Creative Evolution

By: Henri Bergson

Narrated by: Michael Lunts

Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

First published in French in 1907, Henri Bergson's L'évolution créatrice is a scintillating and radical work by one of the great French philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This outstanding new translation, the first for over a hundred years, brings one of Bergson's most important and ambitious works to a new generation.

A sympathetic though critical reader of Darwin, Bergson argues in Creative Evolution against a mechanistic, reductionist view of evolution. For Bergson, all life emerges from a creative, shared impulse, which he famously terms élan vital and which passes like a current through different organisms and generations over time. Whilst this impulse remains as forms of life diverge and multiply, human life is characterized by a distinctive form of consciousness or intellect. Yet as Bergson brilliantly shows, the intellect's fragmentary and action-oriented nature, which he likens to the cinematograph, means it alone cannot grasp nature's creativity and invention over time. A major task of Creative Evolution is to reconcile these two elements. For Bergson, the answer famously lies in intuition, which brings instinct and intellect together and takes us “into the very interior of life.”

Public Domain (P)1907 W. F. Howes Ltd

I recommend this recording of the book, not the other one!

This is an excellent recording, in every way, of Bergson's Creative Evolution. It is a relief to finally have a reading performance that is worthy of the book. The reader is clear, sounds erudite, and pronounces words correctly. He sounds like a reader who understands the text he is reading.

All of this is in contrast to the Ellis Freeman recording that has been available for the last few years. It's only virtues have been that it was previously the only recording available of the book, The Freeman recording is technically clear, and they recorded the whole book. On the other hand, their recording is probably the worst reading performance I have heard amoung the hundreds of Audible titles I own or listened to. Freeman's performance has been a puzzle to me since the first time I bought it. The reader misprounces even common words, as well as historical and rare ones. Freeman sounds as though they don't understand what is being read. There is a weird lilting rhythm to their voice that would typically be interpreted as being used for a humorous book, which Creative Evolution is not. I'm inclined to believe that it was a way of getting though making the recording and that Ukemi did no quality control.

A while back I bought the Freeman recording a second time just so I could listen to the book and have it around for multiple listens of an excellent piece of philosophy from a Nobel Prize winning author. I don't mean to pile on to the earlier recording. It has been frustrating. I wanted to like it because I wanted a good recording of Bergson's. book. Also, I found Freeman's voice to be pleasant and to ring of joy. But the performance has the defects I describe above.

I am relieved by this wonderful new recording by Michael Lunts. I'm making time to urge members to get it and steer clear of the earlier recording.

I even deleted the Freeman recording out of my library because there is no longer any reason for it to be there.