Henri Bergson

Abstract

Henri Bergson was one of the last philosophers belonging to the school of thinkers known as the French Spiritualists. His philosophy was hugely influential, both positively and negatively, on many prominent mid- to late-20th century French philosophers, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Gilles Deleuze. The majority of scholarship on this philosopher tends to focus on four key texts, and the citations in this article are organized according to a number of the most significant themes that emerge from these texts. The first is Time and Free Will (Essai sur les données immediates de la conscience, 1889). This work was Bergson’s doctoral dissertation (with a companion piece, in Latin, on Aristotle’s concept of space) and puts forward an analysis of two levels of experience: one temporal (or duration, which is the most “immediate”) and the other spatial, which is often mistaken for immediacy. The text examines our tendency to (mistakenly) ascribe spatial properties to a range of processes that we perceive, even to time itself. Bergson calls this “spatialized time.” In Matter and Memory (Matière et mémoire, 1896) Bergson sets out his theory of the continuity of memory, perception, and action, against traditional philosophical accounts of the nature of mind and body. He also refers to developments (in his own time) in psychology and neurophysiology, using a number of examples from cases of neurological disorders (aphasia, most significantly). Creative Evolution (L’Évolution créatrice, 1907) further develops Bergson’s theory of duration as the basis of all other processes and considers its relation to theories of organic evolution after Darwin. The fourth of Bergson’s most significant works is The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion, 1932) in which he explores a sociobiological explanation for the most potent forces in the development of human social existence. Other significant works include Bergson’s response to Einsteinian relativity, Duration and Simultaneity (Durée et simultanéité, 1922), his short book on Laughter (Le Rire, 1900), and the collection of essays entitled The Creative Mind (Le pensée et le mouvant, 1934), which includes his essay “An Introduction to Metaphysics.”