Bergson

Contemporary philosophy

Bergson was a twentieth-century French philosopher (1859–1941). As a student at the Lycée Condorcet, he won first prize in the general mathematics competition. However, he was drawn to literature and entered the École Normale Supérieure, where he was awarded the agrégation in philosophy. He went on to teach at lycées in Angers and Clermont-Ferrand, then at the Lycée Henri IV in Paris, the École Normale Supérieure, and finally the Collège de France. His works met with considerable public success, and he was elected president of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.

Bergson's Works Summarised on This Site

book cover

The Two Sources of Morality and Religion

In this book, Bergson distinguishes between two types of morality, closed morality and open morality, and proceeds in the same way with religion.

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Bibliography

Here are the essential books if you wish to better understand the thought of this author:

Ansell-Pearson, Keith. Bergson. Thinking Beyond the Human Condition. London: Bloomsbury, 2018.
Canales, Jimena. The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time. Princeton, Princeton Press, 2015.
Guerlac, Suzanne. Thinking in Time: An Introduction to Henri Bergson. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006.
Lawlor, Leonard. The Challenge of Bergsonism: Phenomenology, Ontology, Ethics. London: Continuum Press, 2003.
Mullarkey, John. Bergson and Philosophy. Edinburgh University Press, 1999.

Biography: Life of Bergson

Youth

Henri Bergson was born in Paris in 1859. His parents, of Jewish origin, soon moved to London, where he lived until the age of nine before returning to France.

His father was a composer, though not a successful one.

Once his parents had returned to England, he remained in Paris and became a boarder at the Lycée Condorcet. A brilliant student, he won first prize in the general mathematics competition at the age of eighteen.

Yet he felt drawn to a literary career and entered the École Normale Supérieure the following year. His classmates included Durkheim and Jean Jaurès.

He took a degree in literature and came fourth in the agrégation in philosophy, behind Jaurès, in 1881.

Bergson was then appointed to a teaching post and taught at Angers and then Clermont-Ferrand for five years.

He wrote Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, which he submitted as a doctoral thesis in the arts, and which was published immediately, in 1889.

First Works

He was then appointed to the Lycée Henri IV in Paris, where he taught for eight years. He married and had a daughter, who was deaf and mute.

He began work on Matter and Memory, published in 1896.

In 1898, he joined the École Normale Supérieure as a lecturer, though he taught there for only two years before being appointed professor at the Collège de France in 1900.

That same year, he published Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, and in 1901 was elected to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques.

He gave lectures at the International Congress of Philosophy.

In 1903, the Revue de métaphysique et de morale published one of his articles. This piece — a kind of manifesto, entitled "Introduction to Metaphysics" — can be seen as the founding statement of Bergsonism, a preface to his entire body of work.

Photo of Henri Bergson — Photo of young Bergson

Creative Evolution appeared in 1907 to great acclaim. His name was now known to the general public. This landmark work, which cast the theory of evolution in a new light, generated considerable interest in intellectual circles, even though some biologists expressed reservations.

In 1908, he travelled to London, where he met William James. The two thinkers introduced each other's work to the French and English public respectively. He did, however, encounter opposition from Russell, who remained unconvinced by his notion of intuition.

Bergson lectured at Oxford and Birmingham. In 1913, he travelled to the United States, where he gave lectures at several American universities.

His work was translated into several languages, he was appointed president of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, and he was made an officer of the Légion d'honneur. His books were, however, blacklisted by the Catholic Church and placed on the Index.

Fame and Political Involvement

All of Paris flocked to his lectures at the Collège de France: society ladies and their footmen jostled with students for seats. He received baskets of flowers — "I'm not a dancer, after all," he felt compelled to point out.

In 1914, Bergson began a series of lectures at Scottish universities, interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. He devoted several speeches and articles to the conflict and made contact with President Wilson in an effort to bring the United States into the war on the side of the Allies.

In 1918, he was admitted to the Académie française.

He gathered several articles together into a new work entitled Mind-Energy.

While he retained his chair at the Collège de France, Bergson was relieved of his teaching duties to allow him to devote himself fully to his own work.

In 1921, he became President of the International Office for Intellectual Cooperation within the League of Nations — a body that would eventually become UNESCO.

He met Albert Einstein and sought to defend the notion of universal time, which the theory of relativity had called into question.

Old Age

Bergson began to feel the first effects of a crippling rheumatism that made his every movement painful.

In 1927, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but, partially paralysed, he was unable to travel to Stockholm to receive it.

In 1932, he published The Two Sources of Morality and Religion.

When the Second World War broke out, he insisted on being registered as Jewish by the Vichy authorities — despite having converted to Catholicism and being exempt from such requirements on account of his fame — in an act of solidarity with his fellow Jews.

In 1941, he died in Paris, aged eighty-one. His last words are said to have been: Gentlemen, it's five o'clock and the lesson is over.

An inscription in his honour appears in the Panthéon.

Main Works

Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, New York: Dover Publications, 2001
Matter and Memory, New York: Cosimo Classics, 2007
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, New York: Dover Publications, 2013
Creative Evolution, New York: Dover Publications, 1998