Bergson's _Laughter_ has been out of print for too long. It's the best theoretical study of comedy available. A meditation by the great philosopher of "elan vital" about our natural response to humans acting mechanically, _Laughter_ is also about the nuts and bolts of comedy. Moliere is the main model, but it works for Shakespeare, Chaplin and Preston Sturges just as well.

Bergson offers a taxonomy of laughter. The description is concise, realistic, and rife with examples. He begins with a broad definition of anything that is laughable and further narrows the definition where appropriate. Never have I encountered an example not explainable by this.

Henri Bergson describes why we laugh, and subdivides this description further into three characteristics. Each of these characteristics is then divided further occassionally. Example: >We laugh at mechanical rigidity. The three types are repetition, inversion, and reciprocal interference of series. An example of repetition is a frozen facial expression (repetition) and is comical only if it's imitatable.< Then he proceeds to give examples of word play, character, actions, etc which illustrate his points.

In this book, Gilles Deleuze analyzes and supplements the work of philosopher Henri Bergson. The importance of this book lies in its ability to give insights not only into the work of Bergson but also into the later work of Deleuze.

For example, the first chapter of this book deals with Bergson's method of intuition. Interestingly enough, Deleuze applies this method to Bergson's own philosophy. In very basic terms, this method involves distinguishing "differences in kind" between elements (this is important, since Bergson believes that we usually go by false generalizations) and then bring together these elements once again but such that we understand them as they truly are and not as what Deleuze calls a "badly analyzed composite". In analyzing Bergson's philosophy, Deleuze distinguishes elan vital, duration, and memomory as the basic concepts. Furthermore, each of these concepts can only be understood in terms of intuition for various reasons; for example, that only intuition can grasp pure movement (duration). Throughout this book, Deleuze usually (although not always) gives an account of Bergson's concepts without assuming complete knowledge on the part of the reader, which is helpful. However, on the other hand, Deleuze doesn't always tell us what is "his" philosophy and what is Bergson's. Because of this, "Bergsonism" should not be utilized as a summary of Bergson's work. That is, even though Deleuze is clear enough for someone with little background in Bergson to understand much of this book, this does not mean that this person would then "know Bergson" but rather a Bergson-Deleuzian hybrid. This isn't a flaw to the book; rather, it merely suggests how it ought to be read. This short book is complex, but very well written by Deleuze, allowing for a maximum amount of information to be intelligibly conveyed in relatively few pages (although this isn't necessarily true of his later work); it moves at a brisk pace without losing the reader and is reccomended for both readers of Bergson and Deleuze.

This book is about Bergsonfs notions (especially matter and memory), but constitutes Deleuzefs view of the world because of his own interpretation of Bergson. At first, Deleuze mentions to this bookfs aim which is to determine the relationship between the three notions, duration, memory, and elan vital in Bergsonfs philosophy. Then, he considers intuition in Bergson which would be a method to achieve the aim. He sets five rules on intuition and probes the relationship between the three notions. Finally, he relates them in the process of differentiation. This notion of gdifferentiationh is very important in Deleuzefs philosophy, which is clear in his other books. Moreover, this book contains some interesting discussions such as criticism to Einsteinfs theory and to evolutionism. I think that this book is important to understand Deleuzefs philosophy and that it must be a very helpful guide to read his gCinema 1: The Movement-Imageh and gCinema 2: The Time-Imageh.

This book by F.C.T. Moore provides a valid and worth while engagment of the philosophy of one of France's most important philosophers. Bergson's theories of space and time "Duree", were vital in Futurist thinking and provided a grounding for their initial, and some may argue best work. F.C.T Moore presents Bergsons philosophy in a practical and systematic manner, easily understood and comperhensive. This is a good book.

Henri Bergson was an influential philosopher claimed by the French as an early phenomenologist, and in American and Britain as a vitalist philosopher. Bergson And Philosophy is an introductory study of his use of philosophical form and dispels the view that Bergson ever stuck to one type of philosophy at all, either vitalism or phenomenology. Rather, a Bergsonian idea of "metaphilosophy" stating that, in a universe with no static foundations, there can never e a philosophy means that if everything is changing, then change is also a constant truth of philosophy. John Mullarkey is a teacher of philosophy at the University of Sudnerland who explores each of Bergson's seven major works from a metaphilosophical perspective. Highly recommended for personal, professional, and academic philosophy collections, Bergson And Philosophy showcases an important and lucid reassessment of an influential philosopher while setting his work in an appropriate philosophical context.

Henri Bergson's seminal ``Creative Evolution'' starts off with the flowing movement so prevalent in his philosophy of the organism, one idea flows into the next in a smooth undivided motion. Not only does Bergson explain his work with analogies and examples supported by the biology of the time, thereby distancing himself from the purely intellectual pursuit of most philosohpy, trapped in the world of the mind, but he demonstrates his thought in the very way of exposition he uses throughout the book. One feels his thought is produced like a Mozart symphony, all at once with no corrections needed. This aptly demonstrates the idea of duration and time he proposes in this book. His influence is profound in thinkers such as David Bohm and Alfred North Whitehead which so to speak ``run with it'' in the parlance of baseball. This is a book worth reading twice for its rich display of creativity and also to reread sections not followed the first time. One does feel however that at times the flow is interrupted by disturbances in his mode of thinking leading to disjointed reading. Nonetheless, not only does he open a whole new way of thought free of dualism and the old patterns of mechanism, but he also expalins the reason for mechanistic thought itself.

I first came across Ibsen's monumental work when reading 'Tropic of Capricorn' by Henry Miller. Despite my complete lack of evolutionary and biological knowledge, I found Ibsen's eschatology mind blowing. Several times I was forced to leave the book for days in order to fully contemplate the philosophical ramifications of his insights. From this great stride forward into the fringes of human understanding Ibsen states: 'A conduct that is truly our own, on the contrary, is that of a will which does not try to counterfeit intellect, and which, remaining itself - that is to say, evolving - ripens gradually into acts which the intellect will be able to resolve indefinitely into intelligible elements without ever reaching its goal. The free act is incommensurable with the idea, and its "rationality" must be defined by this very incommensurability, which admits the discovery of much intelligibility within it as we will. Such is the character of our own evolution; and such also, without doubt, that of the evolution of life." No one, despite their educational backgrounds or lack thereof, should feel intimidated by the possibility of transcending one's very own intellect.

Despite Lord Russell's criticism that "intuition works best in bats, bees, and Bergson," in this work Bergson not only finishes the uprooting of the Western and Platonic disembodied intellect (a deconstruction taken only so far by Kant), he presents us with the spectacle of unbridled life creatively shaping, not only its world, but itself in accord with its own telos: the need for eyesight creating the eye, so to speak. Difficult in places but a treasure, although one could wish he gave more credit to Nietzsche's obviously great impact on him. Jungians would do well to peruse Bergson too.

Bergson's works are always inspirational and the remarkable thing is that he doesn't assume anything he always explains what is needed (almost always) unlike the standard treatises on philosophy by other philosophers. It is never that much of an effort to read Bergson and as such it makes his works far more accessible than usual for a philosopher, probably one of the reasons he was all the rage in the early 20th Century, people can actually understand what he was talking about. What is the reason for this ? I think much of it has to do with his unwillingness to separate his insights into distinct pieces as is the norm in philosophy. His essays tend to flow along nicely without being stuck in difficult terminology which must be remembered as you progress, anything such as the word duration which has a special significance in Bergson work becomes part of the flow of the essay rather than being in any way special it is always reinforced through the dialogue. Another interesting aspect is his lack of references to others, possibly a result of the French way of Education which encourages self reliance and expression as much as possible.

In this work, one of his earliest (1887), Bergson introduces his concept of duration which is less of a concept than a real lived sense that is happening in your life right at this moment. But first he introduces the reader to the intensities of psychic states such as beauty, grace, joy, sorrow, pain etc and how a misinterpretation of real lived experience gives rise to a way of philosophy which separates real duration as it is experienced into space-like time, this is also evident in feelings which are modified through the space-like construction of experience. Although this first chapter fails to convince once you proceed onto the construction of the idea of duration you feel on much safer ground, one feels Bergson has seriously studied this phenomenon, not of course just in thought or conceptualisation but, in his own lived experience present at every moment. He goes on to explain the falseness of the spacialisation of time which inevitably leads to the paradoxes of Zeno in ancient days and determinism with its lack of human freedom. He overcomes the usual arguments of determinism by simply just not defining freedom or its prior conditions since this would once again introduce determinism and spacialise duration.

Bergson's work is simply highly insightful of the human condition far more than any dry attempt at it through the usual approaches such as Descarte's or Kant's. He literally lives his work using his own experience to enliven it, I mean literally enliven it, Bergson's work is living in a sense. It is less an argument than a movement through your own feelings and intuitions which then allow you to understand what he is saying, it isn't difficult concepts you can't wrap yourself round. It does occasionally suffer from a lack of clarity wich is an advantage other philosophers have over him but a careful reading will help.

Superb as always.

Bergson, all the rage in the early 1900's, has now been rediscovered,thanks in part to the work of Deleuze et al. Time and Free Will is a great exemplar of Bergson's work and his idea of the duree and the spatialization of time. Bergson presents to the reader an energetic flux which is the precondition of our more vulgar concept of time. With this flux, the past is pulled along by the future and presented to consciousness in the present as a heterogeneous conglomeration, inseperable and uncategorizable. It is this work which inspired the stream of consciousness novelists, especially Proust. But the most remarkable element of Time and Free Will is its demand on the reader to live the duree, to return to the duree and forget oneself in it. The goal is freedom and authenticity and this can only be achieved when letting oneself go, flying like a bird, and despatializing time. This book does not only open the door to phenomenology, but it also contributes in a significant way to french existentialist thought.

Sure, Bergson's ideas may not have been as revolutionary as Descartes' or Kant's, but I find them just as intriguing. In fact, it is his critique of the Empiricists (one of my favorite "ists") which I found most interesting in this work, along with his distinction between intellect and intuition. Scarcely sixty pages, "An Introduction to Metaphysics" is the type of work that can be read in one sitting (at your local Commercial Book Store if you are short on dinero) and I think you will find well worth the time.

"An Introduction to Metaphysics," is less an introduction to metaphysics than a criticism of its previous ideas. Bergson provides very interesting criticisms of empiricism and rationalism as well as interesting solutions to these problems. Bergson is one of the more intriguing of 20th Century Philosophers and I found this work enjoyable enough to recommend it to anyone with an interest in AND knowledge of the subject. However, if you are looking for an ACTUAL introduction to metaphysics, look elsewhere. Might I suggest starting with Aristotle?

The author Bergson has written a book that is ideal for students and or anybody considering studying or learning about "Metaphysics". However, I personally feel that somebody who is not a philosopher would do better to study some of Aristotle before looking into studying metaphysics. Nevertheless this book does it's job and does it well in the introduction of metaphysics by telling the reader what it's good for and why it's worthless. Having a good understanding of the benefits of studying metaphysics is truly the best way to pursued somebody into studying metaphysics. If your considering studying of metaphysics, good for you, I suggest you buy this book.

This is a collection of challenging and insightful essays bringing the still as yet relatively overlooked philosophical work of Deleuze & Guattari to bear on questions raised by contemporary biology, especially as it intersects so-called complexity theory. Besides a focus on population rather than individual (one of the meanings of their notorious call for "pop" philosophy), D/G also propose a "machinic" biology, one not centered on the organism as a whole in its putative connection to a similarly static environment, but one that follows multiple flows of energy and matter through the "rhizome" or interactive field that traverses what used to be seen as the whole organism, now inscribed as a mere node in that heterogenous field. Following these leads, Ansell Pearson's concern with "life" also includes questions of art, literature, and politics, endeavors which, to speak Aristotelian for a moment, were always considered the artificial from which the natural could be safely distinguished.

As itself a heterogenous "assemblage" of the type it investigates, Germinal Life sparkles with new connections and fresh insights. Few have read as widely and as well as KAP, and it shows. The author demonstrates, in addition to an easy familiarity with Deleuze and Deleuze/Guattari, a firm grasp of the classic work of Darwin and Bergson, as well as wide reading in the voluminous recent University Press literature documenting the contemporary life sciences and so-called complexity theory. For a reader with some familiarity with the basic themes of its components, plugging into the machine of Germinal Life will be a productive experience indeed.

Keith Ansell-Pearson's "Germinal Life" situates itself at the nexus of three sets of concerns: Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of "difference," Bergson's philosophy of "life," and contemporary neo-evolutionary theories. Between these three themes, Ansell-Pearson weaves an intruiging web of interrelated questions and problems. Deleuze is partly responsible for the revival of interest in Bergson's writings, which had fallen into semi-obscurity in the early part of the twentieth-century. (Lévi-Strauss once commented that Bergson reduced everything to a state of mush in order to bring out its inherent ineffability.) But what is the nature of Deleuze's own "Bergsonism"? How and why does he appropriate the three primary concepts of Bergson's thought, intuition, memory, and élan vital? Most difficultly, how and in what sense can Bergson's "vitalism" be taken seriously given the developments in modern biology? Ansell-Pearson brings a wide range of resources to bear on these complex issues, all of which lie at the intersection of philosophy and biology. The book investigates the relation of Deleuze's thought to Darwin, Freud, and Nietzsche, and along the way provides helpful discussions of figures in the history of biology (Weismann, Geoffroy Saint-Hillaire), contemporary writers in the field (Gould, Dawkins, Goodwin, Margulis), as well as a number of lesser-known known figures that Deleuze himself championed (Simondon, Uexküll).

The thread that guides Ansell-Pearson throughout his research is the idea of a contemporary "bio-philosophy" or philosophy of life. This idea has far-reaching relevance. Kant is often said to have inaugurated modern philosophy with his "Copernican revolution": the conditions of the objects of knowledge must be the _same_ as the subjective conditions of knowledge itself. Against the ancient conception of wisdom, which defined the wise man by his submission to and accord with Nature, Kant set up an entirely new image of thought: humans are now the legislators of Nature. The subject, in other words, became constitutive. Ansell-Pearson's work is situated within a broader contemporary reaction against this Kantian heritage. His aim, he states, is to examine the possibility and implications of "thinking _beyond_ the human condition" (p. 2). "Germinal Life" thus continues the project of Ansell-Pearson's earlier book, "Viroid life." The latter analyzed Nietzsche's attempt to think the "transhuman" condition; the former pursues the same theme in the context of the "life sciences" (the subhuman and the superhuman). Both books, however, are framed by a fundamental ethical question: Does a biophilosophy entail a simple "disavowal" of the finitude and historicity of the human condition (p. 214)? Or on the contrary, as Ansell-Pearson argues, is it possible that a radically _ethical_ philosophy "must necessarily think trans- or overhumanly" (p. 3)? This question is all the more urgent given current developments in of informational and genetic technologies, which have already transformed our concept of the "human." In this sense, Ansell-Pearson's has opened a line of philosophical inquiry that will no doubt be of increasing importance in the future. It points to the possibility, and indeed the need, for something that largely disappeared from philosophy after Schelling, namely, a renewed philosophy of Nature.

Highly recommended.

Germinal Life is the sequel to Keith Ansell Pearson's well-received book on Nietzsche and biophilosophy, Viroid Life, which appeared in 1997. It is also the middle-entry in what is unfolding as a series of three books examining the work of Nietzsche, Deleuze, and Bergson, the third of which will focus on the ontological concept of the 'virtual' commonly found in both Bergson and Deleuze. Like any middle-child, one might expect such a volume as this to be somewhat troublesome, possessing neither the seniority of the first in the series (and the respect that goes with that) nor the relative youth and indulgence enjoyed by the latest arrival. To switch the analogy to one with literature, the novelty of the first book in any trilogy is seldom surpassed by what follows it, while the kudos of being the final entry where everything is brought to a climax is likewise unparalleled. This usually leaves the second book an intermediary role in the most anodyne sense, that of pushing the plot forward (normally by complication) and deepening the characterisation. What is uniquely philosophical about a trilogy of philosophy books may well thwart such a structural characterisation as this (especially if it is a trilogy in name only), but there is, nonetheless, evidence for this homology in Ansell Pearson's latest work: it builds on the main them of Viroid Life, namely contemporary biophilosophy and its significance for the 'transhuman condition', by intensifying its interpretation of Deleuze's vitalist metaphysics (through reading Bergson in particular), while also anticipating future research into the various political implications of such a philosophy. In other words, the characterisation of Deleuze's philosophy (already a central component in Viroid Life) is deepened and the philosophical problematic of what going beyond 'the human condition' truly entails is complicated. However, where Viroid Life played with themes that are fairly intoxicating (techno-theory, nihilism, viruses), used theorists who have always had a wide appeal (Nietzsche, Lyotard, Baudrillard), and did all this in a politically engaged manner, Germinal Life is temperate and measured in its progress: it provides more of the arguments necessary to support the points introduced so spectacularly in the earlier book. This is not to say that Germinal Life is dull by comparison, but rather that it is eminently philosophical (in this sense, all genuine philosophy would have to be called dull). Indeed, what is true of Ansell Pearson's work in general is also the hallmark of Deleuze's own oeuvre: beneath the apparently 'flashy' surface (as Foucault once put it) there is a well thought-out metaphysics at work (for Ansell Pearson, the end of philosophy, which is to say, the end of metaphysics, is far from being upon us). It is only that the balance has shifted in this latest work: names like Baudrillard are still there (no less than Bergson and Deleuze were present in Viroid Life), only more as a background to the hard task of philosophising. Consequently, while Germinal Life may have less appeal amongst non-philosophers in cultural studies and sociology, it cannot fail to impress philosophers interested in biology, the history of Twentieth-century French thought, and the fundamentals of Deleuze's philosophy of immanence. This type of serious, philosophical engagement with Deleuze is all the more necessary now that the reception of his work in the English-speaking world is entering its second phase and moving away from basic introductions and commentaries to the appraisal of its actual value for contemporary debates. What Germinal Life admirably demonstrates is that, firstly, Deleuze's vitalist philosophy belongs to a tradition of non-mechanistic, non-teleological, and non-reductionist thought about evolution running from Bergson to Gilbert Simonden through Jacob Von Uexküll and Raymond Ruyer: but Ansell Pearson also argues for the tenability of this oft-derided approach by examining in great detail the latest research in favour of the creativity of evolution, evidence that shows us the non-hierarchical, relatively chaotic, and molecular phenomenon which is life, far removed from the unilinear, organicist, and perfectionist model normally drawn. These ideas are articulated through three chapters (bordered by an introduction and conclusion), on the theoretical relationship between Bergson and Deleuze (Chapter One), Deleuze and Darwin(ism) (Chapter Two), and creative evolution and Deleuze's 'creative ethology' (Chapter Three). Clearly, the presence of Bergson looms large in these pages, and Ansell Pearson is as scholarly and expert as ever in his exposition of his thought and its influence on Deleuze. But this book is not only about the history of thought. As the title would suggest, its primary text is Deleuze's Difference and Repetition (1968), which is both the most biological and ontological of his works: as such, it is the text that constitutes - if any one book can - the bedrock of the Deleuzian philosophy. The method of transcendental empiricism was announced in Difference and Repetition and its delineation of this method brings together most of Deleuze's central ideas, be they ontological (the univocity of being, difference as the groundless ground of repetition, etc.) empirical (Deleuze's biophilosophy itself) or metaphilosophical (the shock of the new, the image of thought, and so on). Other texts from the Deleuzian corpus are invoked by Ansell Pearson when necessary, of course, especially the Logic of Sense (1969) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980) (the latter is particularly important for the third chapter). Overall, however, this focus on one text and one theme (biophilosophy) gives Germinal Life a continuous organisation: where Viroid Life was composed of a loosely integrated set of articles that, quite fittingly, dispersed its argument through the space of its chapters, Germinal Life, no less appropriately, fosters a continuity of argument over time, a germ-line of thought rather than a zig-zag line-of-escape (to recycle some of the most popular Deleuzian jargon). I recommend it wholeheartly to all those seriously interested in Deleuze, Bergson and the Philosophy of biology.

The simple reason Stove's ideas are often called 'unorthodox' or 'controversial' is obvious: Because most of them are wrong. The reason why they've attracted so much attention is less clear.

Editor Richard Kimball has divided this collection of essays into three thematically related sections:

The first deals with Stove's criticism of postmodern philosophers of science - In particular, Kuhn, Popper, Feyerabend, and Lakatos. He lambastes them collectively for intellectual 'sabotage', like using scare quotes to illegitimize counter-arguments, and Popper in particular for deliberately confusing the concepts of 'unfalsifiable' and 'irrefutable.'

I have to admit, in Stove's favor, much of his criticism here is valid and is enjoyable to read in the same way that it's 'enjoyable' to drive slowly past the site of a car accident. It's more of a morbid fascination with the dissection of another person's life work than the true pleasure of an epiphany. But it would have been easier to handle if Stove wasn't so quick to dismiss entire schools of thought with the wave of a hand, which he does repeatedly.

A much more interesting and better documented paper trail of the follies of postmodern philosophy can be found in Alan Sokal's _Fashionable Nonsense_ (1996), which I'd highly recommend over Stove's book on this topic, in large part because Sokal, being a physicist, is able to take liberties in his condemnation of postmodern philosophy that Stove, a philosopher, is unable to.

The second selection of essays include some of Stove's biggest attention-getters, including "D'Holbach's Dream", where he claims that atheism is the reason totalitarian governments are inclined to repress and murder (Conveniently ignoring the catholic Nazis or the muslim Taliban), "The Intellectual Capacity of Women", where he makes the unsupported evolutionary claim that "a woman does not need to use her brains to have a baby", whereas hunting and defending territory require much greater intelligence (Despite the fact that he spends the last third of the book arguing against the theory of evolution), and "Racial and Other Antagonisms", where he claims that racism is often justified ('nuff said about that). Suffice it to say, Stove makes bald and offensive statements to get attention with a frequency that would make Allan Bloom proud, without offering any support besides a well-worded insult.

The book reaches its low point in the third section, his criticism of Darwinism. As he strays further from the field of philosophy, Stove finds himself on unfamiliar ground, and often relies on the same techniques he was sharply critical of in earlier essays. The misstatements he makes, both errors of fact and errors of logic, are numerous and diverse. For instance, in the first sentence of the first essay of the section he makes both kinds of error by saying: "If Darwin's theory of evolution were true, there would be in every species a constant and ruthless competition to survive..." On the contrary, nothing in Darwin's theory precludes cooperation (Robert Axelrod has written a couple of excellent books on the subject) - in fact, it has been shown to be one of the most successful evolutionary strategies - and further, Stove makes the classical error which he himself criticizes others for making of 'level confusion' - Species don't compete to survive, individuals do.

Probably his most glaringly erroneous argument is his 'refutation' (note scare quotes) of the Malthus Principle, the idea that populations tend to grow until limited by external factors, what Malthus labeled "misery and vice." See how many errors you can spot in his argument: Based on Darwin's admission to having read Malthus' "Essay on the Principle of Population", Stove renames the Malthus Principle the "Malthus-Darwin Principle" (and then uses it interchangeably with "neo-Darwinism" in the same way that Popper did with "irrefutable" and "unfalisifiable") and claims that if it is wrong, then Darwinism is false. He asserts that the Principle implies that all populations always increase as fast as possible (and, subscribing to Goebbel's maxim that a lie repeated often enough becomes accepted as the truth, reiterates this claim as often as possible throughout his argument) and provides a list of specific cases where this is known to not be true, including: domestic pets, animals in captivity, and animals in game reserves. "Since this [population increasing as fast as possible] does not happen always and everywhere," he later asserts, as if the Malthus principle was a metaphysical truth rather than a general principle, "the Malthus-Darwin principle is false." Ergo, Darwinism is false.

And this just touches one the errors of logic he makes - The number and severity of plainly false statements easily rivals these. For example, he claims that no other species besides humans engage in infanticide (though lions have been observed to do this), suicide (which lemmings are famous for, precisely for the purpose of reducing resource shortages), or voluntary sexual abstinence (_Chimpanzee Politics_, Frans de Waals' classic study of a group of chimps living at a zoo in the Netherlands, describes a female named Puist who does exactly this). Kimball backs him up in the introduction by saying that if Darwinism were true, there would be no "abortion, adoption, or [expletive], just to start with the 'A's", even though none of these activities is believed to have a genetic component.

Again, given the transparency of his illogic, the reason why Stove's work has attracted so much attention is a mystery. But then again, I guess, anyone foolish enough to fall for Stove's sleight of hand wouldn't be reading his work in the first place.

During the fifties and sixties the United States government looked around the world for intellectuals who would support their cause in the cold war. Using the surreptitious services of the CIA they funded a number of magazines, the most famous being the journal Encounter. But they also funded magazines in France and Italy, and while the intellectuals in my native Canada were either too mediocre or too reliable to get their own special subsidy, Australia's conservative intellectuals got their own special magazine Quadrant. Now there is something deeply hypocritical in proclaiming your independence and intellectual courage while relying on patrons who, when not enjoying your latest polemic against Jean-Paul Sartre, are engaged in torture, assassination and narcotics trafficking. It is from this disingenuous milieu that the late David Stove, a philosopher of science from New Zealand worked in, and it is his collection of essays that is the subject of this book. But if hypocrisy and disingenuousness were the only problems with Stove's attacks on feminism, Sir Karl Popper, Darwinism and historians of science this would be a much more tolerable book. There is no doubt that Stove is forthright and sincere in the defence of his convictions. But he is also cheaply abusive and deeply incapable of appreciating an opposing argument.

Do we have proof of this? We do indeed. Stove has the very irritating habit of referring to opposing arguments as childishly stupid, easily refutable, patently stupid, and similar terms. It is not just myself who finds this abuse directed at Hobbes, Huxley and D'Holbach very irritating. Even Roger Kimball, the editor, agrees this doesn't really do justice to Plato or Kant. Critics of Karl Popper and Richard Dawkins should easily turn to The New York Review of Books instead of bothering with Stove's own polemics. The essay on D'Holbach is basically a truculent attack on the claim that ignorance is the greatest evil affecting man and that increasing knowledge would help reduce suffering. Stove concedes nothing in this essay, though it should have occurred to him that his not dying of smallpox is a triumph of 18th century science, much as his loved ones not dying in childbirth because of pupereal fever is a triumph of 19th century science.

As for failing to get the point of one's opponents, consider Stove's essays on Darwinism. A basic tenet of Darwin's theory starts from the fact that when living beings reproduce they do more than replace their parents. Anyone who has ever owned a dog or a cat know that litters have more than two children. Human beings do not stop having sex once they have produced two children. Insects can have thousands, possibly millions of offspring. Now if these rates of reproduction were maintained, the world would be overwhelmed not merely with humans, but with roses, eucalyptus trees, octopi, emperor penguins and panda bears. Obviously, this has not happened. There is in fact, a great struggle for existence, and it is this struggle which sets the stage for natural selection. What Stove does, however, is to amend Darwin's theory to say that Darwinism stands for the proposition that everywhere and always populations are filled to the bursting point and that populations seek to reproduce as many of themselves as conceivably possible. Having misstated the theory, Stove easily shows that it is wrong, since often people are celibate, they rarely engage in incest, pets are often neutered (though this is done to prevent them from breeding out of control) and population numbers are often kept low by predation. But Stove has not refuted Darwinism, he has simply engaged in polemical slight of hand. Likewise in arguing about the evolution of humans he argues against the idea that we have mitigated the effects of natural selection by asking why the first original men did not simply eat their mates and children. Well, at the risk of being very obvious, any species which did engage in such behaviour would very likely end up instinct, while those who avoided that would, on impeccably Darwinist grounds, be much more likely to survive.

And then there is Stove's essay on the intelligence of women. Stove's essay argues that since most of the intellectual achievement of the past was by men, it must be because they are in fact really more intelligent than women. The flaws in this argument are many and numerous. It is like arguing that since Russian literature before Pushkin had never produced a poet as great as Dryden or a novelist as fine as Swift it would never in the future. One might point out that 140 years ago there were virtually no female doctors or lawyers or conservative philosophers of science in the English-speaking world because women were excluded from the education that would allow them to hold such a position. As these barriers have dropped the percentage of doctors and lawyers who are female has risen to 5% to 15% to 25% to over 30%. Is there any reason to doubt that they will eventually reach 50%? None that Stove provides. Stove provides an argument for the intellectual inferiority of women by invoking biology. Yet I doubt whether he would invoke a biological argument designed before, say, 1960. If the intellectual inferiority of women is so true and so widely held, why is proving it so difficult? I doubt even Stove thinks Aristotle's arguments on this pass muster. Finally, if women are intellectually inferior, what does this say about their rights? Nothing from Stove on this matter, yet the conservative tradition that he supports and in contrast to the liberal tradition he sneers has from 1800 to 1950 argued that inferior intelligence or morals on the behalf of women, the Irish, African-Americans and Jews means lesser rights for them. It is rather disingenuous of Stove to evade this point.

Stove's book is rather hard to rate. On one hand it allows one to see old ideology that is likely repugnant to anyone who is not chained to some Newtonian universe - trapped much like a fly in amber. But anyone with an iota of intelligence will likely be seriously offended by most of Stove's central themes making it hard to give a "good" rating to the book.

Stove, perhaps best known for his essay on why women are intellectually inferior to men, captures the essence of all that is (after reading the reviews here, one hesitates to use the term 'was'...) wrong with the idols of the age of modernism. Stove attacks the so-called "Jazz Age" of philosophy yet at root it is apparent that not only does he miss the point of the postmodernists but that his arguments are nothing more than blisteringly hot air.

No doubt the writing is amusing but anyone who can dismiss Plato in a sentence and Popper in a paragraph has erected a soap box made of old toilet paper rolls. I believe his essay on the "Jazz Age" should be required reading to demonstrate exactly how 'idols' and anger obviously cloud intelligence.

Stove reveals his ignorance for science in the final paragraph: "No doubt this is partly to be explained by the remoteness of their work from everyday applications." This is Stoves explanation for why theoretical scientists have seen the validity of Kuhn, Popper and Feyeraband's views on the irrational nature of science - not so much an explanation as a cry to those who understand to give up and regress to the safe old world of Newton. One wonders if he actually knew anything about science - without the theoretical scientists we would not have anything beyond Newton and certainly people like Godel, Prigogine, Einstein and Chaitin (to name very few) would not qualify as "pure" scientists under Stove's criteria.

Stove also has some interesting and childlike conceptions of cornerstones such as truth and knowledge. His essay on Idealism is interesting in that he points out the problems of arguing from "the Gem" (starting an argument from a tautology) yet seems to conveniently ignore the fact that the entire concept of truth is built upon tautology. Oh well, or, as Stove frequently wrote, "Ha ha."

Stove makes passing mention of Wittgenstein but one wonders whether he actually read any of it. Certainly he didn't understand but that doesn't seem to stop Stove in any of his work; perhaps this is one of the best points in the collection. It is better to attack (and ad hominem is certainly acceptable) with shadows and pompous gesturing than with any substance when one feels threatened.

The real reason to read Stove is the fact that he was the perfect foil to the other holy grail of his age: Darwinism. If ever one requires a yin to Dawkins' sanctimonious pandering then Stove would be my choice. He slices and, at times, bludgeons Dawkins' idiotic arguments and puffy prose to expose the rotten core. Read these essays and then return the book to the library.

Bergson's philosophy of intuition has fueled the uninformed dismissal of the sciences and the relevance of the sciences to the study of human experience offered up by english students and cinema studies majors for 40 years or more. His critique of science turns upon a positivistic notion of progress that was overturned by Kuhn in the 60's. His arguments concerning the role of the brain in memory have been refuted by experimental neuro-science--see Damasio's article in Churchlands and their critics concerning damage to certain regions of the visual cortices and the perception/memory of color. Furthermore, as even his friends admit (see William James and Deleuze) his ideas and his exposition is anything but clear. For those of you interested in shoddy metaphysics supported by generalization from an outmoded psychology (i.e. english students), this book will serve as important resource in your dogmatic prating. However, I think Bergson is less confusing and absurd than people like Adorno, so maybe this work is less valuable than I suspect.

Athough some of the reviewers pick up some very important points such as the lack of clarity in "Matter and Memory", which is very evident, this is contrasted with "Creative Evolution" (CE) which was far clearer, but then different translators were involved in each case. I do believe some of the translations suffer as a result of this. However I have also found that Bergson must be read at least twice in order to grasp the, at times, convoluted concepts. I found this book to be far less whole as a complete text in comparison with CE but nonetheless there were some fascinating ideas. Some of these ideas were developed but others I felt were left to lie idle. There is much depth in Bergson and one feels maybe that ordinary language is not very good at expressing his ideas which are dynamic, process based rather than, as European languages are, on nouns, a static concept.

I disagree with one of the reviewers saying how his science has been surpasssed, since almost all of his psychology is still valid as are the most important points related to a human beings own perception, I see no reason or any information which makes one state categorically that the brain must be the centre of the mind, a tool perhaps or a way of allowing the mind to come into expression but nothing like as solid which is needed for a proof of a mechanistic paradigm.

I also feel that Bergson coud be easily updated and made less convoluted by someone willing to take on his mode of thought and take into account the new science since Bergson's day, it has been 80 years or so. I believe that most of Bergson's work will in fact still be relevant, maybe even more so.

Bergson argues well that both materialism and idealism are bound to fail for in fact much the same reasons and that they are products of the same mode of thought even though their concepts are at polar opposites, sometimes a mode of thought is easily hidden by a different concept which maintains the same underpinning implicit/unconsciuous way of thinking.

Bergson is always worth reading not simply for his ideas which are fascinating even if outmoded but because of his radical thought process which allows a remarkable degree of expansion eg "There are real movements" this has many possible connotations in physics, psychology, metaphysics the realms of interest are endless. As such Bergson should be read for the ideas and the development which can occur from his work. As always with Bergson patience and multiple reads are the ways to a rewarding understanding and expansion of the mind.

many philosophical thoughts amaze readers but often we found ourselves "lost" in following the philosopher's thought. Bergson, on the contrary, constantly calls the reader's attention to our own existence, better yet, "being" in the material world that many other idealist thinkers have tended to ignore. he gives us an answer to the question of body and soul (mind) with his key concept of "duration," with which we can locate ourselves both in space and "time." his idea is greatly immersed in many other thinkers, such as Deleuze, Merleau-Ponty, and even Foucault. the most important connection with the contemporary application of visual representation theory would be the idea of "time-image" which Deleuze did a good job to articulate. were it not for the understanding of "time-image," a great part of epistemological pursuit in cinema studies couldn't be possible. the 20th century's usurpage of subjectivity and abstract reason and restoration to body previously deprived its physicality under the psychological violence are surely debted to Bergson to a great extent. the more amazing is, that we could do that, still on and in the axes of time and memory, so that history can go on.