Henri Bergson (18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopher. In 1927, Henri Bergson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Life and Career
Henri Bergson was born on 18 October 1859, in Paris, France.
He attended the Lycée Condorcet and later studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he received his agrégation (a competitive teaching certification) in philosophy.
Academic Career: Bergson taught at various institutions, including the Collège de France and the University of Paris. His work gained prominence in the early 20th century, and he became a prominent figure in the philosophical community.
Philosophical Contributions: Bergson is known for his work on the philosophy of time and duration. His two most famous works are “Time and Free Will” (1889) and “Creative Evolution” (1907). In these works, he argued against the mechanistic view of the universe and proposed that reality is fundamentally dynamic and that time is a vital component of human experience.
Legacy: Bergson’s ideas influenced a wide range of fields, including philosophy, literature, psychology, and theology. His philosophy had a profound impact on thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Gilles Deleuze.
Henri Bergson passed away on 4 January 1941 in Paris, France.
Award and Legacy
Henri Bergson received several awards and honors during his lifetime. One of the most notable awards was the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he received in 1927. He was recognized for his contributions to literature and philosophy.
Bergson’s ideas continue to influence philosophy, particularly in the fields of metaphysics, existentialism, and phenomenology.
His concept of “duration” and his emphasis on intuition and experience over rationalism had a significant impact on the development of modern philosophy.
Bergson’s work also had an influence on literature and the arts, particularly in the early 20th century.