose" at bifurcation points in its state space) meets the Bergsonian desideratum of an open universe that takes irreversible time and evolutionary difference seriously. In particular, Kreps stresses the way Bergson's insistence on the differentiating force of élan vital (which Kreps successfully defends from the charge of a substantialist vitalism along the lines of Hans Dreisch) puts him in line with those who see natural selection as a secondary pruning of a primary differentiation." -John Protevi, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2016.01.20 'This is no ordinary introduction to Henri Bergson. What David Kreps' excellent study gives us is Bergson, complexe: first, because there is no simple way to take (or leave) Bergson's ideas - his thought of durée, élan, and 'multiplicity' demands the most subtle and nuanced reading to give them their full justice; and second, because only by intertwining his ideas with the most up-to-date research in systems thinking, complexity theory, and poststructuralism can we begin to understand their absolute contemporaneity. Kreps' work does all this and more: it gives us the Bergson we need for today.' -John Mullarkey, author of Bergson and Philosophy 'Kreps' book is a thoroughly researched and well-written work that shows how Bergson's philosophy of evolution and time can also reinvigorate our ideas about complexity and organization in the natural and physical sciences.' -Stephen Crocker, author of Bergson and the Metaphysics of Media. (shrink)

The history of evolutionary thought / Michael Ruse -- The origin of life / Jeffrey L. Bada and Antonio Lazcano -- Paleontology and the history of life / Michael Benton -- Adaptation / Joseph Travis and David N. Reznick -- Molecular evolution / Francisco J. Ayala -- Evolution of the genome / Brian Charlesworth and Deborah Charlesworth -- The pattern and process of speciation / Margaret B. Ptacek and Shala J. Hankison -- Evolution and development / Gregory A. Wray -- (...) Social behavior and sociobiology / Daniel J. Rubenstein -- Human evolution / Henry M. McHenry -- Evolutionary biology of disease and Darwinian medicine / Michael F. Antolin -- Beyond the Darwinian paradigm : understanding biological forms / Brian Goodwin -- Philosophy of evolutionary thought / Kim Sterelny -- Evolution and society / Manfred D. Laubichler and Jane Maienschein -- Evolution and religion / David N. Livingstone -- American antievolutionism : retrospect and prospect / Eugenie C. Scott. (shrink)

The central insight of Darwin's Origin of Species is that evolution is an ecological phenomenon, arising from the activities of organisms in the 'struggle for life'. By contrast, the Modern Synthesis theory of evolution, which rose to prominence in the twentieth century, presents evolution as a fundamentally molecular phenomenon, occurring in populations of sub-organismal entities - genes. After nearly a century of success, the Modern Synthesis theory is now being challenged by empirical advances in the study of organismal development and (...) inheritance. In this important study, D. M. Walsh shows that the principal defect of the Modern Synthesis resides in its rejection of Darwin's organismal perspective, and argues for 'situated Darwinism': an alternative, organism-centred conception of evolution that prioritises organisms as adaptive agents. His book will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of evolutionary biology and the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

Examines the philosophy of Henri Bergson, explains his concepts of duration, memory, and elan vital, and discusses the influence of science on Bergson.

Annotation From the classic work of Darwin to current developments in such fields as psychology and economics, evolutionary biology is an increasingly powerful tool for understanding the natural world. Here in two volumes is a comprehensive, accessible, and authoritative guide to what we know aboutevolutionary biology, from the origins of species to the selfish gene and beyond. The Encyclopedia of Evolution covers the essentials of evolutionary biology in 370 original articles written by leading experts. The articles cover basic concepts and (...) theories; models, methods, and findings; schools of thought; current controversies; biographies; and more. The Encyclopedia covers evolutionary thought in genetics, animal behavior, and every area of the life sciences, as well as in anthropology, psychology, linguistics, sociology, economics, medicine, philosophy, and other fields. There are hundreds of tables, charts, grtaphs, maps and otherillustrations, bibliographies, cross-references and index. Designed for students and teachers in both high schools and colleges and universities, and scholars and scientists in the natural and social sciences, the Encyclopedia of Evolution will be the first point of access to this growing body of knowledge. (shrink)

A fascinating exploration of the very essence of life itself sheds new light on the order and evolution in complex life systems and defines and explains autonomous agents and work within the contexts of thermodynamics and information theory, setting the stage for a dramatic technological revolution. 50,000 first printing.

Germany's leading contemporary social theorist provides a definitive analysis of art as a social and perceptual system which not only represents an important intellectual step in discussions of art but also an important advance in systems theory. Luhmann insists on the radical incommensurability between psychic systems (perception) and social systems (communication). Art is a special kind of communication that operates at the boundary between the social system and consciousness in ways that profoundly irritate communication while remaining strictly internal to the (...) social. Each chapter elaborates a particular aspect of the general problem of art's status as a social system. The book draws on a vast body of research in the social sciences, phenomenology, evolutionary biology, cybernetics, and information theory, combined with an intimate knowledge of art history, literature, aesthetics, and contemporary literary theory. The book also engages virtually every major theorist of art and aesthetics from Baumgarten to Derrida. (shrink)

If art and science have one thing in common, it’s a hunger for the new—new ideas and innovations, new ways of seeing and depicting the world. But that desire for novelty carries with it a fundamental philosophical problem: If everything has to come from _something_, how can anything truly new emerge? Is novelty even possible? In _Novelty_, Michael North takes us on a dazzling tour of more than two millennia of thinking about the problem of the new, from the puzzles (...) of the pre-Socratics all the way up to the art world of the 1960s and ’70s. The terms of the debate, North shows, were established before Plato, and have changed very little since: novelty, philosophers argued, could only arise from either recurrence or recombination. The former, found in nature’s cycles of renewal, and the latter, seen most clearly in the workings of language, between them have accounted for nearly all the ways in which novelty has been conceived in Western history, taking in reformation, renaissance, invention, revolution, and even evolution. As he pursues this idea through centuries and across disciplines, North exhibits astonishing range, drawing on figures as diverse as Charles Darwin and Robert Smithson, Thomas Kuhn and Ezra Pound, Norbert Wiener and Andy Warhol, all of whom offer different ways of grappling with the idea of originality. Novelty, North demonstrates, remains a central problem of contemporary science and literature—an ever-receding target that, in its complexity and evasiveness, continues to inspire and propel the modern. A heady, ambitious intellectual feast, _Novelty_ is rich with insight, a masterpiece of perceptive synthesis. (shrink)

It has been said that new discoveries and developments in the human, social, and natural sciences hang “in the air” (Bowler, 1983; 2008) prior to their consummation. While neo-Darwinist biology has been powerfully served by its mechanistic metaphysic and a reductionist methodology in which living organisms are considered machines, many of the chapters in this volume place this paradigm into question. Pairing scientists and philosophers together, this volume explores what might be termed “the New Frontiers” of biology, namely contemporary areas (...) of research that appear to call an updating, a supplementation, or a relaxation of some of the main tenets of the Modern Synthesis. Such areas of investigation include: Emergence Theory, Systems Biology, Biosemiotics, Homeostasis, Symbiogenesis, Niche Construction, the Theory of Organic Selection (also known as “the Baldwin Effect”), Self-Organization and Teleodynamics, as well as Epigenetics. Most of the chapters in this book offer critical reflections on the neo-Darwinist outlook and work to promote a novel synthesis that is open to a greater degree of inclusivity as well as to a more holistic orientation in the biological sciences. (shrink)

Since Darwin, Biology has been framed on the idea of evolution by natural selection, which has profoundly influenced the scientific and philosophical comprehension of biological phenomena and of our place in Nature. This book argues that contemporary biology should progress towards and revolve around an even more fundamental idea, that of autonomy. Biological autonomy describes living organisms as organised systems, which are able to self-produce and self-maintain as integrated entities, to establish their own goals and norms, and to promote the (...) conditions of their existence through their interactions with the environment. Topics covered in this book include organisation and biological emergence, organisms, agency, levels of autonomy, cognition, and a look at the historical dimension of autonomy. The current development of scientific investigations on autonomous organisation calls for a theoretical and philosophical analysis. This can contribute to the elaboration of an original understanding of life - including human life - on Earth, opening new perspectives and enabling fecund interactions with other existing theories and approaches. This book takes up the challenge. (shrink)

"Knowing how we know" is the subject of this book. Its authors present a new view of cognition that has important social and ethical implications, for, they assert, the only world we humans can have is the one we create together through the actions of our coexistence. Written for a general audience as well as for students, scholars, and scientists and abundantly illustrated with examples from biology, linguistics, and new social and cultural phenomena, this revised edition includes a new afterword (...) by Dr. Varela, in which he discusses the effect the book has had in the years since its first publication. (shrink)