La Biologie et le concept de matière chez Henri Bergson
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Abstract EN:
This work contains two main ideas. The first one stresses the fact that there exists an inseparable relation between the philosophical explanation of biological phenomena and the concept of matter. The second one insists that we can find the above fact particularly in the philosophy of h. Bergson. As a result, it was by applying his model of duration to the realm of matter that he established the foundation for his biological theories. Bergson thought that our false ideas on the relation between the whole and the parts in the living organisms, and also on the evolution, originated from the fact that ordinarily we imagine the nature of matter in an unreflective way. More fundamentally, they are due to the two illusions which exist in our habit of thinking spatially. Criticizing those two illusions, he endeavoured to resolve the problem by conceiving the matter as a very diluted duration. According to him, the definition of matter should be established, not in terms of space, but in those of time. We have seen also that this concept of matter has a deep relation with the tendency of dematerialisation in the physics of his time.
Abstract FR:
Le present travail est ne d'une double constatation. D'abord, qu'entre l'explication philosophique des phenomenes vitaux et le concept de matiere, il existait un lien indissoluble. Ensuite, que cela se verifiait particulierement dans la philosophie de bergson. C'est en effet par l'application de son modele de la duree au domaine de la matiere qu'il etablit le fondement de ses theories biologiques. Bergson, en effet, pense que les idees fausses que nous avons sur la relation du tout a la partie, ainsi que sur l'evolution, viennent de ce que nous nous representons la matiere de facon irreflechie. Plus profondement, c'est a cause des deux illusions internes qui sont dans notre habitude de pensee spatiale. Critiquant ces deux illusions, il essaya de resoudre le probleme en concevant la matiere comme une duree tres affaiblie. Dont la definition ne doit pas etre elaboree en fonction de l'espace, mais du temps. Nous avons vu que ce concept de matiere a beaucoup de relation avec la tendance de dematerialisation dans la physique de son epoque.