Synthesis philosophica, Vol. 21 No. 1, 2006.
Original scientific paper
Is the Bergsonian Critic of Sensations Measurement Still a Topic Today?
Paul Antoine Miquel
Abstract
This paper attempts to show how the Bergsonian method works in philosophy on a concrete problem: how is it possible to measure sensations? Bergson explains that a sensation is not a psychological object, since what it is depends on what is, is doing to us. Then it is not only represented. It is lived. All sensation measuring is adding a new feeling (a feeling of growth of intensity, for instance) to what is measured (a growth of intensity.) This specific feeling is in connection with nothing but duration. The first aim is to show that this old epistemological problem is still attractive today. We don’t know exactly how to measure sensations neither with additive nor with ordinal measuring. But we want to explain also how the metaphysical intuition is working in the first Bergson’s book. It is not coming first. It is always coming after the examination of a specific scientific problem, since the philosophical insight is always emerging in an indirect way. It is impossible then to assert with Bergson that science is not thinking. It is just important to observe that science is not thinking alone. It needs the critical action of philosophy.
Keywords
Henri Bergson; sensation measurement; metaphysical intuition; philosophical insight
Hrčak ID:
5924
URI
Publication date:
3.7.2006.
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