Bergson and Philosophy: An Introduction

Various schools of philosophy have tried to claim Henri Bergson as one of their own. In France he has been regarded primarily as an early phenomenologist. In the United States and Britain he is still regarded as a vitalist philosopher. This introductory study looks at Bergson’s use of philosophical form and aims to dispel the view that Bergson ever stuck to one type of philosophy at all, be it vitalism or phenomenology. The claim of any one form of thought to the title of “first philosophy” is challenged by the idea of a Bergsonian metaphilosophy, which states that, in a universe with no static foundations, there can never be first philosophies. In other words, if everything is changing, then this must be no less true of philosophy. Bergson and Philosophy is an important and lucid reassessment of an influential philosopher that sets his work in philosophical contexts.