Henri Bergson - Key Writings

CE

Creative Evolution

CM

The Creative Mind

DS

Duration and Simultaneity, with Reference to Einsteins Theory

EP

Ecrits et Paroles

M

Mlanges

ME

Mind-Energy

MM

Matter and Memory

OE

Oeuvres

RDM

Revue des Deux Mondes

TSMR

The Two Sources of Morality and Religion

TFW

Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness

1859

18 October: Henri-Louis Bergson born, 18 rue Lamartine, Paris, the second son of four boys and three girls to Polish father, Michael Bergson (originally Berek-son) and English mother, from Doncaster in Yorkshire, Katherine Levison.

1869

Bergson family move to London (21 Shirland Road), Bergson remains in Paris and educated at lyce Fontaine (lyce Condorcet).

1877

Bergson wins first prize in mathematics for the Concours Gnral, and the plane solution of Pascal is published the following year in the Nouvelles Annates deMathmatiques. Bergsons teacher, Desboves, would recount the solution in his Etudesur Pascal et lesgomtres contemporains. At the time Bergsons future is seen to lie in geometry as he viewed things spatially. Bergson also distinguishes himself in philosophy, winning first prize with the essay Perceptions relles et perceptions acquises. Bergson expected to enter the Ecole Normale to study mathematics and his decision to study philosophy instead disappoints Desboves, who wrote to him, you will only be a philosopher and have missed your vocation.

1878

Enters the Ecole Normale, in the same class as Jean Jaures, and Emile Durkheim is a fellow student. Bergson reads John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer, studying carefully the latters First Principles, and initially attracted to materialism and mechanism. Bergson studying under the influence of his tutor, Emile Boutroux (author of works on the contingency of nature and the idea of natural law) and also Flix Ravaisson and Jules Lachelier.

1881

Leaves the Ecole Normale with an agrg dephilosophie. Begins a teaching post in Angers and enrols for a doctorate at the University of Paris.

1882

Takes up teaching post at the lyce Blaise-Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand.

1883

While at the lyce Blaise-Pascal publishes an edition of Lucretius DeRerum Natura under the title of Extraits deLucrce with a commentary and notes.

In a letter to William by the realization that scientific time has no duration.

1886

Bergson publishes his first essay, De la simulation inconsciente dans ltat dhypnotisme, in RevuePhilosophique.

1888

Returns to Paris to teach, first at the Collge Rollin, then at the lyce Henri-Quatre as Professor of Rhetoric, where he remains until 1897. Submits two theses to the University of Paris: QuidAristoteles deloca sensorit? (What is Aristotles Conception of Place?) andEssai sur lesdonnes immdiates de la conscience (Time and Free Will).

1889

Bergson marries Louise Neuburger, aged 19, and cousin of Marcel Proust, who was a page-boy at the wedding. Later, on the publication of Swanns Way, the first volume of A larecherche du tempsperdu, Proust would resist attempts to describe him as a Bergsonian novelist.

1896

Publishes Matter and Memory. William James wrote to Bergson that the work makes a Copernican Revolution and compares it to Berkeleys Principles of Human Knowledge and Kants Critique of Pure Reason.

1897

Applies unsuccessfully, and second time round, for a post at the Sorbonne. Assumes position of matre deconfrences at the Ecole Normale.

1900

Appointed Chair of Ancient Philosophy at the Collge de France, having been rejected the previous year, in favour of Gabriel Tarde, for the Chair of Modern Philosophy.

Publication of Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic.

1901

Made a member of the