Final Report on Henri Bergso

                Bergson was a French philosopher who is most known for the multiplicity theory. He had firm belief that scientific method should not be used to understand human nature and the metaphysical world.

Origin

He was born in October, 1859 in Paris. During his years in high school he won an award for solving Pascal’s mathematical problem. However, he deiced to attend the Ecole Normale, one of the most prestigious schools in France, for a major in humanities. His math teacher was disappointed and claimed, “you could have been a mathematician; you will be a mere philosopher”. In 1888 he submitted two doctoral theses at which point one of them later was published as a book called Time and Free Will. During his lifetime not only was he able to gain a cult like following for his philosophy, but visited the United States as a diplomatic emissary to talk to president Wilson, he debated Albert Einstein,  and acknowledged his lack of following the theory of relativity to argue it and refused to publish a book on  it.

General Ideas

Multiplicity- For Bergson, he considered multiplicity as qualitative which implied that there are several conscious states while are organized into a whole one that influence one another into a richer state. Because he does not believe that there is any juxtaposition in his belief, he uses sympathy as one of the examples that would be easiest to understand. We can put ourselves in other people’s shoes and able to relate to them. Although he admits that it can come out of place such as pity and fear. Another example is used of a person aging. While we are young our past is short while our future is long, as we age, our past becomes longer and our future shorter. 

Method of Intuition- He believed that knowledge is gather through an analytical process but only for that information is needed through the human experience and is relative.

Perception and Memory- The knowledge of things take place in the things it represents. We remember thigs through images and is continuous.

Creative Evolution- He hypothesizes in a vital pulse that generated all living species followed by an explanation for divergence, which is his theory of tendency. The two man diverging factors include instinct and intelligence. Finally followed by the effort of intuition which allows to place ourselves back into the original creative impulse.

Elan Vital- He proposed the whole concept of evolution is a continuation of the vital pulse or otherwise referred to as a creation pulse. It is constantly developing and creating new forms. It is not mechanic. The instinct evolution is for things like insects, while intellectual evolution is for creatures such as man. They are all a form and extension of Elan Vital.

Morality and Religion- Morality and religion consist of two different aspects. A closed morality and static religion which consist of social structure. The second aspect is open morality and dynamic religion which are based on creativity and progress.

This is a video of a historian of science talking on the Bergson. Starting at at 11 min she talks about how he wrote a book but never intentionally disputed relativity nor try to make an impact in physics. However he did want to separate what he thought was make belief and fact. A very interesting video.

Quiz Questions: What extraordinary feat did Bergson accomplish when he was in High School?
What is Elan Vital?
What are the two types morality and religion?

DQ: Should we as individuals try to debate ideas that we ourselves have no experience with or knowledge about?
Is there a reason why Bergson would think of having two different types of morality and religion?

Here is the actual youtube link in case embed does not work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztruZVkMoek

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th-century_French_philosophy
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henri-Bergson#ref202559

Maksym Ustynov

6
Post quarantine runs 9 and 5 from the extra credit. 14 total