What Bergson Should Have Said to Einstein

Steven Savitt

doi:10.4000/bergsoniana.333

Abstract

In the famous 1922 debate with Einstein, Bergson was mistaken in his rejection of the so-called twin or clock “paradox.” Consistent with at least one of his core beliefs (that time is succession) Bergson could have maintained that there is genuine time along each twin’s worldline in a relativistic spacetime, since there is succession (of events) along every such world line. Had he taken such a stance, we might have been spared the confused idea that relativistic spacetimes are (or represent) static or “block” universes. Moreover, in a recent book on the debate Jimena Canales claims that the Einstein/Bergson difference was one of the sources of the rift between continental and analytic (or at least science-oriented) philosophy. Insofar as her claim is true, my argument entails that the rift has a spurious origin. Recognition of this fact by contemporary Bergsonians might help to close or bridge it.

Highlights

In the famous 1922 debate with Einstein, Bergson was mistaken in his rejection of the so-called twin or clock “paradox.” Consistent with at least one of his core beliefs Bergson could have maintained that there is genuine time along each twin’s worldline in a relativistic spacetime, since there is succession along every such world line
I do not know what exactly led Bergson to reject the twin thought-experiment, to reject that idea that there could be real time along two trajectories in (Minkowski) spacetime between a pair of events, even though the times measured along the world lines were not the same
Trade the constricted or anemic conception of lived time that we find in Duration and Simultaneity for a robust conception of genuine time flourishing on all time-like world lines?12 this need not presuppose or entail that all time-like worldlines are the paths in spacetime of conscious “observers” or clocks