Henry Bergson's Thoughts, Biography, and His Work

Henry Bergson's Thought - At the beginning of the 20th century, Henry Bergson was one of the French philosophers who attracted much attention. He was born in Paris in 1859 and died in 1941. The interesting thing is Henry Bergson, known as the French Philosopher, was born to a Polish father and an English mother.

Henry Bergson's Short Biography

Little Henry Bergson was born into a mixed family, namely between Poland and England. According to his testimony, since childhood, the language he often uses to communicate with his mother and father is English. The relationship between his family and British culture at that time was quite close and had an influence on young Henry Bergson's thinking. This is what made Bergson known to have more open thoughts than other French philosophers.

For religious matters, both Father and Mother Henry Bergson embraced Judaism. Likewise with Bergson who embraced Judaism. This is a natural thing considering he was raised from within the atmosphere of Judaism in his own family.

When he was a teenager, Henry Bergson entered the junior high school in France, Lycee Condorcet. As a student, he is very talented in the subjects of Philosophy and Mathematics. That said, Bergson's teacher was disappointed when Henry Bergson finally decided to prefer Philosophy to Mathematics.

At the higher school level, he was accepted at the Ecole normale superiure to study Philosophy. It was at this place that Henry Bergson met with several people who would later have a profound influence on Philosophical thinking in France. Among them were Emile Durkheim, who would become a Sociologist, and Jean Jaures who would later become thought leaders of Socialism in France.

The work of Henry Bergson

After becoming a lecturer at one of the universities, Bergson also issued a number of works that were quite phenomenal at that time. At least the following is the work of Henry Bergson's thoughts during his lifetime:

Matiere et Memoire (Material and Memory) in 1896
Lerire (Laughter) in 1900
L’evolution Creatrice (Creative Evolution) in 1907
Duree et Simultaneite (Duration and Simultaneous) in 1922
Lex deux sources from Morale et de la religion (Both Sources of Morals and Religion) in 1932

In addition to some of the above works, Henry Bergson's thoughts in the form of articles were also collected in several newspapers at that time. Among them are L'energie spirituelle (Spiritual Energy) in 1919 and La pensee et le mouvant (Thinking and Moving) in 1934. After Bergson died in 1941, Bergson's thoughts were collected in a book entitled Ecrits et Paroles (Writings and Words) published in 3 volumes starting from 1957 - 1959.

Henry Bergson’s Thought

Broadly speaking, during his lifetime, Bergson issued several ideas, ideas, or thoughts. As a French philosopher who was able to have a major influence on the world of French Philosophy at the time, there were at least some of Henry Bergson's very famous ideas. Among others are:

Duree and Freedom

In his book entitled Essay on Data that is Directly Presented without Consciousness, Bergson discusses the issue of freedom concerning psychology and philosophy. The essence of this thinking is that Bergson wants to give a sharp critique of determinism, especially in the form of associationism which at that time played a very important role for psychological thinking.

That is, determinism at that time saw that all human thought was determined or determined by certain factors. In other words, humans do not have the freedom to think freely. Whereas the associationism proposed by Bergson gives the view that associations act as the main principle that controls human psychology.

Material and Memory

The thinking of Henry Bergson, which is further stated in the book Matiere et Memoire (Material and Memory). Bergson studied the relationship between body and soul, between matter and spirit. Henry Bergson put forward the idea that basically, his stance was dualistic. This is because Bergson maintains between matter and spirit as reality.

In other words, Bergson rejects every monism, namely the view that reduces humans to an element. Both monism which reduces matter in spirit (idealism) or monism which reduces spirit to material (materialism).

Creative Evolution

As information, evolution is one of the most important themes in the mind of Herny Bergson. This is what makes Bergson put forward the idea of Creative Evolution. To be able to understand evolution, Bergson considers that biological data must be equipped with metaphysical thinking. In this case, the key is what is experienced by humans as living things. This is because humans themselves are the most special example of the many creatures in the universe.

Moral and Religion

Henry Bergson's notion that was equally famous was about Moral and Religion. The point of this thinking is the difference between open moral and closed morals, open society and closed society, and dynamic religion and static religion. Closed moral is a sign for a closed society because of limited space, and is controlled by certain morals that apply in the place where they live. To better understand this further, you can read the full review here.

That is a brief review of Henry Bergson's thoughts, a brief biography, and his works. For future writing, we will present a number of things that will benefit you from historical writing, psychology, to philosophy. Hopefully this article useful for you.

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