Thinking in Time: An Introduction to Henri Bergson [Paperback]

Suzanne Guerlac (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2006

"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 (1859–1941), 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 (1888) and Matter and Memory (1896), 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.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"Recent years have seen a serious and significant renaissance of interest in Henri Bergson, a key intellectual figure of the first half of the twentieth century. Bergson offers new possibilities for thinking today, and interest in his work is now widespread, being felt across the humanities and social sciences, and even in the sciences. Thinking in Time offers the only reader's guide I know in English to Bergson's two key texts, books that should be placed at the center of a young person's university education and form a key part of the scholar's learning and education. Suzanne Guerlac's style of writing is admirably lucid and succeeds in genuinely instructing the reader in the key ideas and movements of thought at work in Bergson's texts."—Keith Ansell Pearson, University of Warwick, author of Philosophy and the Adventure of the Virtual: Bergson and the Time of Life

"Thinking in Time is not only a 'reader's guide' or introduction to Bergson's first major books; it also puts the general philosophy of Bergson in a double historical perspective—the historical context of its writing (then) and the present context of its rediscovery (now). Suzanne Guerlac displays two very different sets of qualities: a minute attention to the texts and a broader capacity to set the frames of a general history of ideas between the turn of the century and the most contemporary poststructural or 'postcontinental' philosophy."—Frédéric Worms, Université Charles-de-Gaulle-Lille 3, author of Bergson ou les deux sens de la vie

"Thinking in Time may well become the most widely read book in film studies. Although it was not written specifically for the field, it provides a crucial background for film theory, particularly for the work of Gilles Deleuze. But perhaps more importantly, it elucidates to a remarkable degree the qualities of the medium that fascinate scholars and students of modernism and postmodernism. Suzanne Guerlac’s book greatly enriches the context in which the cinema arose by elucidating the complex currents of thought at the turn of the century that gave rise to both Henri Bergson’s ideas and the new art form. The correlations between the challenges facing Bergson, due to his rejection of orderly spatial metaphors in favor of a radical concept of time, and those confronting the new time-based medium provide a new context for the consideration of early film history. In a book that will appeal particularly to students of film theory, experimental or modernist film, and the especially cinematic genres of the musical or science fiction, Guerlac conveys her crystal-clear grasp of Bergson’s thought with unsurpassed wisdom and passion."—Robin Blaetz, Mount Holyoke College --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Suzanne Guerlac is Professor of French at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Literary Polemics: Bataille, Sartre, Valéry, Breton, cowinner of the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Studies given by the Modern Language Association, and The Impersonal Sublime: Hugo, Baudelaire, Lautréamont, and the Esthetics of the Sublime. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 230 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press; 1 edition (April 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801473004
• ISBN-13: 978-0801473005
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,184,483 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Read the original(s), September 23, 2006

By 

Anon. (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thinking in Time: An Introduction to Henri Bergson (Paperback)

A introductory book on the philosophy of Bergson, which ends with two (short) chapters discussing the recent "return to Bergson." Guerlac's monograph reads as though it were rather hastily put together, as though she ran out of time to properly develop the material.
An example: chapter 5 (Channels of Contemporary Reception) is a particularly useful subject and the chapter begins well, but it swiftly descends to uselessness, stitched together by a series of quotes and paraphrases from various theorists, as well as endless footnotes which include further quotes and paraphrases (there are 97 footnotes for a chapter 23 pages long). (It doesn't help either that Guerlac moves much too quickly through the Bergsonian influence on Deleuze's Cinema books - relying, it seems to me, too heavily on Mark Hansen's commentary - as well as Deleuze and Guattari's concept of "the machinic.")
Worse is the treatment of Bergson's texts, but for a different reason. The majority of Guerlac's book is an explication of two Bergson works: Time and Free Will and Matter and Memory. (Why Creative Evolution is not given the same treatment is a mystery to me.) Having just re-read Matter and Memory, I have to say that I found Guerlac's chapter on this great work completely without point: she simply repeats his argument but in her own words (except when she is directly quoting the original). Why not read the original instead, which is exquisitely written and endlessly fascinating?
The purpose of such an introductory work should be to clarify and contextualize; to give a student some footholds as they explore the difficult (but richly rewarding) original texts. What is the purpose of a 67-page paraphrase of Matter and Memory except to discourage the student from reading the original (by having the student believe they have somehow already done so - and not by reading the 200 page original but the 67 page copy)?
The book is not without some merit, but it needed several more rewrites and some judicious pruning. (And instead of 2 LONG chapters on Bergson's first two philosophical texts, it should have had 4 shorter chapters on ALL of his major philosophical works: Time and Free Will, Matter and Memory, Creative Evolution, and Two Sources of Morality and Religion.)
I'd give the book 2 1/2 stars, if it were possible, but since it is not I will go for the lower rating, because it is closer to 2 stars than 3.

4.0 out of 5 stars very helpful, January 15, 2012

By 

Thomas (France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thinking in Time: An Introduction to Henri Bergson (Hardcover)

I read this book along with the new French critical edition of "Time and free will" (Essais sur les données immédiates de la conscience) edited with notes by Arnaud Bouaniche. I found Suzanne Guerlac's commentary to be of great help, clarifying the text when it is very dense and difficult, such as in the section on Spinoza. Yet perhaps Ms. Guerlac is too certain about the way Bergson asserts the concept of duration as a form of energy, a force, that is independent from the principle of conservation of energy of physics. (p. 77) It seems to me that Bergson only puts this forward as a hypothesis.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant book, November 24, 2010

By 

Stephen Sharnoff - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thinking in Time: An Introduction to Henri Bergson (Paperback)

Thinking in Time is a lucid guide to Bergson's ideas. It illuminates his writings on time and memory with exceptional clarity. These fundamental aspects of his philosophy even now offer a radical challenge to many of our assumptions. A brilliant and timely contribution.