Modern French Philosophy: a Study of the Development Since Comte — John Shaqi
Modern French Philosophy: a Study of the Development Since ComteGunn, John Alexander
Philosophy
Modern French Philosophy: a Study of the Development Since Comte
Gunn, John Alexander
Philosophy, French; Philosophy, Modern
Further we must, he claims, endeavour to see things _sub specie
durationis in a durée_, in an eternal becoming. We cannot expect to
grasp all the varied reality of life in a formula or indeed in any
purely intellectual manner. This is the chief defect of science and of
the so-called scientific point of view. It tries to fix in concepts,
moulds and solid forms a reality which is living and moving eternally.
For Bergson all is Change, and this eternal becoming we can only grasp
by intuition. Intuition and intellect do not, however, oppose one
another. We are thus led to realise that Life is more than logic. The
Bergsonian philosophy concludes with intuitionism and contingency,
which drew upon it the severe criticisms of Fouillée,[52] who termed it
a philosophy of scepticism and nihilism. Of all the spiritualist group
Fouillée stands nearest the positive attitude to science, and his
strong intellectualism comes out in his criticism of Bergson, who well
represents, together with Blondel, the tendency towards
non-intellectual attitudes inherent in the spiritualist development.
Blondel has endeavoured to treat the great problems, a task which
Bergson has not attempted as yet, partly because he (Bergson) shares
Renan’s belief that “the day of philosophic systems has gone,” partly
because he desires to lay the basis of a philosophy of the spirit to
which others after him may contribute, and so he devotes his attention
to method and to those crucial points, such as the problem of freedom
upon which a larger doctrine must necessarily rest.[53]
[52] Particularly in his work _Le Mouvement idéaliste et la Réaction
contre la Science positive_ (cf. .206), 1896, and later in _La Pensée
et les nouvelles Ecoles anti-intellectualistes_, 1910.
[53] For a fuller appreciation of the Bergsonian doctrines than is
possible in such a survey as this, the reader is referred to the
author’s monograph, _Bergson and His Philosophy_, Methuen and Co.,
1920.
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