Henri Bergson

About the author

Henri Bergson (1859–1941) was a French philosopher whose influence stretched across both analytic and continental traditions, particularly during the first half of the twentieth century and revived after Gilles Deleuze's 1966 study of his work. He argued that immediate experience and intuition matter more than abstract rationalism and science for grasping reality — a stance that made him enormously popular yet controversial in France, where officials viewed his ideas as a challenge to the Republic's secular, scientific values. He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature and France's Grand-Croix de la Légion d'honneur in 1930.