Creative Evolution
Henri Bergson author Donald Landes translator
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published:1st Dec '22
Should be back in stock very soon
First published in French in 1907, Henri Bergson’s L’évolution créatrice is a scintillating and radical work by one of the great French philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This outstanding new translation, the first for over a hundred years, brings one of Bergson’s most important and ambitious works to a new generation of readers.
A sympathetic though critical reader of Darwin, Bergson argues in Creative Evolution against a mechanistic, reductionist view of evolution. For Bergson, all life emerges from a creative, shared impulse, which he famously terms élan vital and which passes like a current through different organisms and generations over time. Whilst this impulse remains as forms of life diverge and multiply, human life is characterized by a distinctive form of consciousness or intellect. Yet as Bergson brilliantly shows, the intellect’s fragmentary and action- oriented nature, which he likens to the cinematograph, means it alone cannot grasp nature’s creativity and invention over time. A major task of Creative Evolution is to reconcile these two elements. For Bergson, the answer famously lies in intuition, which brings instinct and intellect together and takes us “into the very interior of life.”
A work of great rigour and imaginative richness that contributed to Bergson winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927, Creative Evolution played an important and controversial role in the trajectory of twentieth-century philosophy and continues to create significant discussion and debate. The philosopher and psychologist William James, who admired Bergson’s work, was writing an introduction to the first English translation of the book before his death in 1910.
This new translation includes a foreword by Elizabeth Grosz and a helpful translator’s introduction by Donald Landes. Also translated for the first time are additional notes, articles, reviews and letters on the reception of Creative Evolution in biology, mathematics, and theology. This edition includes fascinating commentaries by philosophers Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Georges Canguilhem, and Gilles Deleuze.
"I have been re-reading Bergson's books, and nothing that I have read for years has so excited and stimulated my thoughts. I am sure that his philosophy has a great future; it breaks through old frameworks and brings things to a solution from which new crystallizations can be reached." - William James (1903)
"An updated translation of Bergson’s most significant and most misunderstood book was long overdue. … Landes – who has previously translated Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, another, notoriously elegant yet challenging text – more than meets these requirements. … There is no doubt that this new translation will become an absolute reference, not least because Landes has included illuminating passages from the critical apparatus of the most recent French edition of L’Evolution créatrice. But Landes’s most remarkable improvement is in his recreation of the effortless flow of Bergson’s philosophical prose." - Emily Herring, Times Literary Supplement
"This new translation by Donald Landes captures the mesmerizing work that turned Henri Bergson into one of the century’s most provocative thinkers—with expert annotations, correspondence and additional material by influential thinkers from William James to Gilles Deleuze." - Jimena Canales, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA
"Henri Bergson, who personally oversaw the translation of all his books into English, would be delighted by this new edition of his greatest work. Donald Landes’s translation is exquisite and the extensive editorial notes are indispensable for the serious study of Creative Evolution." - Alexandre Lefebvre, University of Sydney, Australia
"This splendid new translation provides an exceptional, scholarly tool for serious specialists as well as all readers interested in Bergson’s work. It will swiftly become the definitive reference text for all Anglophone Bergson scholarship." - Christina Howells, University of Oxford, UK
"A major event in post-Kantian philosophy. Featuring a lucid introduction, helpful translator’s notes, and a judicious selection from Arnaud François’s illuminating critical dossier, this fine translation of Creative Evolution means that English-language Bergson scholarship has begun to gain the serious editions of his texts that it deserves." - Mark Sinclair, Roehampton University, UK
"This superb translation will introduce a new generation to Bergson. Landes's cogent introduction and editorial notes and the accompanying dossier of correspondence, reception and commentaries not only situates Creative Evolution in relation to Bergson's oeuvre, but also to the myriad scientific and philosophical sources informing his thought. An outstanding achievement." - Mark Antliff, Duke University, USA
"This wonderful new translation of Bergson’s classic Creative Evolution is warmly welcomed, as are the rich introduction, comprehensive editorial notes, and thoughtful selection of commentaries. There are many improvements to the original translation published over a century ago." - Emily Thomas, Durham University, UK
"Creative Evolution is essential reading today. To translate it well requires a serious engagement with Bergson’s entire body of work, sustained philosophical attention, a feel for context (including discoveries in thermodynamics) and, most importantly, enormous care. Happily, this is what Donald Landes offers us here." - Suzanne Guerlac, University of California, Berkeley, USA
"I have been re-reading Bergson's books, and nothing that I have read for years has so excited and stimulated my thoughts. I am sure that his philosophy has a great future; it breaks through old frameworks and brings things to a solution from which new crystallizations can be reached." - William James (1903)
"An updated translation of Bergson’s most significant and most misunderstood book was long overdue. … Landes – who has previously translated Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, another, notoriously elegant yet challenging text – more than meets these requirements. … There is no doubt that this new translation will become an absolute reference, not least because Landes has included illuminating passages from the critical apparatus of the most recent French edition of L’Evolution créatrice. But Landes’s most remarkable improvement is in his recreation of the effortless flow of Bergson’s philosophical prose." - Emily Herring, Times Literary Supplement
"This new translation by Donald Landes captures the mesmerizing work that turned Henri Bergson into one of the century’s most provocative thinkers—with expert annotations, correspondence and additional material by influential thinkers from William James to Gilles Deleuze." - Jimena Canales, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA
"Henri Bergson, who personally oversaw the translation of all his books into English, would be delighted by this new edition of his greatest work. Donald Landes’s translation is exquisite and the extensive editorial notes are indispensable for the serious study of Creative Evolution." - Alexandre Lefebvre, University of Sydney, Australia
"This splendid new translation provides an exceptional, scholarly tool for serious specialists as well as all readers interested in Bergson’s work. It will swiftly become the definitive reference text for all Anglophone Bergson scholarship." - Christina Howells, University of Oxford, UK
"A major event in post-Kantian philosophy. Featuring a lucid introduction, helpful translator’s notes, and a judicious selection from Arnaud François’s illuminating critical dossier, this fine translation of Creative Evolution means that English-language Bergson scholarship has begun to gain the serious editions of his texts that it deserves." - Mark Sinclair, Roehampton University, UK
"This superb translation will introduce a new generation to Bergson. Landes's cogent introduction and editorial notes and the accompanying dossier of correspondence, reception and commentaries not only situates Creative Evolution in relation to Bergson's oeuvre, but also to the myriad scientific and philosophical sources informing his thought. An outstanding achievement." - Mark Antliff, Duke University, USA
"This wonderful new translation of Bergson’s classic Creative Evolution is warmly welcomed, as are the rich introduction, comprehensive editorial notes, and thoughtful selection of commentaries. There are many improvements to the original translation published over a century ago." - Emily Thomas, Durham University, UK
"Creative Evolution is essential reading today. To translate it well requires a serious engagement with Bergson’s entire body of work, sustained philosophical attention, a feel for context (including discoveries in thermodynamics) and, most importantly, enormous care. Happily, this is what Donald Landes offers us here." - Suzanne Guerlac, University of California, Berkeley, USA
ISBN: 9781138689251
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 1185g
624 pages