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"Bergson" redirects here. For other uses, see Bergson (disambiguation). Bergson is a surname and may refer to Abram Bergson (1914–2003 American economist Bill Bergson, fictional character
Western Philosophy
19th century philosophy
Portrait of Henri Bergson by J. In the 18th century the philosophies of The Enlightenment began to have a dramatic effect the landmark works of philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and Jean-Jacques E. Blanche 1891
Name
Henri-Louis Bergson
Birth October 18, 1859(1859-10-18)
Paris, France
Death January 4, 1941 (aged 81)
Paris, France
School/tradition Continental philosophy
Nobel Prize in Literature
1927
Main interests Metaphysics, Epistemology, philosophy of language,
philosophy of mathematics
Notable ideas Duration, Intuition,
Élan Vital,
Open Society
Influenced by Spinoza, Kant, James, Ravaisson, Spencer
Influenced Deleuze, Kazantzakis, Kuki, Merleau-Ponty, Proust, Whitehead

Henri-Louis Bergson (IPA: [bɛʁkˈsɔn]; October 18, 1859—January 4, 1941) was a French philosopher, influential in the first half of the 20th century. Events 1009 - The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church in Jerusalem, is completely destroyed by the Fatimid Year 1859 ( MDCCCLIX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Events 46 BC - Titus Labienus defeats Julius Caesar in the Battle of Ruspina. Year 1941 ( MCMXLI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (the link will display 1941 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe The Nobel Prize in Literature (Nobelpriset i litteratur is awarded annually since 1901 to an author from any country who has in the words from the will of Alfred Metaphysics is the branch of Philosophy investigating principles of reality transcending those of any particular science Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, " Logos " or theory of knowledge Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature origins and usage of Language. The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of Philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions foundations and implications of Mathematics. Duration is the theory of Time and Consciousness, posited by the French philosopher Henri Bergson. Intuition is the philosophical method of French philosopher Henri Bergson. For other meanings see Elan Vital Élan vital, coined by French Philosopher Henri Bergson in his 1907 The open society is a concept originally developed by philosopher Henri Bergson. Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza (ברוך שפינוזה Bento de Espinosa Benedictus de Spinoza ( November 24, 1632 – February 21, Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg For other people named William James see William James (disambiguation William James (January 11 1842 – August 26 1910 was a pioneering Jean Gaspard Félix Ravaisson-Mollien ( October 23, 1813 &ndash May 18, 1900) was a French Philosopher and Archaeologist Herbert Spencer ( April 27, 1820 – December 8, 1903) was an English Philosopher; prominent classical liberal Gilles Deleuze ( (January 18 1925 &ndash November 4 1995 was a French philosopher of the late 20th century Nikos Kazantzakis ( Νίκος Καζαντζάκης) ( February 18, 1883, Heraklion, Crete, Ottoman Empire - (b Tōkyō, February 15 1888 – d Kyōto, May 6 1941 was a Japanese Philosopher and university professor Maurice Merleau-Ponty (mɔʁis mɛʁlopɔ̃ti in French March 14, 1908 – May 3, 1961) was a French phenomenological Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (maʁsɛl pʁust (10 July 1871 &ndash 18 November 1922 was a French Novelist Essayist and Critic Alfred North Whitehead, OM ( February 15 1861, Ramsgate, Kent, England &ndash December 30 1947, Events 1009 - The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church in Jerusalem, is completely destroyed by the Fatimid Year 1859 ( MDCCCLIX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Events 46 BC - Titus Labienus defeats Julius Caesar in the Battle of Ruspina. Year 1941 ( MCMXLI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (the link will display 1941 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. French philosophy, here taken to mean Philosophy in French language, has been extremely diverse and has influenced both the analytic and continental

Contents

Biography

Overview

Bergson was born in the Rue Lamartine in Paris, not far from the Palais Garnier (the old Paris opera house) in 1859, the year of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city The Palais Garnier, also known as the Opéra de Paris or Opéra Garnier, but more commonly as the Paris Opéra, is a 2200-seat Charles Robert Darwin (February 12 1809 &ndash April 19 1882 was an English naturalist, who realised and demonstrated that all Species of life Charles Darwin 's On the Origin of Species (published 24 November 1859) is a seminal work in Scientific literature and arguably the He was descended from a Polish Jewish family (originally Berekson) on his father's side, while his mother was from an English and Irish Jewish background. Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim ( Hebrew: אַשְׁכֲּנָזִים, ˌaʃkəˈnazim sing England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland The Irish people ( Irish: Muintir na hÉireann, na hÉireannaigh, na Gaeil) are a Western European Ethnic group who originate His family lived in London for a few years after his birth, and he obtained an early familiarity with the English language from his mother. London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Before he was nine, his parents crossed the English Channel and settled in France, Henri becoming a naturalized citizen of the Republic. His sister, Mina Bergson (also known as Moina Mathers), married the English occult author Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, a leader of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the couple later relocated to Paris as well. Moina Mathers, born as Mina Bergson ( February 28, 1865 - July 25, 1928) was an artist and Occultist at the turn of the 19th Samuel Liddell (or Liddel) "MacGregor" Mathers, born as Samuel Liddell (January 8 or 11 1854 &ndash November 5 or 20 1918 was one of the The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (or more commonly the Golden Dawn) was a magical order of the late 19th and early 20th centuries practicing a form of

Bergson lived the quiet life of a French professor. Its chief landmarks were the publication of his four principal works: in 1889, Time and Free Will (Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience); in 1896, Matter and Memory (Matière et mémoire); in 1907, Creative Evolution (L'Evolution créatrice); and in 1932, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion). Time and Free Will An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness ( Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience) is the title of Henri Bergson's Matter and Memory is one of the four main works by the French philosopher Henri Bergson ( 1859 - 1941) Creative Evolution ( L'Evolution créatrice) is a 1907 book by French philosopher Henri Bergson.

He was named in 1900 as professor in the College of France, holding the Chair of Greek and Latin Philosophy, which he held until 1904. The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment ( Grand établissement) located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement He then replaced Gabriel Tarde in the Chair of Modern Philosophy, which he held until 1920. Jean-Gabriel De Tarde or Gabriel Tarde in short ( March 12, 1843 in Sarlat, France &ndash May 13, 1904 His courses were attended by a large public.

Education and career

Bergson attended the Lycée Fontaine (now known as the Lycée Condorcet) in Paris from 1868 to 1878, and also received a Jewish religious education. The Lycée Condorcet is a school founded in 1803 in Paris, France located at 8 rue du Havre in the city's IXe arrondissement. Between 14 and 16, he lost his religious faith. According to Hude (1990), this moral crisis was tied to his discovery of the theory of evolution [1]. eVolution is the third Album by eLDee, it was due to be released in 2008

While there he won a prize for his scientific work and another, in 1877 when he was eighteen, for the solution of a mathematical problem. His solution was published the following year in Annales de Mathématiques. It was his first published work. After some hesitation as to whether his career should lie in the sphere of the sciences or that of the humanities, he decided in favour of the latter, to the dismay of his teachers [2]. The humanities are academic disciplines which study the Human condition, using methods that are primarily Analytic, Critical, or Speculative When he was nineteen, he entered the famous École Normale Supérieure. École Normale de Musique de ParisThe École normale supérieure (also known as Normale Sup’, Normale, ENS, ENS-Paris, ENS-Ulm or During this period, he read Herbert Spencer [2]. Herbert Spencer ( April 27, 1820 – December 8, 1903) was an English Philosopher; prominent classical liberal He obtained there the degree of Licence-ès-Lettres, and this was followed by that of Agrégation de philosophie in 1881 . In France, the agrégation is a civil service Competitive examination for some positions in the Public education system

The same year he received a teaching appointment at the Lycée in Angers, the ancient capital of Anjou. Angers is a city in the Maine-et-Loire department in northwestern France about 300 km south-west of Paris. Anjou is a former County (c 880) Duchy ( 1360) and province centred on the city of Angers in the lower Two years later he settled at the Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand, capital of the Puy-de-Dôme département. Clermont-Ferrand ( Auvergnat dialect of Occitan: Clarmont-Ferrand / Clarmont d'Auvèrnhe) is a city and commune of France Puy-de-Dôme ( lo Puèi de Doma / lo Puèi Domat in the Auvergnat dialect of the Occitan language is a department In the context of the political and geographic organization of France and many of its former colonies a department (département depaʁtǝmɑ̃ is an Administrative division

The year after his arrival at Clermont-Ferrand Bergson displayed his ability in the humanities by the publication of an excellent edition of extracts from Lucretius, with a critical study of the text and the materialist cosmology of the poet (1884), a work whose repeated editions are sufficient evidence of its useful place in the promotion of classical study among the youth of France. Clermont-Ferrand ( Auvergnat dialect of Occitan: Clarmont-Ferrand / Clarmont d'Auvèrnhe) is a city and commune of France Titus Lucretius Carus (ca 99 BC- ca 55 BC was a Roman Poet and Philosopher. The Philosophy of materialism holds that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is Matter, and is considered a form of Physicalism. Cosmology (from Greek grc κοσμολογία - grc κόσμος kosmos, "universe" and grc -λογία -logia) is study Year 1884 ( MDCCCLXXXIV) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year While teaching and lecturing in this part of his country (the Auvergne region), Bergson found time for private study and original work. Auvergne ( Occitan: Auvèrnhe/Auvèrnha) was the name of an historically independent county in the center of France, as well as later a Province of He crafted his dissertation Time and Free Will, which was submitted, along with a short Latin thesis on Aristotle (L'idée de lieu chez Aristote), for his doctoral degree which was awarded by the University of Paris in 1889. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Aristotle (Greek Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC was a Greek philosopher a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. The historic University of Paris (Université de Paris first appeared in the second half of the 13th century The work was published in the same year by Félix Alcan. He also gave courses in Clermont-Ferrand on the Pre-Socratics, in particular on Heraclitus [2]. The Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers were active before Socrates or contemporaneously but expounding knowledge developed earlier Heraclitus of Ephesus ( Ancient Greek: &mdash grc-Latn ''Hērákleitos ho Ephésios'' English Heraclitus the Ephesian) (ca

Bergson dedicated Time and Free Will to Jules Lachelier, then public education minister, who was a disciple of Félix Ravaisson and the author of a rather important philosophical work On the Founding of Induction (Du fondement de l'induction, 1871). The Ministry of National Education Advanced Instruction and Research (Ministre de l'Éducation nationale de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche or simply "Minister of Jean Gaspard Félix Ravaisson-Mollien ( October 23, 1813 &ndash May 18, 1900) was a French Philosopher and Archaeologist Lachelier endeavoured "to substitute everywhere force for inertia, life for death, and liberty for fatalism. " (Lachelier was born in 1832, Ravaisson in 1813 . Year 1832 ( MDCCCXXXII) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Bergson owed much to both of these teachers of the Ecole Normale Supérieure. Cf. his memorial address on Ravaisson, who died in 1900 . )

Bergson settled again in Paris, and after teaching for some months at the Municipal College, known as the College Rollin, he received an appointment at the Lycée Henri-Quatre, where he remained for eight years. The Lycée Henri-IV (sometimes called HIV, H4, or Henri-Quatre) is a public Secondary school located in Paris. There, he read Charles Darwin and gave a course on him [2]. Charles Robert Darwin (February 12 1809 &ndash April 19 1882 was an English naturalist, who realised and demonstrated that all Species of life Although he previously endorsed Lamarckism and its theory of the heritability of acquired characteristics, he then preferred Darwin's hypothesis of gradual variations, which were more compatible with his continuist vision of life [2]. Lamarckism (or Lamarckian evolution) is the once widely accepted idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring (also inheritance of acquired characters (or characteristics) is the hereditary mechanism by which changes in physiology acquired over the life of an organism (such as muscle enlarged

In 1896 he published his second large work, entitled Matter and Memory. This rather difficult, but brilliant, work investigates the function of the brain, undertakes an analysis of perception and memory, leading up to a careful consideration of the problems of the relation of body and mind. In Psychology and the Cognitive sciences perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory Information. In Psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store retain and subsequently retrieve information Bergson had spent years of research in preparation for each of his three large works. This is especially obvious in Matter and Memory, where he showed a thorough acquaintance with the extensive pathological investigations which had been carried out during the period.

In 1898 Bergson became Maître de conférences at his Alma Mater, L'Ecole Normale Supérieure, and was later promoted to a Professorship. The following summarizes basic Academic ranks in the French Higher education system: State university system Professeur Alma mater is Latin for "nourishing mother" It was used in Ancient Rome as a title for the mother Goddess, and in Medieval The year 1900 saw him installed as Professor at the Collège de France, where he accepted the Chair of Greek and Latin Philosophy in succession to Charles L'Eveque. The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment ( Grand établissement) located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement Ancient Greek philosophy focused on the role of Reason and Inquiry.

At the First International Congress of Philosophy, held in Paris during the first five days of August, 1900, Bergson read a short, but important, paper, "Psychological Origins of the Belief in the Law of Causality" (Sur les origines psychologiques de notre croyance à la loi de causalité). In 1901 Félix Alcan published a work which had previously appeared in the Revue de Paris, entitled Laughter (Le rire), one of the most important of Bergson's minor productions. Year 1901 ( MCMI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Revue de Paris was a French Literary magazine founded in 1829 by Louis Desiré Veron. This essay on the meaning of comedy was based on a lecture which he had given in his early days in the Auvergne. The study of it is essential to an understanding of Bergson's views of life, and its passages dealing with the place of the artistic in life are valuable. The main thesis of the work is that laughter is a corrective evolved to make social life possible for human beings. We laugh at people who fail to adapt to the demands of society, if it seems their failure is akin to an inflexible mechanism. Comic authors have exploited this human tendency to laugh in various ways, and what is common to them is the idea that the comic consists in there being "something mechanical encrusted on the living". Comedy (from the Greek κωμωδίαkomodia has a popular meaning (any discourse generally intended to amuse especially in Television, Film, and [3][4]

In 1901 Bergson was elected to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, and became a member of the Institute. The Académie des sciences morales et politiques ( Academy of Moral and Political Sciences) is a French Learned society. In 1903 he contributed to the Revue de métaphysique et de morale a very important essay entitled Introduction to Metaphysics (Introduction à la metaphysique), which is useful as a preface to the study of his three large books. The Revue de métaphysique et de morale is a French Philosophy journal which was co-founded in 1893 by Léon Brunschvicg, Xavier Leon and An Introduction to Metaphysics ( Introduction à la Métaphysique) is a 1903 essay by Henri Bergson that explores the concept of reality He detailed in this essay his philosophical program, realized in the Creative Evolution [2].

On the death of Gabriel Tarde, the eminent sociologist, in 1904, Bergson succeeded him in the Chair of Modern Philosophy. Jean-Gabriel De Tarde or Gabriel Tarde in short ( March 12, 1843 in Sarlat, France &ndash May 13, 1904 Year 1904 ( MCMIV) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year starting on From the 4th to September 8 of that year he was at Geneva attending the Second International Congress of Philosophy, when he lectured on The Mind and Thought: A Philosophical Illusion (Le cerveau et la pensée: une illusion philosophique). Geneva (Genève is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and is the most populous city of Romandy (the French -speaking An illness prevented his visiting Germany to attend the Third Congress held at Heidelberg. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Heidelberg is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. As of 2006 over 140000 people live within the city's area

His third major work, Creative Evolution, appeared in 1907, and is undoubtedly the most widely known and most discussed. It constitutes one of the most profound and original contributions to the philosophical consideration of the theory of evolution. eVolution is the third Album by eLDee, it was due to be released in 2008 Imbart de la Tour remarked that Creative Evolution was a milestone of new direction in thought. By 1918, Alcan, the publisher, had issued twenty-one editions, making an average of two editions per annum for ten years. Year 1918 ( MCMXVIII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Following the appearance of this book, Bergson's popularity increased enormously, not only in academic circles, but among the general reading public.

At that time, Bergson had already studied extensively biology, being aware of the theory of fecundation (as shown by the first chapter of the Creative Evolution), which had only recently emerged, in the 1885s—which was no small feat for a philosopher specialized in history of philosophy, in particular Greek and Latin philosophy [2]. Foundations of modern biology There are five unifying principles For soil improvement see Fertilization (soil. The history of Philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time He also most certainly had read, apart of Darwin, Haeckel, from whom he retained his idea of an unity of life and of the ecological solidarity between all living beings [2], as well as Hugo de Vries, whom he quoted his mutation theory of evolution (which he opposed, preferring Darwin's gradualism) [2]. Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel ( February 16, 1834 — August 9, 1919)also written von Haeckel, was an eminent German Hugo Marie de Vries ( Feb 16 1848, Haarlem - May 21 1935, Lunteren) was a Dutch Botanist and one of Mutationism refers to the theories of Evolution where Mutations are the main driving force He also quoted Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard, the successor of Claude Bernard at the Chair of Experimental Medicine in the College of France, etc. Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard (variant Charles Edward) Mauritian Physiologist and Neurologist, was born at Port Louis, Mauritius Claude Bernard ( July 12, 1813 – February 10, 1878) was a French Physiologist.

Relationship with James and Pragmatism

Bergson came to London in 1908 where he met William James, the Harvard philosopher who was Bergson's senior by seventeen years, and who was instrumental in calling the attention of the Anglo-American public to the work of the French professor. For other people named William James see William James (disambiguation William James (January 11 1842 – August 26 1910 was a pioneering The two became great friends. James's impression of Bergson is given in his Letters under date of October 4, 1908:

"So modest and unpretending a man but such a genius intellectually! I have the strongest suspicions that the tendency which he has brought to a focus, will end by prevailing, and that the present epoch will be a sort of turning point in the history of philosophy. Events 610 - Heraclius arrives by ship from Africa at Constantinople, overthrows Byzantine Emperor Phocas Year 1908 ( MCMVIII) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year "

As early as 1880 James had contributed an article in French to the periodical La Critique philosophique, of Renouvier and Pillon, entitled Le Sentiment de l'Effort. Four years later a couple of articles by him appeared in the journal Mind: "What is an Emotion?" and "On some Omissions of Introspective Psychology. " Of these articles the first two were quoted by Bergson in his 1889 work, Time and Free Will. In the following years 1890-91 appeared the two volumes of James's monumental work, The Principles of Psychology, in which he refers to a pathological phenomenon observed by Bergson. The Principles of Psychology is a monumental text in the history of Psychology, written by William James and published in 1890. Some writers, taking merely these dates into consideration and overlooking the fact that James's investigations had been proceeding since 1870 (registered from time to time by various articles which culminated in "The Principles"), have mistakenly dated Bergson's ideas as earlier than James's. Year 1870 ( MDCCCLXX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common

It has been suggested that Bergson owes the root ideas of his first book to the 1884 article by James, "On Some Omissions of Introspective Psychology," which he neither refers to nor quotes. This article deals with the conception of thought as a stream of consciousness, which intellect distorts by framing into concepts. Stream of consciousness refers to the flow of Thoughts in the conscious Mind. Intelligence (also called intellect) is an Umbrella term used to describe a property of the Mind that encompasses many related abilities such as the capacities Bergson replied to this insinuation by denying that he had any knowledge of the article by James when he wrote Les données immédiates de la conscience. The two thinkers appear to have developed independently until almost the close of the century. They are further apart in their intellectual position than is frequently supposed. Both have succeeded in appealing to audiences far beyond the purely academic sphere, but only in their mutual rejection of "intellectualism" as final is there real unanimity. Although James was slightly ahead in the development and enunciation of his ideas, he confessed that he was baffled by many of Bergson's notions. James certainly neglected many of the deeper metaphysical aspects of Bergson's thought, which did not harmonize with his own, and are even in direct contradiction. In addition to this, Bergson can hardly be considered a pragmatist. For him, "utility," far from being a test of truth, was in fact the reverse: a synonym for error.

Nevertheless, William James hailed Bergson as an ally. Early in the century (1903) he wrote:

"I have been re-reading Bergson's books, and nothing that I have read since years has so excited and stimulated my thoughts. Year 1903 ( MCMIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar or a Common year starting I am sure that that philosophy has a great future, it breaks through old cadres and brings things into a solution from which new crystals can be got. "

The most noteworthy tributes paid by him to Bergson were those made in the Hibbert Lectures (A Pluralistic Universe), which James gave at Manchester College, Oxford, shortly after meeting Bergson in London. The Hibbert Lectures are an annual series of non-sectarian lectures on theological issues Harris Manchester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. He remarks on the encouragement he has received from Bergson's thought, and refers to the confidence he has in being "able to lean on Bergson's authority. "

The influence of Bergson had led him "to renounce the intellectualist method and the current notion that logic is an adequate measure of what can or cannot be. Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and Inference. " It had induced him, he continued, "to give up logic, squarely and irrevocably" as a method, for he found that "reality, life, experience, concreteness, immediacy, use what word you will, exceeds our logic, overflows, and surrounds it. "

These remarks, which appeared in James's book A Pluralistic Universe in 1909, impelled many English and American readers to an investigation of Bergson's philosophy for themselves. Year 1909 ( MCMIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting A certain handicap existed in that his greatest work had not then been translated into English. James, however, encouraged and assisted Dr. Arthur Mitchell in his preparation of the English translation of Creative Evolution. Arthur Mitchell may refer to Arthur W Mitchell, first African-American elected to the United States House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party In August of 1910 James died. It was his intention, had he lived to see the completion of the translation, to introduce it to the English reading public by a prefatory note of appreciation. In the following year the translation was completed and still greater interest in Bergson and his work was the result. By a coincidence, in that same year (1911), Bergson penned a preface of sixteen pages entitled Truth and Reality for the French translation of James's book, "Pragmatism". Year 1911 ( MCMXI) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year In it he expressed sympathetic appreciation of James's work, coupled with certain important reservations.

In April (5th to 11th) Bergson attended the Fourth International Congress of Philosophy held at Bologna, in Italy, where he gave an address on "Philosophical Intuition". Bologna (boloɲa from Latin Bononia, Bulåggna in Bolognese dialect is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest In response to invitations he visited England in May of that year, and on several subsequent occasions. These visits were well received. His speeches offered new perspectives and elucidated many passages in his three major works: Time and Free Will, Matter and Memory, and Creative Evolution. Although necessarily brief statements, they developed and enriched the ideas in his books and clarified for English audiences the fundamental principles of his philosophy.

The lectures on Change, and Bergson's later life

Bergson visited the University of Oxford, where he delivered two lectures entitled The Perception of Change (La perception du changement), which were published in French in the same year by the Clarendon Press. The University of Oxford (informally "Oxford University" or simply "Oxford" located in the city of Oxford, Oxfordshire, England is the As he had a delightful gift of lucid and brief exposition, when the occasion demands such treatment, these lectures on Change formed a most valuable synopsis or brief survey of the fundamental principles of his thought, and served the student or general reader alike as an excellent introduction to the study of the larger volumes. Oxford honoured its distinguished visitor by conferring upon him the degree of Doctor of Science. DSc ScD SD, or DrSc are common abbreviations for the Latin Scientiæ Doctor, meaning Doctor of Science.

Two days later he delivered the Huxley Lecture at the University of Birmingham, taking for his subject Life and Consciousness. The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a British red brick University located in the city of Birmingham This subsequently appeared in The Hibbert Journal (October, 1911), and since revised, forms the first essay in the collected volume Mind-Energy (L'Energie spirituelle). The Hibbert Journal is a quarterly Magazine issued since 1902 by the Hibbert Trust. In October he was again in England, where he had an enthusiastic reception, and delivered at University College London four lectures on La Nature de l'Ame. University College London ( UCL) is a multi-faculty university institution based in the United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London

In 1913 he visited the United States of America, at the invitation of Columbia University, New York, and lectured in several American cities, where he was welcomed by very large audiences. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Columbia University is a private University in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous In February, at Columbia University, he lectured both in French and English, taking as his subjects: Spirituality and Freedom and The Method of Philosophy. Being again in England in May of the same year, he accepted the Presidency of the British Society for Psychical Research, and delivered to the Society an impressive address: Phantoms of Life and Psychic Research (Fantômes des vivants et recherché psychique).

Meanwhile, his popularity increased, and translations of his works began to appear in a number of languages: English, German, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Hungarian, Polish and Russian. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. Danish ( d̥ænsɡ̊ is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the Hungarian ( magyar nyelv) is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. Polish ( język polski, polszczyzna) is the Official language of Poland. Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages In 1914 he was honoured by his fellow-countrymen in being elected as a member of the Académie française. L'Académie française, or the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. He was also made President of the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques, and in addition he became Officier de la Légion d'honneur, and Officier de l'Instruction publique.

Bergson found disciples of many varied types, and in France movements such as Neo-Catholicism or Modernism on the one hand and Syndicalism on the other, endeavoured to absorb and to appropriate for their own immediate use and propaganda some of the central ideas of his teaching. The term Neo-Catholicism has been used to refer to two different theological and ideological Catholic movements Modernism describes an array of Cultural movements rooted in the changes in Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Syndicalism is a type of movement which aims to degrade capitalist societies through action by the Working class on the industrial front That important continental organ of socialist and syndicalist theory, Le Mouvement socialiste, suggested that the realism of Karl Marx and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is hostile to all forms of intellectualism, and that, therefore, supporters of Marxian socialism should welcome a philosophy such as that of Bergson. Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (ˈpruːd ɒn in British English, dɔ̃ in French) ( 15 January 1809 – 19 January 1865) was Other writers, in their eagerness, asserted the collaboration of the Chair of Philosophy at the College de France with the aims of the Confédération Générale du Travail and the Industrial Workers of the World. Template talkInfobox Union for usage -->The General Confederation of Labour ( French: Confédération générale The Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union currently headquartered in Cincinnati Ohio, USA It was claimed that there is harmony between the flute of personal philosophical meditation and the trumpet of social revolution.

While social revolutionaries were endeavouring to make the most out of Bergson, many leaders of religious thought, particularly the more liberal-minded theologians of all creeds, e. g. , the Modernists and Neo-Catholic Party in his own country, showed a keen interest in his writings, and many of them endeavoured to find encouragement and stimulus in his work. The Roman Catholic Church, however, which still believed that finality was reached in philosophy with the work of Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century, and consequently had made that mediaeval philosophy her official, orthodox, and dogmatic view, took the step of banning Bergson's three books, accused of pantheism (that is, of conceiving of God as immanent to his Creation and of being himself created in the process of the Creation [2]) by placing them upon the Index of prohibited books (Decree of June 1, 1914). Pantheism ( Greek: πάν ( 'pan') = all and θεός ( 'theos') = God it literally means " God is All The Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books" was a list of publications prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1914, the Scottish Universities arranged for Bergson to deliver the famous Gifford Lectures, and one course was planned for the spring and another for the autumn. The Gifford Lectures were established by the will of Adam Lord Gifford (died 1887) The first course, consisting of eleven lectures, under the title of The Problem of Personality, was delivered at the University of Edinburgh in the Spring of that year. The University of Edinburgh (Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann founded in 1582 is a renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. The course of lectures planned for the autumn months had to be abandoned because of the outbreak of war. Bergson was not, however, silent during the conflict, and he gave some inspiring addresses. As early as November 4, 1914, he wrote an article entitled Wearing and Nonwearing forces (La force qui s'use et celle qui ne s'use pas), which appeared in that unique and interesting periodical of the poilus, Le Bulletin des Armées de la République Française. Events 1333 - Flood of the Arno River, causing massive damage in Florence as recorded by the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani A presidential address, The Meaning of the War, was delivered in December, 1914, to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques.

Bergson contributed also to the publication arranged by The Daily Telegraph in honour of the King of the Belgians, King Albert's Book (Christmas, 1914). For "The Daily Telegraph" in Australia see The Daily Telegraph (Australia. The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those In 1915 he was succeeded in the office of President of the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques by Alexandre Ribot, and then delivered a discourse on The Evolution of German Imperialism. Alexandre-Félix-Joseph Ribot (7 February 1842 13 January 1923 was a French politician four times Prime Minister. Imperialism has two meanings one describing an action and the other describing an attitude Meanwhile he found time to issue at the request of the Minister of Public Instruction a brief summary of French Philosophy. Bergson did a large amount of travelling and lecturing in America during the war. He participated to the negotiations which led to the entry of the United States in the war. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All He was there when the French Mission under René Viviani paid a visit in April and May 1917, following upon America's entry into the conflict. Jean Raphaël Adrien René Viviani (8 November 1863 7 September 1925 was a French politician of the Third Republic, who served as Prime Minister for Viviani's book La Mission française en Amérique (1917), contains a preface by Bergson. Year 1917 ( MCMXVII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year

Early in 1918 he was officially received by the Académie française, taking his seat among "The Select Forty" as successor to Emile Ollivier, the author of the large and notable historical work L'Empire libéral. Olivier Émile Ollivier (2 July 1825 20 August 1913 was a French Statesman. A session was held in January in his honour at which he delivered an address on Ollivier. In the war, Bergson saw the conflict of Mind and Matter, or rather of Life and Mechanism; and thus he shows us the central idea of his own philosophy in action. To no other philosopher has it fallen, during his lifetime, to have his philosophical principles so vividly and so terribly tested.

Bergson in 1927. He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature
Bergson in 1927. He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature

As many of Bergson's contributions to French periodicals were not readily accessible, he agreed to the request of his friends that these should be collected and published in two volumes. The Nobel Prize in Literature (Nobelpriset i litteratur is awarded annually since 1901 to an author from any country who has in the words from the will of Alfred The first of these was being planned when war broke out. The conclusion of strife was marked by the appearance of a delayed volume in 1919 . It bears the title Spiritual Energy: Essays and Lectures (L'Energie spirituelle: essais et conférences). The advocate of Bergson's philosophy in England, Dr. Wildon Carr, prepared an English translation under the title Mind-Energy. The volume opens with the Huxley Memorial Lecture of 1911, "Life and Consciousness", in a revised and developed form under the title "Consciousness and Life". Signs of Bergson's growing interest in social ethics and in the idea of a future life of personal survival are manifested. The lecture before the Society for Psychical Research is included, as is also the one given in France, L'Ame et le Corps, which contains the substance of the four London lectures on the Soul. The seventh and last article is a reprint of Bergson's famous lecture to the Congress of Philosophy at Geneva in 1904, The Psycho-Physiolgical Paralogism (Le paralogisme psycho-physiologique), which now appears as Le cerveau et la pensée: une illusion philosophique. Other articles are on the False Recognition, on Dreams, and Intellectual Effort. The volume is a most welcome production and serves to bring together what Bergson wrote on the concept of mental force, and on his view of "tension" and "detension" as applied to the relation of matter and mind.

In June 1920, the University of Cambridge honoured him with the degree of Doctor of Letters. The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University) located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the Doctor of Letters ( Latin: Litterarum doctor; DLitt; or Litt D In order that he may be able to devote his full time to the great new work he was preparing on ethics, religion, and sociology, Bergson was relieved of the duties attached to the Chair of Modern Philosophy at the Collège de France. He retained the chair, but no longer delivered lectures, his place being taken by his disciple, the mathematician and philosopher Edouard Le Roy, who supported a conventionalist stance on the foundations of mathematics, which was adopted by Bergson [5]. Édouard Louis Emmanuel Julien Le Roy (June 18 1870 - November 10 1954) was a French philosopher and Mathematician. Conventionalism is the philosophical attitude that fundamental principles of a certain kind are grounded on (explicit or implicit agreements in society rather than on Foundations of mathematics is a term sometimes used for certain fields of Mathematics, such as Mathematical logic, Axiomatic set theory, Proof theory Le Roy, who also succeeded to Bergson at the Académie française and was a fervent Catholic, extended to revealed truth his conventionalism, leading him to privilege faith, heart and sentiment to dogmas, speculative theology and abstract reasonings. Revelation is the act of revealing or disclosing (see etymology or in the theological perception making something obvious and clearly understood through active or passive communication Dogma (the plural is either dogmata or dogmas, Greek, plural) is the established Belief or Theology is the study of a god or the gods from a religious perspective As Bergson, his writings were put to the Index by the Vatican.

Bergson then published Duration and Simultaneity: Bergson and the Einsteinian Universe (Durée et simultanéité), a book on physics which was followed by a polemical conversation with Albert Einstein at the French Society of Philosophy [2]. Physics (Greek Physis - φύσις in everyday terms is the Science of Matter and its motion. Albert Einstein ( German: ˈalbɐt ˈaɪ̯nʃtaɪ̯n; English: ˈælbɝt ˈaɪnstaɪn (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955 was a German -born theoretical The latter book has been often considered as one of his worst, many alleging that his knowledge of physics was very insufficient, and that the book did not follow up contemporary developments on physics [2]. It was not published in the 1951 Edition du Centenaire in French, which contained all of his other works, and was only published later in a work gathering different essays, titled Mélanges. Duration and simultaneity took advantage of Bergson's experience at the League of Nations, where he presided starting in 1920 the International Commission on Intellectual Cooperation (the ancestor of the UNESCO, which included Einstein, Marie Curie, etc. The League of Nations was an International organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920 United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on November 16 ) [2].

Living with his wife and daughter in a modest house in a quiet street near the Porte d'Auteuil in Paris, Bergson won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927 for having written The Creative Evolution. The Nobel Prize in Literature (Nobelpriset i litteratur is awarded annually since 1901 to an author from any country who has in the words from the will of Alfred Because of serious rheumatics ailments, he could not travel to Stockholm, and sent instead a text which has been published in La Pensée et le mouvant [2]. Rheumatology is a sub-specialty in Internal medicine and Pediatrics, devoted to the Diagnosis and therapy of Rheumatic diseases.

After his retirement from the Collège, Bergson faded into obscurity, because he was suffering from a degenerative illness (rheumatics, which left him half paralyzed [2]). He completed his new work, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, which extended his philosophical theories to the realms of morality, religion and art, in 1935 . It was respectfully received by the public and the philosophical community, but all by that time realized that Bergson's days as a philosophical luminary were past. He was, however, able to reiterate his core beliefs near the end of his life, by renouncing all of the posts and honours previously awarded him, rather than accept exemption from the antisemitic laws imposed by the Vichy government. The Statute on Jews (Statut des juifs was discriminatory legislation against French Jews passed on October 3, 1940 by the Vichy Regime, grouping them as Vichy France, or the Vichy regime are the common terms used to describe the government of France from July 1940 to August 1944 Though wanting to convert to Catholicism and having personally become a Christian in 1921 [1], he held off instead and showed solidarity with his fellow Jews by signing the registry books. Year 1921 ( MCMXXI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1921 calendar of the Gregorian calendar

A Roman Catholic priest said prayers at his funeral per his request. Henri Bergson is buried in the Cimetière de Garches, Hauts-de-Seine. Hauts-de-Seine (92 (literally " Seine Heights" is a département in France.

Philosophy

One of Bergson's main problems is to think novelty as pure creation, instead of as the unraveling of a predetermined program. His is a philosophy of pure mobility, unforeseeable novelty, creativity and freedom, which can thus be characterized as a process philosophy. Process philosophy (or Ontology of Becoming) identifies metaphysical Reality with Change and Dynamism. It touches upon such topics as time and identity, free will, perception, change, memory, consciousness, language, the foundation of mathematics and the limits of reason. The question of free will Foundations of mathematics is a term sometimes used for certain fields of Mathematics, such as Mathematical logic, Axiomatic set theory, Proof theory [6]

Criticizing Kant's theory of knowledge exposed in the Critique of Pure Reason and his conception of truth—which he compares to Plato's conception of truth as its symmetrical inversion (order of nature/order of thought)—he attempted to redefine the relations between science and metaphysics, intelligence and intuition, and insisted on the necessity of increasing thought's possibility through the use of intuition, which would be, according to him, the only way of approaching a knowledge of the absolute and of real life, understood as pure duration. Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg The Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft by Immanuel Kant, first published in 1781, second edition 1787, is one Biography Early life Birth and family Plato was born in Athens Greece Intuition is the philosophical method of French philosopher Henri Bergson. Duration is the theory of Time and Consciousness, posited by the French philosopher Henri Bergson. Because of his (relative) criticism of intelligence, he makes a frequent uses of images and metaphors in his writings in order to avoid the use of concepts, which he considers fail to touch the whole of reality, being only a sort of abstract net thrown on things. The term "concept" is traced back to 1554–60 ( l conceptum - something conceived but what is today termed "the classical theory of concepts" is the theory of Aristotle For instance, he says in The Creative Evolution (chap. III) that thought in itself would never have thought it possible for the human being to swim, as it cannot deduce swimming from walking. For swimming to be possible, man must throw itself in water, and only then can thought consider swimming as possible. Intelligence, for Bergson, is a practical faculty rather than a pure speculative faculty, a product of evolution used by man to survive. If metaphysics is to avoid "false problems", it should not extend to pure speculation the abstract concepts of intelligence, but rather use intuition [7].

The Creative Evolution was in particular an attempt to think the continuous creation of life, which explicitly pitted itself against Herbert Spencer's evolutionary philosophy—Spencer had attempted to transpose Darwin's theory of evolution in philosophy and to construct a cosmology based on this theory; he was also the inventor of the expression "survival of the fittest. Herbert Spencer ( April 27, 1820 – December 8, 1903) was an English Philosopher; prominent classical liberal Charles Robert Darwin (February 12 1809 &ndash April 19 1882 was an English naturalist, who realised and demonstrated that all Species of life eVolution is the third Album by eLDee, it was due to be released in 2008 Cosmology (from Greek grc κοσμολογία - grc κόσμος kosmos, "universe" and grc -λογία -logia) is study "Survival of the fittest" is a Phrase which is shorthand for a concept relating to competition for survival or predominance " Although Spencer is considered as an important influence of Bergson, some have downplayed it, as it seems that Bergson would have very early criticized him [2]. Henri Bergson’s Lebensphilosophie (Philosophy of Life) can be seen as a response to the mechanistic philosophies of his time [8], but also to the failure of Finalism. In Philosophy, mechanism is a Theory that all natural phenomena can be explained by physical causes Teleology ( Greek: telos: end purpose is the philosophical study of design and Purpose. [2] Indeed, he considers that finalism is unable to explain "duration" and the "continuous creation of life", as it only explains life as the progressive development of an initially determined program—a notion which remains, for example, in the expression of a "genetic program" [2]; such a description of finalism was adopted, for instance, by Leibniz [2]. Bergson thought that it was impossible to plan beforehand the future, as time itself unraveled unforeseen possibilities. Indeed, a historical event could always be explained retrospectively by its conditions of possibility. But, in the introduction to the Pensée et le mouvant, he explains that such an event created retrospectively its causes, taking the example of the creation of a work of art, for example a symphony: it was impossible to predict what would be the symphony of the future, as if the musician knew what symphony would be the best for his time, he would realize it. In his words, the effect created its cause. Henceforth, he attempted to find a third way between mechanism and finalism, through the notion of an original impulse, the élan vital, in life, which dispersed itself through evolution into contradictory tendencies (he substituted to the finalist notion of a teleological aim a notion of an original impulse). Teleology ( Greek: telos: end purpose is the philosophical study of design and Purpose.

Duration

See also: Duration (Bergson)

The foundation of Henri Bergson’s philosophy is his theory of Duration, which he discovered when trying to improve the inadequacies of Herbert Spencer’s philosophy. Duration is the theory of Time and Consciousness, posited by the French philosopher Henri Bergson. Duration is the theory of Time and Consciousness, posited by the French philosopher Henri Bergson. [8] A theory of time and consciousness, the Duration is introduced in his doctoral theses Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness as a response to another of his influences: Immanuel Kant. For other uses see Time (disambiguation Time is a component of a measuring system used to sequence events to compare the durations of Consciousness has been defined loosely as a constellation of attributes of Mind such as Subjectivity, Self-awareness, Sentience, and the Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg [9]

Kant believed freewill could only exist outside of time and space, that we could therefore not know whether or not it exists, and that it is nothing but a pragmatic faith. [9] Bergson’s response was to show that Kant, along with many other philosophers, had confused time with its spatial representation. [10] In reality, the Duration is unextended yet heterogeneous, and so its parts cannot be juxtaposed as a succession of distinct parts, with one causing the other. This made determinism an impossibility and freewill pure mobility, which is what Bergson identified as being the Duration. [11]

Intuition

See also: Intuition (Bergson)

The Duration then is a unity and a multiplicity, but, being mobile, it cannot be grasped through immobile concepts. Intuition is the philosophical method of French philosopher Henri Bergson. Hence the only way to grasp it is through Bergson’s method of intuition. Intuition is the philosophical method of French philosopher Henri Bergson. Two images from Henri Bergson’s An Introduction to Metaphysics may help us grasp intuition, the limits of concepts, and the ability of intuition to grasp the absolute. The first is that of a city. Analysis, or the creation of concepts through the divisions of points of view, can only ever give us a model of the city through a construction of photographs taken from every possible point of view, yet it can never give us the dimensional value of walking in the city itself. This can only be grasped through intuition, as can the experience of reading a line of Homer. Homer ( Ancient Greek:, Homēros) is a legendary ancient Greek epic Poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the One may translate the line and pile commentary upon commentary, but this commentary too shall never grasp the simple dimensional value of experiencing the poem in its originality itself. The method of intuition, then, is that of getting back to the things themselves. [12]

Élan Vital

See also: Élan Vital

The third essential concept of Bergson’s, after Duration and intuition, is the Élan Vital. For other meanings see Elan Vital Élan vital, coined by French Philosopher Henri Bergson in his 1907 For other meanings see Elan Vital Élan vital, coined by French Philosopher Henri Bergson in his 1907 An idea with the goal of explaining evolution, the Élan Vital first appeared in 1907’s Creative Evolution. Élan Vital is a kind of vital impetus which explains evolution in a less mechanical and more lively manner, as well as the creative impulse of mankind. This concept led Bergson to be characterized by several authors as a supporter of vitalism—although he criticized it explicitly in The Creative Evolution, as he thought, against Driesch and Johannes Reinke (whom he cited) that there is neither "purely internal finality nor clearly cut individuality in nature" [13]:

“ Hereby lies the stumbling block of vitalist theories (. Vitalism, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is a doctrine that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from physicochemical Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch ( October 28, 1867 - April 16, 1941) was a German Biologist and Philosopher from Johannes Reinke ( February 3, 1849 - February 25, 1931) was a German Botanist and Philosopher who was a native of Ziethen . . ) It is thus in vain that one pretends to reduce finality to the individuality of the living being. If there is finality in the world of life, it encompasses the whole of life in one indivisible embrace. [14] ”

Laughter

In the idiosyncratic Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, Bergson develops a theory not of laughter, but of how laughter can be provoked (see his objection to Delage, published on the 23rd edition of the essay [2]). He describes the process of laughter (refusing to give a conceptual definition which would not approach its reality [2]), used in particular by comics and clowns, as the caricature of the mechanism nature of humans (habits, automatic acts, etc. Clowns are comic performers stereotypically characterized by their Grotesque appearance colored wigs stylistic makeup, outlandish Costumes unusually ), one of the two tendencies of life (degradation towards inert matter and mechanism, and continual creation of new forms) [2]. However, Bergson warns us that laughter’s criteria of what should be laughed at is not a moral criteria and that it can in fact cause serious damage to a person’s self-esteem. [15] This essay made his opposition to the Cartesian theory of the animal-machine obvious [2]. Cartesianism is the name given to the philosophical doctrine (or school of René Descartes.

Criticisms and reception

From his first publications, Bergson's philosophy attracted strong criticism from different angles, although he was also very popular and durably influenced French philosophy—the epistemologist Gaston Bachelard, for example, explicitly alluded to him in the last pages of his 1938 book (The Formation of the Scientific Mind). French philosophy, here taken to mean Philosophy in French language, has been extremely diverse and has influenced both the analytic and continental Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, " Logos " or theory of knowledge Gaston Bachelard ( June 27, 1884 &ndash October 16, 1962) was a French Philosopher who rose to some of the most prestigious The mathematician Edouard Le Roy was Bergson's main disciple. Édouard Louis Emmanuel Julien Le Roy (June 18 1870 - November 10 1954) was a French philosopher and Mathematician. Others influenced include Vladimir Jankélévitch, who wrote a book on him (Henri Bergson) in 1931, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Gilles Deleuze who wrote Le bergsonisme in 1966 (transl. Vladimir Jankélévitch ( 31 August 1903 in Bourges – 6 June 1985 in Paris) was a French philosopher and musicologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (pjɛʀ tejaʀ də ʃaʀdɛ̃ 1 May 1881, Orcines, France – 10 Gilles Deleuze ( (January 18 1925 &ndash November 4 1995 was a French philosopher of the late 20th century 1988). Bergson is also often classified as an influence upon the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, as well as the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty and Emmanuel Lévinas. Process philosophy (or Ontology of Becoming) identifies metaphysical Reality with Change and Dynamism. Alfred North Whitehead, OM ( February 15 1861, Ramsgate, Kent, England &ndash December 30 1947, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (mɔʁis mɛʁlopɔ̃ti in French March 14, 1908 – May 3, 1961) was a French phenomenological [16] The Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis studied under Bergson in Paris and his writing and philosophy were profoundly influenced as a result. Nikos Kazantzakis ( Νίκος Καζαντζάκης) ( February 18, 1883, Heraklion, Crete, Ottoman Empire - [17]

Many writers of the early 20th century criticized his intuitionism, indeterminism, psychologism and unique interpretation of the scientific impulse. In the Philosophy of mathematics, intuitionism, or neointuitionism (opposed to Preintuitionism) is an approach to Mathematics as the constructive Psychologism is a generic type of position in Philosophy according to which Psychology plays a central role in grounding or explaining some other non-psychological Among those who explicitly criticized Bergson (either in published articles or letters) were Bertrand Russell (see his short book on the subject), George Santayana (see his study on the author in "Winds of Doctrine"), G. E. Moore, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Julien Benda (see his book on the subject), T. S. Eliot, Paul Valéry (despite some recent claims otherwise), Andre Gide (see below), Marxists philosophers such as Theodor W. Adorno (see "Against Epistemology"), Lucio Colletti (see "Hegel and Marxism"), Jean-Paul Sartre (see his early book Imagination—although Sartre also appropriated himself Bergsonian thesis on novelty as pure creation - see Situations I, Gallimard 1947, p. Bertrand Arthur William Russell 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970 was a British Philosopher, Historian George Santayana ( December 16, 1863, Madrid &ndash September 26, 1952, Rome) was a Philosopher, Essayist "GE Moore" redirects here For the cofounder of Intel see Gordon Moore. Julien Benda ( December 26, 1867 Paris &ndash June 7, 1956) was a French philosopher and Novelist Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26 1888 – January 4 1965 was a poet Dramatist, and Literary critic. Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry (French pɔl valeˈʁi October 30, 1871 – July 20, 1945) was a French Poet Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno ( September 11, 1903 &ndash August 6, 1969) was a German -born international sociologist Lucio Colletti ( December 8, 1924 - November 3, 2001) was one of the most important Italian philosophers of the twentieth century and Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (21 June 1905 &ndash 15 April 1980 commonly known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre (ʒɑ̃ pol saʁtʁə was a French 314) and Georges Politzer (see the latter's two books on the subject: Le Bergsonisme, une Mystification Philosophique and La fin d'une parade philosophique: le Bergsonisme both of which had a tremendous effect on French existential phenomenology), as well as (the non-Marxist) Maurice Blanchot (see Bergson and Symbolism), American philosophers such as Irving Babbitt, Arthur Lovejoy, Josiah Royce, The New Realists (Ralph B. Perry, E. B. Holt, and William P. Georges Politzer ( 3 May 1903 &ndash 23 May 1942) was a French Philosopher and Marxist theoretician of Hungarian Maurice Blanchot ( September 22, 1907  &ndash February 20, 2003) was a French Writer, Philosopher, and Irving Babbitt ( August 2, 1865 &ndash July 15, 1933) was an American academic and literary critic, noted for his founding Arthur Oncken Lovejoy ( October 10, 1873, Berlin &ndash December 30, 1962, Baltimore) was an influential American Josiah Royce ( November 20, 1855, Grass Valley California. &ndash September 14, 1916, Cambridge Massachusetts) was an Ralph Barton Perry (3 July 1876 in Poultney Vermont - 22 January 1957 in Boston Massachusetts) was an American philosopher Edwin Bissell Holt ( August 21, 1873 – January 25, 1946) was a professor of philosophy and psychology at Harvard from 1901–1918 Montague), The Critical Realists (Durant Drake, Roy W. Sellars, C. Roy Wood Sellars (1880– September 5, 1973) was an American philosopher of Critical realism and Religious humanism, and a proponent of A. Strong, and A. K. Rogers), Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Roger Fry (see his letters), Julian Huxley (in Evolution: The Modern Synthesis) and Virginia Woolf (for the latter, see Ann Banfield, The Phantom Table). Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler ( June 25, 1884 - January 11, 1979) born in Germany, was an art historian an art collector and one of the Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English artist and an Art critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury group Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS ( 22 June 1887 &ndash 14 February 1975) was an English Evolutionary biologist Evolution The Modern Synthesis, a 1942 book by Julian Huxley (grandson of T (Adeline Virginia Woolf (née Stephen; 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941 was an English Novelist and Essayist, regarded as one of the foremost

Bergson was accused by the Vatican of being pantheistic, while free-thinkers, who formed a large part of the teachers and professors of the French Third Republic, accused him of spiritualism. Pantheism ( Greek: πάν ( 'pan') = all and θεός ( 'theos') = God it literally means " God is All Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that Beliefs should be formed on the basis of Science and Logic and should not be influenced The French Third Republic (in French, La Troisième République, sometimes written as La IIIe Spiritualism is a Religion founded in part on the writings of the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772 Still others have characterized his philosophy as a materialist emergentism—Samuel Alexander and C. Lloyd Morgan explicitly claimed Bergson as their forebearer [2]. In the Philosophy of mind, emergent (or emergentist) materialism is a theory which asserts that the Mind is an irreducible existent in some sense Samuel Alexander OM ( 6 January 1859 - 13 September 1938) was an Australian born British Philosopher C Lloyd Morgan (Conwy Lloyd Morgan ( 6 February 1852 - 6 March 1936) was a British psychologist. According to Henri Hude (1990, II, p. 142), who supports himself on the whole of Bergson's works as well as his now published courses, accusing him of pantheism is a "counter-sense". Hude alleges that a mystical experience, roughly outlined at the end of Les Deux sources de la morale et de la religion, is the inner principle of his whole philosophy, although this has been contested by other commentators. Mysticism (from the Greek grc μυστικός mystikos, an initiate of a Mystery religion) is the pursuit of communion with identity

C. S. Peirce took strong exception to being aligned with Bergson. Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced purse) (September 10 1839 &ndash April 19 1914 was an American Logician mathematician, philosopher In response to a letter comparing his work with that of Bergson he wrote, “a man who seeks to further science can hardly commit a greater sin than to use the terms of his science without anxious care to use them with strict accuracy; it is not very gratifying to my feelings to be classed along with a Bergson who seems to be doing his prettiest to muddle all distinctions. ” William James’s students resisted the assimilation of his work to that of Bergson’s. See, for example, Horace Kallen’s book on the subject James and Bergson. Horace Meyer Kallen ( August 11, 1882 - February 16 1974) was a Jewish-American philosopher As Jean Wahl described the “ultimate disagreement” between James and Bergson in his System of Metaphysics:

“for James, the consideration of action is necessary for the definition of truth, according to Bergson, action. Jean André Wahl ( May 15, 1888 - 1974 was a French Philosopher. . . must be kept from our mind if we want to see the truth. ” Gide even went so far as to say that future historians will over-estimate Bergson’s influence on art and philosophy just because he was the self-appointed spokesman for “the spirit of the age. ”

As early as the 1890s, Santayana attacked certain key concepts in Bergson’s philosophy, above all his view of the New and the indeterminate:

“the possibility of a new and unaccountable fact appearing at any time,” he writes in his book on Lotze, “does not practically affect the method of investigation;. Rudolf Hermann Lotze ( 21 May, 1817 – 1 July, 1881) was a German Philosopher and Logician. . . the only thing given up is the hope that these hypotheses may ever be adequate to the reality and cover the process of nature without leaving a remainder. This is no great renunciation; for that consummation of science. . . is by no one really expected. ”

According to Santayana and Russell, Bergson projected false claims onto the aspirations of scientific method, which Bergson needed to make in order to justify his prior moral commitment to freedom. Russell takes particular exception to Bergson’s understanding of number in chapter two of Time and Free-will. According to Russell, Bergson uses an outmoded spatial metaphor (“extended images”) to describe the nature of mathematics as well as logic in general. “Bergson only succeeds in making his theory of number possible by confusing a particular collection with the number of its terms, and this again with number in general,” writes Russell (see The Philosophy of Bergson and A History of Western Philosophy).

Further still, the élan vital was seen to be a projection of the inner life, a moral feeling, onto the world at large. The external world, according to certain theories of probability, provides less and less indeterminism with further refinement of scientific method. Probability is the likelihood or chance that something is the case or will happen In brief, the moral, psychological, and aesthethic demand for the new, the underivable and the unexplained should not be confused with our imagination of the universe at large. A difference remains between our inner sense of becoming and the non-human character of the outer world, which, according to the ancient materialist Lucretius should not be characterized as either one of becoming or being, creation or destruction (De Rerum Natura). Titus Lucretius Carus (ca 99 BC- ca 55 BC was a Roman Poet and Philosopher. On the Nature of Things (Latin De rerum natura) is a first century BC Poem by the Roman Poet and Philosopher

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Henri Hude, Bergson, Paris, Editions universitaires, 1990, 2 volumes, quoted by Anne Fagot-Largeau in the 21 December 2006 course at the College of France
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Anne Fagot-Largeau, 21 December 2006 course at the College of France (audio file of the course)
  3. ^ p. The philosophy of biology is a subfield of Philosophy of science, which deals with epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues in the biological Charles Péguy ( January 7, 1873 - September 5, 1914) was a noted French Poet, Essayist and editor. The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment ( Grand établissement) located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement 39
  4. ^ Seth Benedict Graham A CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE RUSSO-SOVIET ANEKDOT 2003 p. 2
  5. ^ See Chapter III of The Creative Evolution
  6. ^ The topics can be found explored in Henri Bergson's Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, Matter and Memory, Creative Evolution, and The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics.
  7. ^ Elie Duhring, « Fantômes de problèmes », published by the Centre International d'Etudes de la Philosophie Française Contemporaine (short version first published in Le magazine littéraire, n°386, April 2000 (issue dedicated to Bergson)
  8. ^ a b Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics, pages 11 to 13.
  9. ^ a b The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Time and Free Will has to be seen as an attack on Kant, for whom freedom belongs to a realm outside of space and time.
  10. ^ Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, Author's Preface.
  11. ^ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy For Bergson—and perhaps this is his greatest insight—freedom is mobility.
  12. ^ Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics, pages 160 to 161.
  13. ^ L'Evolution créatrice, pp. 42-44; pp. 226-227
  14. ^ L'Evolution créatrice, pp. 42-43
  15. ^ Henri Bergson's theory of laughter. A brief summary.
  16. ^ Dermot Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology, pages 322 and 393.
  17. ^ Peter Bien, Three Generations of Greek Writers, Published by Efstathiadis Group, Athens, 1983

Bibliography

External links

Works online

Preceded by
Émile Ollivier		 Seat 7
Académie française
1914-1941		 Succeeded by
Édouard le Roy


Persondata
NAME Bergson, Henri
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bergson, Henri-Louis
SHORT DESCRIPTION philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH birth = 1859 October 18
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris, France
DATE OF DEATH 1941 January 4
PLACE OF DEATH Paris, France
Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to Digitize, archive and distribute Cultural works HTML, an initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant Markup language for Web pages It provides a means to describe the structure The Internet Archive ( IA) is a Nonprofit organization dedicated to maintaining an on-line Library and archive of Web and Olivier Émile Ollivier (2 July 1825 20 August 1913 was a French Statesman. This is a list of members of the Académie française (French Academy by seat number L'Académie française, or the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. Year 1859 ( MDCCCLIX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Events 1009 - The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church in Jerusalem, is completely destroyed by the Fatimid Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Year 1941 ( MCMXLI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (the link will display 1941 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 46 BC - Titus Labienus defeats Julius Caesar in the Battle of Ruspina. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics.
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