‘A History of Problems’: Bergson and the French Epistemological Tradition

During, Elie

doi:10.1080/00071773.2004.11007419

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…3. For an exploration of the anti-positivist conception of problems in the French philosophical tradition see During (2004) and Bowden (2018). 4.…”

Section: Orcid Idmentioning

confidence: 99%

Problems All the Way Down

Savransky

2020

Theory, Culture & Society

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Besieged by ongoing economic crises, global health emergencies, geopolitical instabilities, ecological devastation, and growing political resentments, the intractable nature of the problems that configure the present has never loomed larger or more darkly. But what, indeed, is a problem? Problematising the modern image that treats problems as obstacles to be overcome by the progress of technoscientific knowledge and policy, this introductory article lays the groundwork for a generative conceptualisation of problems. Reweaving intercontinental connections between traditions of French philosophy and American pragmatism, it proffers a conception of the problematic as a mode of existence that is irreducible to the subjective, the methodological, or the epistemological. Problems go all the way down and up, requiring nothing less than an art of metamorphosis capable of engendering processes of creation, invention, and transformation in whose hold bodies and practices, knowledges and lives, thoughts and worlds, are done and undone, made and remade.

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“…3. For an exploration of the anti-positivist conception of problems in the French philosophical tradition see During (2004) and Bowden (2018). 4.…”

Section: Orcid Idmentioning

confidence: 99%

Problems All the Way Down

Savransky

2020

Theory, Culture & Society

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“…The systematic reception of Canguilhem's thought can be rather neatly traced back to 1996, which witnessed the publication of Gilles Renard's monograph on Canguilhem's rendition of historical epistemology (Renard 1996). In the aftermath of this rediscovery, one axis of reception that has been particularly prominent is a line of research that inscribes the project of Canguilhem into a 'Bergsonian' heritage (see Osborne 2003, During 2004, Worms 2009, Schmidgen 2014, Delitz 2015). According to this reception, Canguilhem's notions of the normativity of life and of the primacy of practice within scientific inquiry are strongly tied to the modern vitalism of Henri Bergson, who stands aloof in the landscape of 20th century French philosophy due to his singular insistence on a philosophy of life.…”

Section: The Epistemological Dispositive Of Canguilhem's Problematolomentioning

confidence: 99%

'The problem itself persists': Problems as Missing Links between Concepts and Theories in Canguilhem's Historical Epistemology

Ebke¹

2020

Edition Moderne Postmoderne

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If one was to register the specific terminological use of the concept of the 'problem' in 20th century philosophy of the sciences and of scientific practice, it is not without a soupçon of irony that one would have to compile such an inventory. Without a doubt, or so Warren Weaver claimed in 1948, a formalised mathematics of the kind that had propelled the regime of stochastics and statistical mechanics about half a century earlier would hold the key to unlock so-called 'problems of disorganized complexity' (Weaver 1948: 538), that is to say logical situations involving a vast amount of variables, all of which display 'individually erratic' (ibid) characteristics. Conundrums of that type, Weaver argued, will turn out to be more complex to manage than 'two-variable' (ibid: 537) problems-which conveniently correspond to the binary system of the mathematics of mechanics-but it is through the recurrence of 'certain orderly and analyzable average properties' (ibid: 538) that, despite the numeric range and largely random interplay of the variables, predictions as to their standard distribution will hold true 'with increasing precision' (ibid). The reason for the relative controllability of such a system of randomly interconnected, yet homogeneous, elements is the 'disorganized complexity' of the ensemble, that is the absence of an internal order-an organised configuration of the components that would be irreducible to a recurring pattern of averages. As opposed to these two classes of problem constellations, 'problems of simplicity' (which can be addressed by the mathematics of mechanics) and 'problems of disorganized complexity' (mastered by stochastics), then, Weaver identifies a third type of problem that displays

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“…While more recent philosophical debates have delivered insights into Bergson's concept of the problem in relation to the history of philosophy, discussing its difference from epistemology and positivism in the French tradition of the 19th and 20th centuries (During 2004, Bowden 2018), Bergson himself clarifies his own position in his praise for early pragmatist philosopher William James. 2 In a preface to a translation of James' work on pragmatism Bergson states that real problems emerge when 'we confine ourselves purely and simply to what is given us by experience' (Bergson 1946: 249).…”

Section: False and Real Problems -From Metaphysics To Pragmatismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2 In a preface to a translation of James' work on pragmatism Bergson states that real problems emerge when 'we confine ourselves purely and simply to what is given us by experience' (Bergson 1946: 249). However, this is not a positivist or empiricist stance, but a radical empiricism in the Jamesian vocabulary (James 1996) or a transcendental empiricism 2 For the sake of clarification: Both articles by During (2004) and Bowden (2018) are crucial for the thinking of Bergson's notion of the problem and the writing of this chapter. However, their adherence to the French philosophical tradition requires further critical inquiry if one takes the more recent developments between 20th century French philosophy and early North American pragmatism into consideration (see for instance Savransky in this volume).…”

Section: False and Real Problems -From Metaphysics To Pragmatismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a first section the text will situate Henri Bergson's notion of critique and clarify his own thinking as a pragmatist. Exploring, secondly, the different yet mutually resonating ways of problematising the concept of common sense in Bergson, Gilles Deleuze and William James, I will expose their rad-ical intervention into the philosophy of knowledge and experience (During 2004) leading towards a movement thinking able to state real problems. The creation of problems, however, is neither an affair based on a formerly agreed conception of common sense nor of language but of intuition.…”

Section: Introduction -The Problem Of Critiquementioning

confidence: 99%

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