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Introduction to the Translation of “The Constitution of Logical Existences (Bergson, Reader of Aristotle)” by Franklin Leopoldo e Silva

Bruno Rates

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1This text was first published in 1990 in the Revista Discurso, the journal of the Philosophy Department of the University of São Paulo, under the title “A constituição das existências lógicas (Bergson leitor de Aristóteles).” Professor Leopoldo e Silva has a plethora of fine works dedicated to Bergson’s philosophy, and it was not easy to select one among them. The decision to feature this article boiled down to three reasons. First, this text gives an idea of the content of Professor Leopoldo e Silva’s masterpiece, published four years later, in 1994: Bergson: Intuition and Philosophical Discourse (Bergson: intuição e discurso filosófico). Against a strong tendency among Bergson’s interpreters, one of the main goals of the book was to go beyond the thesis of the ineffability of duration. The intention was to show the positivity of philosophical language when viewed through the lens of the tense relation between intuition and expression, beautifully defined by Professor Leopoldo e Silva as the “commentary of creation” — the real task of philosophy, still according to him. However, before grasping the expression of intuition, a negative moment was needed, leading me to the second motivation behind this choice.

2This negative moment represents a confrontation with the history of philosophy meant to show why and how philosophers have not been able to express true reality or, in Bergsonian words, duration. It is a previous exercise of critique and that is how we should read the text presented here: despite all the differences, Aristotle’s doctrine is a continuation of Plato’s Philosophy of Forms because both fail in the immobilist picture of the world represented by the Parmenidean idea of Being. Thus, to investigate how the intuition of time can be expressed, one should first scrutinize the “philosophical systems,” or rather, the hidden motivations behind the systematic tendency of philosophy itself. Metaphysics and history of philosophy are different moments of the same process of “commenting creation”, and Professor Leopoldo e Silva’s text is a good example of this negative work.

3This combination between a certain way of doing history of philosophy and metaphysics was and still is very influential in the way in which Brazilian researchers interpret Bergson’s thought, constituting the third reason for this choice. “The Constitution of Logical Existences (Bergson reader of Aristotle)” represents a significant case of how Bergson was received in Latin America.

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Bruno Rates, « Introduction to the Translation of “The Constitution of Logical Existences (Bergson, Reader of Aristotle)” by Franklin Leopoldo e Silva  »Bergsoniana [En ligne], 5 | 2024, mis en ligne le 01 juillet 2024, consulté le 14 mai 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/bergsoniana/2775 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/12b4s

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Bruno Rates

Bruno Rates is a postdoctoral research associate at University of São Paulo (Fapesp 2020/15114-5). He is the author of The Expressions of Life. Nature and Culture in Bergson’s Philosophy (Unifesp, 2023) and introduced and organized a book of selected works of the physiologist and philosopher Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis (Unesp, 2023). He is currently working on a book about how life sciences and evolutionism shaped the philosophical problem of “human’s place in nature.”

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