Henri Bergson

Henri Bergson – Life, Philosophy, and Famous Quotes

Delve into the life and intellectual legacy of Henri Bergson (1859–1941), the French philosopher who redefined time, intuition, and creativity. Explore his biography, core ideas, influence, and notable quotes.

Introduction

Henri-Louis Bergson (October 18, 1859 – January 4, 1941) was a French philosopher whose work bridged the turn of the 20th century. He challenged dominant mechanistic and reductionist assumptions in philosophy and science by emphasizing duration, intuition, and creative evolution as central to human experience. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, Bergson’s writings left a profound mark on philosophy, literature, psychology, and beyond. His thought continues to be revisited today in debates on time, consciousness, and creativity.

This article traces Bergson’s life, outlines his major philosophical contributions, highlights his influence and legacy, and collects some of his most resonant quotes.

Early Life and Family

Henri Bergson was born in Paris on October 18, 1859.

During his youth, he lived partly in London (reflecting his mother's connections) before returning to France, ultimately receiving his schooling in Paris.

At school, Bergson showed early promise in mathematics and the sciences. At the Lycée Fontanes (later Lycée Condorcet) in Paris, he won a prize in mathematics (via the Concours Général) at age 18 for solving a problem of Pascal. This early accomplishment indicated a capacity for rigorous thought even before he fully turned toward philosophy.

Though raised with a Jewish education, Bergson experienced a crisis of faith between the ages of 14 and 16, as he encountered evolutionary and scientific ideas that challenged traditional religious beliefs.

Youth, Education & Academic Formation

After finishing secondary schooling, Bergson was admitted to the École Normale Supérieure, one of France’s premier institutions, where he undertook studies in philosophy and the humanities.

In 1889, he completed his doctorate at the University of Paris with the dissertation Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (“Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness”) as his principal thesis, along with a secondary thesis on Aristotle.

He early on took teaching positions in French secondary schools (lycées), including the Lycée Henri-Quatre, before being appointed to more prestigious academic roles.

In 1900, Bergson was appointed to a chair at the Collège de France (initially in Greek and Roman philosophy), and later moved to the Chair of Modern Philosophy (after Gabriel Tarde’s death). He held that until about 1920.

Along the way, in 1903 he published an influential essay, Introduction à la métaphysique ("Introduction to Metaphysics"), which articulates his methodological distinction between knowing by intellect and knowing by intuition.

Philosophical Works & Achievements

Bergson’s philosophical project aimed at pushing beyond mechanistic, deterministic, and reductionist frameworks, especially those dominant in science and classical philosophy. His goal was to re-center philosophy on the lived experience, time, consciousness, and creativity.

Major Works

Some of Bergson’s principal works include:

• Time and Free Will (1889) — Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience

• Matter and Memory (1896) — Matière et mémoire

• The Laughter (1899) — Le Rire

• Creative Evolution (1907) — L’évolution créatrice

• The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932) — Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion

• La Pensée et le Mouvant (1934) — Essays and lectures collecting his reflections late in life.

Among these, Creative Evolution is probably his best-known work, in which he advanced the concept of élan vital (vital impulse) as a creative force driving evolutionary novelty beyond mere mechanistic selection.

Key Philosophical Ideas

1. Duration (La durée)
   A central concept in Bergson’s thought is duration, his term for the lived, qualitative, fluid experience of time. He argued that chronological, quantitative time (e.g. clock time) is insufficient to understand consciousness, because real psychological time is continuous, indivisible, and interpenetrating.

   Duration implies that consciousness is not a sequence of discrete static states, but an interwoven flow in which the past and present continuously interact.

2. Intuition vs. Intellect
   Bergson drew a sharp distinction between intellect (which operates by division, conceptualization, abstraction, spatialization) and intuition (a direct, non-analytical means of insight into lived experience). He held that true metaphysical knowledge must come from intuition, though adjusted and clarified through the intellect.

   The intellect is suited for dealing with static, spatialized objects (as in science), but fails to capture the dynamism of life and consciousness.

3. Creative Evolution & Élan Vital
   Bergson rejected the reduction of life processes to mechanistic determinism. He proposed that evolution is not merely a blind, mechanical process but involves a creative impulse — the élan vital — which introduces novelty, irreversibility, and unpredictability.

   In this view, life is fundamentally inventive, diverging into multiple possibilities rather than rigid paths fixed by deterministic law.

4. Memory, Perception, and Matter
   In Matter and Memory, Bergson explores the relation between body and mind, the role of memory, and perception. He introduces the idea of two types of memory — habitual memory (motor memory, automatic) and pure memory (preservative, recollective) — and examines how perception functions as selective in relation to memory.

   He argues that perception is not merely passive reception but is shaped by past memory and by anticipated action.

5. Morality, Religion, and Spirituality
   In his later work, especially The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, Bergson extends his metaphysical ideas into ethics and religion. He explores how moral life arises from two sources: the static morality of society and the dynamic morality coming from spiritual spontaneity.

   He treats religious inspiration not as dogma but as a spontaneous, creative, renewing force in human communities.

6. Debate with Physics & Time
   Bergson engaged in public intellectual debate over the nature of time, especially following Albert Einstein’s relativity theory. In 1922, Einstein visited Paris and debated aspects of time with Bergson, particularly regarding simultaneity and relativity. Bergson published Durée et simultanéité to critique how physics uses time as a measure and its translation to lived time.

   His position was that physical time (measured, quantitative) and psychological time (duration) belong to different realms of understanding and cannot be conflated.

Historical Milestones & Context

• Bergson’s popularity surged in the early 20th century; during the 1910s he was among the most cited philosophers in English-language academic journals, surpassing even Aristotle or Kant in some periods.

• In 1927, Henri Bergson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented.”

• His lectures at the Collège de France drew large general audiences, bringing philosophy into somewhat more public prominence than is usual for academic philosophers.

• Toward the end of his life, Bergson suffered from rheumatic illness, which limited his mobility and prevented him from traveling, including to collect the Nobel Prize in person.

• During the Vichy regime in occupied France, Bergson faced pressure regarding antisemitic policies. He notably refused to accept exemptions from antisemitic laws, choosing instead to affirm his Jewish identity on official forms.

• He died on January 4, 1941, in occupied Paris, of bronchitis.

Legacy and Influence

Henri Bergson’s intellectual legacy is multifaceted:

• Philosophy & Modern Thought
  Bergson’s emphasis on duration, intuition, and creative novelty influenced many later thinkers across philosophy, literary theory, and psychology. His ideas provided a counterpoint to strict materialism and mechanistic models of mind.

• Literature & Arts
  Writers and artists such as Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce were influenced by Bergsonian ideas of time, memory, and consciousness.

• Philosophical Receptions
  Though he fell somewhat out of fashion mid-20th century, Bergson experienced a revival starting in the 1960s, especially via Gilles Deleuze, whose Le Bergsonisme reinterprets Bergson’s philosophy in the context of process philosophy and poststructuralism.

• Interdisciplinary Relevance
  Bergson’s thought continues to find resonance in cognitive science, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and debates about temporality and free will.

• Popular and Public Philosophy
  Unlike many philosophers whose impact remains largely academic, Bergson reached broader audiences through lectures and public intellectual activity, influencing cultural debates in his era.

His legacy is that of a thinker who sought to restore to philosophy what he saw as lost in abstract reduction: the immediacy, depth, and creativity of lived experience.

Personality, Traits & Intellectual Character

• Bridging Rationality and Intuition
  Bergson was not anti-reason, but he saw reason (intellect) as limited in grasping the fullness of life. His capacity to articulate a philosophy that honors intuition while resisting blind mysticism is a key trait.

• Modesty & Clarity
  Though a major thinker, he maintained a relative modesty in demeanor; his lectures were accessible to educated lay audiences.

• Creative Imagination
  His use of metaphor, image, and vivid illustration in his philosophical writing reveals a mind comfortable in metaphorical, poetic modes as well as analytic reflection.

• Ethical Core
  Toward the end of his life, his responses to antisemitism and his insistence on integrity over expedience show a moral backbone to his philosophical commitments.

• Resilience in Suffering
  Even as his later years were plagued by illness and restricted mobility, Bergson continued philosophizing, revising his thoughts, and producing work—such as La Pensée et le Mouvant—that interprets and deepens his earlier ideas.

Famous Quotes of Henri Bergson

Here are several quotes that capture the spirit and themes of Bergson’s philosophy:

1. “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”

2. “Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.”

3. “The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future.”

4. “All the living hold together, and all yield to the same tremendous push.”

5. “The universe is not made, but is being made continually.”

6. “In short, intelligence, considered in what seems to be its original feature, is the faculty of manufacturing artificial objects, especially tools to make tools, and of indefinitely urging the manufacture.”

7. “The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.”

8. “Laughter is, above all, a corrective. … By laughter, society avenges itself for the liberties taken with it.”

9. “The metaphor never goes very far, anymore than a curve can long be confused with its tangent.”

10. “We seize, in the act of perception, something which outruns perception itself.”

These snippets reflect his reflections on change, time, creativity, intelligence, perception, and the tension between the dynamic and the static.

Lessons from Henri Bergson

• Value the Lived Over the Abstract
  Bergson encourages us to remind ourselves that reality is not just a set of static measurable objects, but is fundamentally lived, fluid, and continuous.

• Bridge Intellect and Intuition
  He suggests that genuine insight often comes when intellect and intuition work together, rather than privileging only one path.

• Embrace Creativity & Novelty
  The world is not entirely predetermined; novelty and creative emergence play a real role in human life and evolution.

• Honor Memory, Embrace Change
  Past and future constantly interpenetrate our present experience—and that gives life richness.

• Live Philosophically
  True philosophy, for Bergson, is not an isolated discipline but deeply bound to moral, religious, artistic, and human life.

Conclusion

Henri Bergson stands as a landmark figure in modern philosophy—an audacious thinker who challenged reductionistic modes of thought and reasserted the centrality of lived time, intuition, and creativity. His influence resonates in philosophy, literature, cognitive science, and cultural theory.