Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson was a French philosopher whose theories of duration, intuition, and creative evolution challenged the mechanistic and deterministic worldview of 19th-century science. His argument that time as lived experience (durée) is fundamentally different from time as measured by clocks, and that life is driven by an élan vital (vital impulse) that resists reduction to physics and chemistry, made him the most celebrated philosopher in the world during the early 20th century and earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927.
Key Ideas
Key Contributions
- ● Developed the concept of duration (durée) — lived, qualitative time as fundamentally different from the spatialized, quantitative time of clocks and physics
- ● Articulated philosophical intuition as a method for grasping reality from within, as opposed to analytical intelligence which spatializes and fragments
- ● Proposed the élan vital (vital impulse) as the creative force driving biological evolution, against mechanistic and finalistic explanations
- ● Analyzed the relationship between mind and body in Matter and Memory, arguing that memory is not stored in the brain but is a fundamental feature of duration
- ● Distinguished between two types of morality and religion: closed (tribal, instinctual) and open (universal, mystical)
Core Questions
Key Claims
- ✓ Duration (durée) is the fundamental reality of consciousness — an indivisible flow of qualitative change, not a succession of discrete instants
- ✓ Analytical intelligence spatializes time and fragments reality — only intuition can grasp duration as it is actually lived
- ✓ The élan vital is the creative impulse that drives evolution, producing unpredictable novelty rather than predetermined outcomes
- ✓ The brain does not produce consciousness but filters and channels it — memory is not stored in the brain
- ✓ Freedom is real — but it can be grasped only through intuition of our own duration, not through deterministic analysis
Biography
Life
Henri-Louis Bergson was born on October 18, 1859, in Paris, to a Polish-Jewish father and an English-Irish mother. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure and taught philosophy at various lycées and then at the Collège de France, where his lectures drew enormous crowds.
His major works — Time and Free Will (1889), Matter and Memory (1896), Creative Evolution (1907), and The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932) — developed a philosophy centered on the lived experience of time, the creativity of life, and the limits of analytical intelligence. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927.
Bergson's influence waned after World War I but has been revived by Gilles Deleuze and contemporary philosophers. He died on January 4, 1941, in Nazi-occupied Paris. Though eligible for exemption from anti-Jewish laws due to his fame, he reportedly stood in line to register as a Jew in solidarity with his community.
Legacy
Bergson's concepts of duration, intuition, and the élan vital influenced Proust, William James, Whitehead, Deleuze, and the development of process philosophy.
Methods
Notable Quotes
"{'text': 'To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.', 'source': 'Creative Evolution, Chapter I', 'year': 1907}"
"{'text': 'The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.', 'source': 'attributed, various compilations', 'year': None}"
"{'text': 'Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.', 'source': 'attributed, various compilations', 'year': None}"
Major Works
- Time and Free Will Treatise (1889)
- Matter and Memory Treatise (1896)
- Creative Evolution Treatise (1907)
- The Two Sources of Morality and Religion Treatise (1932)
Influenced
- Gilles Deleuze · influence
- Maurice Merleau-Ponty · influence
Sources
- Creative Evolution (trans. Arthur Mitchell)
- Bergson by Vladimir Jankélévitch
- The Cambridge Companion to Bergson (ed. Mark Sinclair)
- Bergsonism by Gilles Deleuze
External Links
Translations
Discussions
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