Life as Insinuation according to Henri Bergson and George Santayana (in Polish)

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Katarzyna Kremplewska

Abstract

The article analyzes Henri Bergson’s understanding of human life in the light of his metaphor of life as “insinuation.” Comparing his ideas with the ideas of another original thinker of the age, George Santayana, allows shedding light on Bergson’s ontological strategy of making matter– as a threat to life –subject to mediation. Memory and imagination use matter to play out the past in the guise of the present–for the sake of life. The text also focuses on the formulas of freedom arising out of both thinkers’ conceptions of conscious life – that of Bergson, for whom the horizon and the fulfillment can be found in the beginning, or the primary vital impulse, and that of Santayana, who sees fulfillment in the forms of finitude assumed by each particular life. Looking at humanity in terms of a spiritual challenge links both conceptions. The whole discussion responds to the need to return to such fundamental but sidestepped terms as “humanity” and “spirituality”.

Article Details

How to Cite
“Life As Insinuation According to Henri Bergson and George Santayana (in Polish)”. 2017. Diametros, no. 52 (June): 47-63. https://doi.org/10.13153/diam.52.2017.1058.
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Articles
Author Biography

Katarzyna Kremplewska, Polish Academy of Sciences

Katarzyna Kremplewska – PhD
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences
Pl-00-330 Warszawa, ul. Nowy Świat 72

E-mail: vegaast2@wp.pl

How to Cite

“Life As Insinuation According to Henri Bergson and George Santayana (in Polish)”. 2017. Diametros, no. 52 (June): 47-63. https://doi.org/10.13153/diam.52.2017.1058.
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