Long before being artists, we are artisans; and all fabrication, however rudimentary, lives on likeness and repetition, like the natural geometry whi… - Henri Bergson
" "Long before being artists, we are artisans; and all fabrication, however rudimentary, lives on likeness and repetition, like the natural geometry which serves as its fulcrum. Fabrication works on models which it sets out to reproduce; and even when it invents, it proceeds, or imagines itself to proceed, by a new arrangement of elements already known. Its principle is that “we must have like to produce like.” In short, the strict application of the principle of finality, like that of the principle of mechanical causality, leads to the conclusion that “all is given.” Both principles say the same thing in their respective languages, because they respond to the same need.
English
Collect this quote
About Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson (18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a major French philosopher, influential in the first half of the 20th century. He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Biography information from Wikiquote
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Henri-Louis Bergson
•
H. Bergson
•
Henry Bergson
•
Henri Louis Bergson
•
Berxon
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Henri Bergson
It will be said that this enlarging is impossible. How can one ask the eyes of the body, or those of the mind, to see more than they see? Our attention can increase precision, clarify and intensify; it cannot bring forth in the field of perception what was not there in the first place. That’s the objection. — It is refuted in my opinion by experience. For hundreds of years, in fact, there have been men whose function has been precisely to see and to make us see what we do not naturally perceive. They are the artists.
If the senses and the consciousness had an unlimited scope, if in the double direction of matter and mind the faculty of perceiving was indefinite, one would not need to conceive any more than to reason. Conceiving is a make-shift when perception is not granted us, and reasoning is done in order to fill up the gaps of perception or to extend its scope.
Listen to the discussion between any two philosophers one of whom upholds determinism, and the other liberty: it is always the determinist who seems to be in the right. He may be a beginner and his adversary a seasoned philosopher. He can plead his cause nonchalantly, while the other sweats blood for his. It will always be said of him that he is simple, clear and right. He is easily and naturally so, having only to collect thought ready to hand and phrases ready-made: science, language, common sense, the whole of intelligence is at his disposal. Criticism of an intuitive philosophy is so easy and so certain to be well received that it will always tempt the beginner. Regret may come later, — unless, of course, there is a native lack of comprehension and, out of spite, personal resentment toward everything that is not reducible to the letter, toward all that is properly spirit. That can happen, for philosophy too has its Scribes and its Pharisees.
Loading...