Ebook: Creative Mind: an Introduction to Metaphysics

Title Page; Copyright Page; Preface; Table of Contents; I -- Growth of Truth. Retrograde Movement of the True; II -- Stating of the Problems; III -- The Possible and the Real; IV -- Philosophical Intuition; V -- The Perception of Change; SECOND LECTURE; VI -- Introduction to Metaphysics; VII -- The Philosophy of Claude Bernard; VIII -- On the Pragmatism of William James. Truth and Reality; IX -- The Life and Work of Ravaisson; Notes; A CATALOG OF SELECTED DOVER BOOKS IN ALL FIELDS OF INTEREST.;The final published book by Nobel Prize-winning author and philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941), La pensě et le mouvant (translated here as The Creative Mind), is a masterly autobiography of his philosophical method. Through essays and lectures written between 1903 and 1923, Bergson retraces how and why he became a philosopher, and crafts a fascinating critique of philosophy itself. Until it leaves its false paths, he demonstrates, philosophy will remain only a wordy dialectic that surmounts false problems. With masterful skill and intensity, Bergson shows that metaphysics and science must be rooted in experience for philosophy to become a genuine search for truth. And in the quest for unanswered questions, the spiritual dimension of human life and the importance of intuition must be emphasized. A source of inspiration for physicists as well as philosophers, Bergson's introduction to metaphysics reveals a philosophy that is always on the move, blending man's spiritual drive with his mastery of the material world.