How French Philosopher Henri Bergson Helped 20th-century Biologists Get Creative About Evolution

[@orglancs]

You omit to mention, Wilhelm Reich, who was such a Bergsonian as an undergraduate that he was known amongst student colleagues as a 'crazy Bergsonian'.

[@daphneb100]

This lady is fantastic. Putting Bergson in context is so very helpful.

[@James-ll3jb]

Unusual for a female librarian.😅

[@johnsharman7262]

Emily, thanks for your talk and your responsiveness to questions after talk: I was surprised you never knew anything about Husserl, who evolved phenomenology and the science of consciousness and the question of intentionality, influencing all the later existentialists( Heidegger, Sartre, etc.), which was around in the 1920s, a period you talk about. You seemed to brush it away. Still moved by your area of study.

[@artlessons1]

Thank you ...Many of the great philosophers come from a math background; in fact, it was a requirement of Plato to enter his academy. So, it was a natural progression of academic maturity. I am an artist, though well-read in philosophy. I very much agree with much of Betgson's thoughts. In fact, my first commission ( by a school) was later removed by the school because it was more philosophical and metaphysical than the empiricist math ruler in the science lab. It's nice to hear the other side of real thinkers rather than the social media overplay of the English. Tea toddlers, Christ whippers, and philosophy bashers. They do so for money and fame, opposite to Bergson and the real truth. Well done,thanks again

[@SeanAnthony-j7f]

Well at least most of the major early modern philosophers. Immanuel Kant, Leibniz, Hobbes did study Mathematics since it is generally part of the broader curriculum with logic, rhetoric, metaphysics and theology. However Kant conceived mathematics as a more broader part of his philosophical reflections, Leibniz also did but also advanced the practice of mathematics while Hobbes incorporated mathematics to his natural philosophical inquiry but flanked out because of the squaring the circle controversy with John Wallis. That kinda summed up how hard it is to gain both expertise to a scientific field and to an academic philosophical inquiry. Likewise all of them contributed to natural philosophy or generally in the modern sense science. Leibniz is a polymath, Hobbes is also quite polymathic and Kant formulated or anticipated the Nebulae hypotheses that is the standard explanation for the early formation of the solar system in our milky way and also wrote in geography, hydrodynamics, earthquakes, the wind, fire and kinematics.

[@johnsharman7262]

Scientists specialize, learning in each separate silo of knowledge their speciality: this narrows what they can know or talk about. The amount they don't know is like the ocean.

[@johnsharman7262]

Newton aside from evolving important laws of physical motion and gravity, wrote in separate books on astrology, the Bible, the occult.

[@johnsharman7262]

Thought: Bergson looks like one of those kind of 1920s physicists; with his bowler hat on, he's like something out of Magritte.

[@johnsharman7262]

The Hawking/ Dawkins school of science is very hard-nosed, hard-faced, arrogant as regards the humanities and philosophy. I'm glad the scientist in the audience said there's more anarchy among the range of scientists, that these people often headlined in the media do not talk for all scientists.

[@SeanAnthony-j7f]

Charles Darwin was in fact heavily influenced by David Hume. Theorizing on how to do science is really hard without a map, you don't just pick a stone, compare and without having any radiometer won't immediately give you answer (especially when casual chain of reasoning can be very wacky)- these are some major philosophers has already been mastered since they do it for almost 2100 years now...

[@sdts8847]

Wow

[@celestialteapot309]

l am a Dawkins fan, but those tweets are ignorant.

[@anhumblemessengerofthelawo3858]

Um. Um. Um.