Bergson’s elan vital defines life as a creative, non-predetermined action on matter
Evidence
For Henri Bergson’s key concept of “elan vital ” or “vital impulse”, see notably the final section of chapter I of his Creative Evolution . In contrast to “mechanistic” theories, which “show us the gradual building-up of the machine under the influence of external circumstances”, and to “finalist” theories, which say that “the parts have been brought together on a preconceived plan with a view to a certain end”, Bergson suggests that there is ’ an original impetus of life”, life being defined as “a tendency to act on inert matter”. The implications of this theory were an extreme voluntarism: “Before the evolution of life … the portals of the future remain wide open. It is a creation that goes on for ever in virtue of an initial movement.” Also an emphasis on chance: “The direction of this action [i.e. action on inert matter] is not predetermined; hence the unforeseeable variety of forms which life, in evolving, sows along its path.” — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2077
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Defines Bergson’s elan vital against mechanistic and finalist theories, giving Gramsci’s borrowed vocabulary its conceptual content.
- XREF: Context for Gramsci’s own critique of spontaneous vitalism and his insistence on organized, directed historical agency — bears directly on how he reads Croce and idealist philosophy.