Henri Bergson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Henri Bergson
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Bergson in 1927
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Henri-Louis Bergson
18 October 1859 Paris, France
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| Died | 4 January 1941 (aged 81) Paris, German-occupied France
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Notable work
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Louise Neuberger
(m. 1891) |
| Awards | Nobel Prize in Literature (1927) |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
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| Institutions | Collège de France |
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Henri Bergson (born October 18, 1859 – died January 4, 1941) was a famous French philosopher. He was very important in philosophy during the early 1900s. Bergson believed that our personal experiences and feelings (what he called "intuition") are more important for understanding the world than just using logic and science.
He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927. This was for his "rich and vitalizing ideas" and the "brilliant skill" with which he shared them. In 1930, France gave him its highest honor, the Grand-Croix de la Legion d'honneur.
Contents
Henri Bergson's Life
Early Years and Family
Henri Bergson was born in Paris, France, in 1859. His father, Michał Bergson, was a composer and pianist from a Polish-Jewish family. His mother, Katherine Levison, was from an English-Jewish and Irish-Jewish background.
His family lived in London for a few years when he was very young. This helped him learn English early. Before he was nine, his family moved back to France, and Henri became a French citizen.
In 1891, Henri Bergson married Louise Neuberger. She was a cousin of the famous writer Marcel Proust. Henri and Louise had a daughter named Jeanne, who was born deaf in 1896. Henri's sister, Mina Bergson, married an English writer named Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers.
Education and Career
Bergson went to school in Paris from 1868 to 1878. He was very good at both science and writing. When he was 18, he won a prize for solving a math problem. This was his first published work.
Even though he was good at science, he decided to study humanities (subjects like philosophy and literature). He went to the École Normale Supérieure, a famous French school. In 1881, he earned his philosophy degree from the University of Paris.
After teaching in different towns, Bergson returned to Paris in 1888. He taught at the Lycée Henri-Quatre for eight years. During this time, he studied the ideas of Charles Darwin about evolution.
In 1889, Bergson finished his important doctoral paper called Time and Free Will. In this work, he explored ideas about time and freedom. He also wrote a short Latin paper about Aristotle.
In 1896, he published his second major book, Matter and Memory. This book looked at how the brain works and how we perceive things and remember. It also discussed the connection between the body and the mind.
In 1900, Bergson became a professor at the Collège de France. This is a very important teaching and research institution in France. He taught Greek and Roman Philosophy there. Many people came to listen to his public lectures.
In 1900, he also published Laughter. This book explored why we laugh. Bergson suggested that we often laugh at people who act in a rigid or mechanical way, like a machine, instead of adapting to life. He said laughter helps society by correcting these behaviors.
His third major work, Creative Evolution, came out in 1907. This book became very popular and made Bergson famous. He explored the idea that life is constantly creating new things in an unpredictable way.
Meeting William James
In 1908, Bergson met William James, a famous American philosopher from Harvard University. James was much older than Bergson, but they became good friends. James helped introduce Bergson's ideas to English-speaking readers.
James admired Bergson's thinking. He felt that Bergson's ideas helped him understand that logic alone cannot fully explain reality. James believed that "reality, life, experience... exceeds our logic."
Later Life and Recognition
Bergson visited England and the United States several times, giving lectures to large audiences. In 1911, he gave talks at the University of Oxford and the University of Birmingham. Oxford gave him an honorary Doctor of Science degree.
In 1913, he lectured at Columbia University in New York. His popularity grew, and his books were translated into many languages. In 1914, he became a member of the Académie française, a very respected French institution.
During World War I, Bergson gave inspiring speeches. He saw the war as a conflict between "Mind and Matter" or "Life and Mechanism."
In 1922, Bergson published Duration and Simultaneity, which discussed Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Bergson focused on the philosophical ideas behind time, rather than the physics itself.
In 1927, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Because of health problems, he could not travel to Stockholm to receive it.
As he got older, Bergson suffered from a painful illness that left him partly paralyzed. In 1932, he finished his last major work, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion. This book explored his ideas about right and wrong, and about faith.
When France was occupied by the Nazis in 1940, Jewish people were forced to register with the police. Bergson, who was Jewish, refused special treatment. He proudly wrote "Academic. Philosopher. Nobel Prize winner. Jew." on his form.
Henri Bergson died in Paris on January 4, 1941, at the age of 81.
Bergson's Philosophy
Bergson disagreed with the idea that everything happens in a fixed, mechanical way. He believed that people have free will and can make choices that are truly new and unpredictable.
Creativity and Life Force
Bergson's philosophy focuses on constant change, new ideas, and freedom. He believed that life is always creating new things, not just following a set plan. He called this original impulse the élan vital, which means "vital impulse" or "life force." This élan vital explains the creative energy in evolution and in human beings.
He thought that our everyday intelligence is good for practical tasks, but it struggles to understand the true nature of reality, which is always changing.
Understanding Duration
One of Bergson's most important ideas is Duration. He used this idea to explain time and consciousness. He believed that many philosophers, like Immanuel Kant, misunderstood time. They thought of time like a line of separate moments, like points in space.
Bergson argued that real time, or Duration, is a continuous, flowing experience. It's not made of separate parts. Because Duration is always moving and changing, you can't understand it by breaking it down into fixed ideas.
The Power of Intuition
Bergson believed that to truly understand Duration and reality, we need to use intuition. Intuition, for Bergson, is a direct way of knowing something from the inside. It's like experiencing something firsthand, rather than just thinking about it or looking at it from the outside.
Imagine trying to understand a city. You could look at maps and photos from every angle. This would give you lots of information, but it wouldn't be the same as actually walking through the city and experiencing it yourself. Bergson would say that walking through the city is like using intuition – it gives you a direct, personal understanding.
Laughter's Meaning
In his book Laughter, Bergson explored why we find things funny. He suggested that laughter often comes from seeing something "mechanical stuck onto something living." For example, if a person acts in a very rigid or automatic way, like a machine, it can seem funny. This is because life is supposed to be flexible and changing. Laughter, in this way, helps us notice when people are not adapting well to social situations.
Images for kids
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Time and Free Will (Dissertation, 1889)
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On the Concept of Place in Aristotle (Dissertation, 1889)
See also
- Philosophy of biology
- Psychosophy
- Intuition (Bergson)
- Duration (philosophy)
- List of Jewish Nobel laureates
