Leibniz and Bergson treated temporality as mere immanent continuity

Evidence

Horkheimer supported Bergson’s distinction between “experienced” time and the abstract time of the natural scientists. But, he quickly added in qualification, Bergson had been mistaken in trying to write a metaphysics of temporality. In so doing he had been led to an idea of time as duree (duration), which was almost as abstract and empty as that of the natural sciences. To see reality as an uninterruptible flow was to ignore the reality of suffering, aging, and death. It was to absolutize the present and thus unwittingly repeat the mistakes of the positivists. True experience, Horkheimer argued, resisted such homogenization. The task of the historian was to preserve the memory of suffering and to foster the demand for qualitative historical change. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 213 (#responds-to, via linked claim)

The concept of vital force, upon which Ubuntu philosophy and management are based, is however just as European as it is African. Placide Tempels derives the concept of vital force from Thomas Aquinas’s Thomism and Henri-Louis Bergson’s elan vital. At the same time, Tempels acknowledges the Bantu concept of vital force as a convergent category of both African and Western ontologies. The concept of vital force connects African and Western philosophy. Tempels modified the concept of vital force and incorporated it into his perspective in Bantu Philosophy. Then, African leading voices adapted the concept, so that it is seen today as authentically African. Consequently, the African vital force could be called an invention of tradition. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 847 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Temporal unity cannot be rebuilt from atemporal substances; The dynamic of duration raises two distinct problems about the Past and Present; Ubuntu’s vital force derives from Aquinas and Bergson as much as Africa — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 847 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• The dynamic of duration raises two distinct problems about the Past and Present #expands (0.75)
• Horkheimer rejected Bergson’s durée for homogenizing time and erasing suffering #responds-to (0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 213
• Ubuntu’s vital force derives from Aquinas and Bergson as much as Africa #expands (0.70) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 847
• Horkheimer’s anti-metaphysics grew from Nietzsche, Dilthey and Bergson #expands (0.70) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 205