Henri Bergson

Henri-Louis Bergson (October 18, 1859 – January 4, 1941) was a French philosopher, influential in France, but out of the main currents of his time.

The lectures on change, and Bergson's later life

Bergson visited the University of Oxford, where he delivered two lectures entitled La Perception du Changement (The Perception of Change), which were published in French in the same year by the Clarendon Press. 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.

Related Topics:
University of Oxford - Clarendon Press - Doctor of Science

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Two days later he delivered the Huxley Lecture at Birmingham University, taking for his subject Life and Consciousness. This subsequently appeared in The Hibbert Journal (Oct., 1911), and since revised, forms the first essay in the collected volume L'Energie spirituelle or Mind-Energy. 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.

Related Topics:
Huxley Lecture - Birmingham University - The Hibbert Journal - University College London

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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. In February, at Columbia University, he lectured both in French and English, taking as his subjects: Spiritualité et Liberté 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: Fantômes des Vivants et Recherche psychique (Phantoms of Life and Psychic Research).

Related Topics:
1913 - United States of America - Columbia University - New York - British Society for Psychical Research

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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. In 1914 he was honoured by his fellow-countrymen in being elected as a member of the Académie française. 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.

Related Topics:
English - German - Italian - Danish - Swedish - Hungarian - Polish - Russian - 1914 - Académie française - Légion d'honneur

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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. 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. 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. It was claimed that there is harmony between the flute of personal philosophical meditation and the trumpet of social revolution.

Related Topics:
Neo-Catholicism - Modernism - Syndicalism - Socialiste - Karl Marx - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon - Confédération Générale du Travail - Industrial Workers of the World

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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 by placing them upon the Index of prohibited books (Decree of June 1, 1914).

Related Topics:
Roman Catholic Church - Thomas Aquinas - Index of prohibited books

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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 first course, consisting of eleven lectures, under the title of The Problem of Personality, was delivered at Edinburgh University in the Spring of that year. 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 La force qui s'use et celle qui ne s'use pas (Wearing and Nonwearing forces), which appeared in that unique and interesting periodical of the poilus, Le Bulletin des Armées de la République Française. A presidential address delivered in December, 1914, to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, had for its title La Significance de la Guerre. This, together with the preceding article, has been translated and published in England as The Meaning of the War.

Related Topics:
Gifford Lectures - Edinburgh University - November 4

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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). In 1915 he was succeeded in the office of President of the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques by M. Alexandre Ribot, and then delivered a discourse on The Evolution of German Imperialism. Meanwhile he found time to issue at the request of the Minister of Public Instruction a delightful little summary of French Philosophy. Bergson did a large amount of travelling and lecturing in America during the war. He was there when the French Mission under M. Viviani paid a visit in April and May of 1917, following upon America's entry into the conflict. M. Viviani's book La Mission française en Amérique (1917), contains a preface by Bergson.

Related Topics:
The Daily Telegraph - Belgians - 1915 - Alexandre Ribot - Imperialism - Viviani - 1917

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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. 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.

Related Topics:
1918 - Emile Ollivier

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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 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 L'Energie spirituelle: Essais et Conférences (Spiritual Energy: Essays and Lectures). The noted expounder 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, Le paralogisme psycho-physiologique (The Psycho-Physiolgical Paralogism), 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.

Related Topics:
1919 - Wildon Carr

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In June, 1920, the University of Cambridge honoured him with the degree of Doctor of Letters (D.Litt). 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 noted pupil Edouard Le Roy. 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.

Related Topics:
1920 - University of Cambridge - Doctor of Letters - D.Litt - Edouard Le Roy - Nobel Prize for Literature - 1927

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After his retirement from the Collège, Bergson faded into obscurity, because he was suffering from a degenerative illness. He completed his great new work, Les Deux Sources de la religion et de la Morale, 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. Though wanting to convert to Catholicism, he held off instead and showed solidarity with his fellow Jews by signing the registry books.

Related Topics:
1935 - Antisemitic - Vichy

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A Roman Catholic priest said prayers at his funeral per his request. Henri Bergson is buried in the Cimetière de Garches, Hauts-de-Seine.

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