Skip to main content
Log in

A New View of Idea, Thought, and Education in Bergson and Whitehead?

  • Published:
Interchange Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper argues that a view which has come to be accepted in modern times, that ideas or thoughts are discrete items of information or concepts from which all feeling and movement must be radically extirpated, if not exorcized, represents neither some of the more subtle trajectories of earlier thought in the Western world nor, in particular, the dynamic thinking of Bergson and Whitehead. The thought of Bergson and Whitehead plunges one radically into movement, connectedness, newness, and unfinishedness in such a way that Whitehead, for example, proposes an entirely new view of education, according to which the holy engagement of the idea in the tender movement of understanding contrasts sharply with the ritualized mutual slaughter that lurks not so inconspicuously in the shadow-sides of our educational systems.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Annas, J. (1991). Epicurus’ philosophy of mind. In S. Everson (Ed.), Psychology – Companions to ancient thought II (p. 88). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aristotle. (382–322 BCE). Eqikh Nikomaco (Nichomachean Ethics (EN).

  • Aristotle. (382–322 BCE). Metafusikh (Metaphysics).

  • Baudry, J-L. (1986). The apparatus: Metapsychological approaches to the impression of reality in the cinema. In P. Rosen (Ed.), Narrative, apparatus, ideology. New York, Columbia.

  • Bergson, H. (1911). Creative evolution (A. Mitchell, Trans.). New York: Henry Holt & Company.

  • Bergson, H. (1923). L’évolution créatrice (26th ed.). Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bergson, H. (1946). The creative mind (M.L. Andison, Trans.). New York: Philosophical Library. (Original work published 1934)

  • Corrigan, K. (1995). Ecstasy and ecstasy in some early pagan and Christian mystical writings. In W.J. Carroll & J.J. Furlong (Eds.), Greek and medieval studies in honor of Leo Sweeney, S.J. (pp. 27–37). New York: Berlin.

  • Derrida, J. (1971). Structure, sign, and play in the discourse of the human sciences. In Writing and difference (A. Bass, Trans., pp. 278–293). Chicago: Publisher.

  • Foucault, M. (1971). Nietzsche, genealogy, history. In D. Bouchard (Ed.), Language, Counter-Memory, Practise (pp. 139–164). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, M. (1977). The question concerning technology. In D.F. Krell (Ed.), Martin Heidegger, basic writings (pp. 287–317). New York: Harper and Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jameson, F. (1988). Postmodernism and consumer society. In E.A. Kaplan (Ed.), Postmodernism and its discontents (p. 20). London and New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lear, J. (1988). Aristotle: The desire to understand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Long, A.A. (1991). Representation and the self in stoicism. In S. Everson (Ed.), Psychology – Companions to ancient thought II (pp. 102–120). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Musser, C. (1990). The emergence of cinema: The American screen to 1907. New York: Charles Scribner.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nietzsche, F. (1994). On the genealogy of morality (C. Diethe, Trans., K. Ansell, Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Tolkien, J.R. (1992). Two towers. London: Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitehead, A.N. (1929a). Process and reality. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitehead, A.N. (1929b). The function of reason. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitehead, A.N. (1938). Modes of thought. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitehead, A.N. (1957). The aims of education. New York: The Free Press. (Original work published 1929)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kevin Corrigan.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Corrigan, K. A New View of Idea, Thought, and Education in Bergson and Whitehead?. Interchange 36, 179–198 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-005-2353-z

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-005-2353-z

Keywords

Navigation