Einstein vs. Bergson: An Enduring Quarrel on Time

Open Access Published by De Gruyter 2022

Einstein vs. Bergson

An Enduring Quarrel on Time

Edited by: Alessandra Campo and Simone Gozzano

Volume 3 in the series Transcodification: Arts, Languages and Media

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110753707

Overview
Contents

About this book

OPEN ACCESS

This book brings together papers from a conference that took place in the city of L'Aquila, 4–6 April 2019, to commemorate the 10^th anniversary of the earthquake that struck on 6 April 2009. Philosophers and scientists from diverse fields of research debated the problem that, on 6 April 1922, divided Einstein and Bergson: the nature of time.

For Einstein, scientific time is the only time that matters and the only time we can rely on. Bergson, however, believes that scientific time is derived by abstraction, even in the sense of extraction, from a more fundamental time. The plurality of times envisaged by the theory of Relativity does not, for him, contradict the philosophical intuition of the existence of a single time. But how do things stand today? What can we say about the relationship between the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of time in the light of contemporary science? What do quantum mechanics, biology and neuroscience teach us about the nature of time?

The essays collected here take up the question that pitted Einstein against Bergson, science against philosophy, in an attempt to reverse the outcome of their monologue in two voices, with a multilogue in several voices.

Author / Editor information

Alessandra Campo and Simone Gozzano, University of L’Aquila, Italy.

Topics

Frontmatter Open Access Download PDF	I
Preface: The Times Are Many Carlo Rovelli Open Access Download PDF	V
Introduction Open Access Download PDF	XIII
Table of Contents Open Access Download PDF	XXIII
Part One: Some Preliminary Questions
Who Is Entitled to Talk about Time? Philosophers or Physicists? Étienne Klein Open Access Download PDF	1
Einstein vs. Bergson, Scientism vs. Humanism Yuval Dolev Open Access Download PDF	15
Is Time Unreal? Matteo Morganti Open Access Download PDF	35
Part Two: Bergsonian Issues
The Eternal Quarrel on Time Donatella Donati and Simone Gozzano Open Access Download PDF	55
Some Contemporary Reflections on Bergson’s Time and Free Will Mauro Dorato Open Access Download PDF	65
Duration and Becoming in Bergson’s Metaphysics Paul-Antoine Miquel Open Access Download PDF	83
Time as Form: Lessons from the Bergson-Einstein Dispute Elie During Open Access Download PDF	99
Peter and Paul: a Ghost Story? Alessandra Campo and Rocco Ronchi Open Access Download PDF	135
The Test of Time: Human and Cosmic Time Pierre Montebello Open Access Download PDF	165
Part Three: The Nature of Time, the Time of Nature
The Time of Physics Eugenio Coccia Open Access Download PDF	187
One Time, Two Times, or No Time? Christian Wüthrich Open Access Download PDF	209
The Ontological Roots of Temporality Michel Weber Open Access Download PDF	231
On the Notion of Processuality in Whitehead: Concrescence and Transition Correlated Luca Vanzago Open Access Download PDF	251
Time and Experience in Physics and Philosophy: Whiteheadian Reflections on Bergson, Einstein, and Rovelli Matthew D. Segall Open Access Download PDF	273
Part Four: Metaphysics, Logic, Neuroscience, Biology and Cosmology of Time
No Time for (No) Change Claudio Calosi Open Access Download PDF	301
Between the Time of Physics and the Time of Metaphysics, the Time of Tense Logic? Jean-Claude Dumoncel Open Access Download PDF	331
Reinterpreting the Einstein-Bergson Debate through Contemporary Neuroscience Marc Wittmann and Carlos Montemayor Open Access Download PDF	349
Today’s ecological relevance of Bergson-Einstein debate on time Giuseppe Longo Open Access Download PDF	375
The Age of the Universe Marco Bersanelli Open Access Download PDF	407
List of Contributors Open Access Download PDF	433
Index Open Access Download PDF	437

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Life Scientists, Students and scholars of Philosophy, Physicists
Pages
- Front matter: 24
- Main content: 443
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 11
- Coloured Illustrations: 7
- Tables: 2
Keywords: Bergson; Einstein; time; quarrel

eBook

Published: November 8, 2021
ISBN: 9783110753707

Hardcover

Published: November 22, 2021
ISBN: 9783110753509