Audiobooks by Henri Bergson

Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic

Henri Bergson's 'Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic' dissects the essence of humor and laughter. With keen philosophical observation, Bergson explores how comedy arises from societal incongruities and mechanical rigidity. This insightful analysis transcends mere amusement, shedding light on the deeper significance of laughter as a social and intellectual phenomenon, making it a timeless exploration of the human experience and the absurdities of life. Read in English, unabridged.

Henri Bergson (Author), George Easton (Narrator)

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Dreams

Henri Bergson's 'Dreams' explores the enigmatic realm of the subconscious. With insightful analysis, Bergson delves into the nature of dreams, unraveling their connection to consciousness. This philosophical work transcends conventional understanding, offering a profound examination of the mysterious and dynamic dimensions of human thought during sleep, opening doors to new perspectives on the mind's intricacies and the essence of reality. Read in English, unabridged.

Henri Bergson (Author), George Easton (Narrator)

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Creative Evolution

Henri Bergson's highly influential book, ‘Creative Evolution' (‘Evolution Creatrice', 1907) established a theory of evolution - called ‘Creative Evolution Theory' - which gained a considerable following in the first half of the 20th Century. It also helped the author to win the Nobel Prize in 1927 for his work investigating the origins of biological information and divergence in the evolutionary process. In this work, Bergson seeks an alternative explanation as to how new forms of life emerge compared to those prevailing at the time. This included both the ‘mechanistic' or deterministic explanations of biological science on the one hand, and on the other the ‘finalist' or strictly teleological explanation of those who believed in the hand of a ‘Creator' or God, coordinating life in a divine plan. Creative Evolution proposes a third explanation in what Bergson calls élan vital' or ‘vital impetus', a force that infuses all matter and drives it forward into an ever-changing and infinite variety of living forms. This appears as a vital impetus that can also be related to humanity's own creative life force. Bergson's book builds on his ‘Theory of Time' as set forth in works such as ‘Matter and Memory' and ‘Time and Free Will'. In these works, and in the present volume, Bergson sees continuous ‘duration' as real time, as opposed to the way in which time is divided up into measured units by the ‘organising' mind of science. Life, as we really experience it, is subject to constant change and our tendency to explain evolutionary change by looking only at ‘ends' achieved rather than the processes by which they emerge, divorces us from the life force itself. Instead, Bergson feels we need to reengage with our instincts as well as with our intelligence in order to understand the evolutionary process, as both co-exist to some extent within us, all forms of life having a common origin in that instinctual, innate knowledge of simpler life forms. Though these may be unconscious or semi-conscious, they are, in Bergson's view, much more in touch with the ever-changing nature of real time than the analytical and rational knowledge of our species As he writes: “Our thought, in its purely logical form, is incapable of presenting the true nature of life, the full meaning of the evolutionary movement. Created by life, in definite circumstances, to act on definite things, how can it embrace life, of which it is only an emanation or an aspect?” It is to attempt an answer to this question that ‘Creative Evolution' directs its attention.

Henri Bergson (Author), Michael Lunts (Narrator)

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[French] - L’énergie Spirituelle

Recueil de conférences et d’études parues entre 1901 et 1913, L’Energie Spirituelle pose de multiples manières « la triple question de la conscience, de la vie et de leur rapport ». Du rêve au fonctionnement de la mémoire, de la perception à l’intellection, Bergson interroge le sens commun et remet en jeu une question vitale que les systèmes philosophiques existants et les vieilles métaphysiques n’ont su résoudre : le rapport entre âme et corps, entre esprit et matière. Loin d’assener des vérités péremptoires, l’ouvrage de Bergson déploie une pensée humble et toujours en mouvement qui puise dans la psychologie, l’histoire naturelle et les sciences. On reconnaît également, dans ces essais devenus des classiques de la philosophie, l’efficacité propre à leur approche didactique, imagée et sans jargon. L’académicien, prix Nobel de littérature et penseur de l’expérience spirituelle qu’est Bergson signe ici un ouvrage fondateur, tant dans sa méthode que dans la modernité de ses idées.

Henri Bergson (Author), Jacques Denigelles (Narrator)

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[French] - L'âme et le corps

il y a infiniment plus, dans une conscience humaine, que dans le cerveau correspondant. Ainsi, la conscience est incontestablement accrochée à un cerveau mais il ne résulte nullement de là que le cerveau dessine tout le détail de la conscience, ni que la conscience soit une fonction du cerveau. Tout ce que l’observation, l’expérience, et par conséquent la science nous permettent d’affirmer, c’est l’existence d’une certaine relation entre le cerveau et la conscience. Quelle est cette relation ? C’est ici que nous pouvons nous demander si la philosophie a bien donné ce qu’on était en droit d’attendre d’elle...

Henri Bergson (Author), Daniel Franck (Narrator)

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Dreams

Since the beginning of time human beings have been seeking to understand the mystifying nature of dreams. A dream is a puzzle. I see objects but there is nothing there. I see people, I speak with them, yet there is no one there and I have not actually spoken. What is going on? In Dreams, first published in 1913, French philosopher Henri Bergson analyzes the phenomenon of dreaming as a product of the mind attempting to interpret what happens physiologically during sleep. Our eyes respond to light and shapes. We hear sounds. Our bodies move and we have the sensation of touch. Bergson explains that we relate these phenomena to the vast reservoir of experiences stored in our memory, which he believes stores each of our experiences in detail in perpetuity. The brain seeks to associate the perceptions in our dreams with those memories that most closely that data. The result may be disconnected, illogical, incoherent, and absurd, but that is likely because during sleep we have relaxed from the labor of making sense of connections when we are awake. In this short essay he manages to elucidate the profound metaphysics of dreaming and suggest new areas of inquiry in disciplines such as psychoanalysis that promise further understanding.

Henri Bergson (Author), Douglas Harvey (Narrator)

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Matter and Memory

Matter and Memory, (Matière et Mémoire), published in 1896, was the second book written by Henri Bergson (1859-1941), one of the leading French philosophers of his age. It followed Time and Free Will (1889) and helped to establish him as a major force in anti-mechanistic thought, opposing the trend towards uncompromisingly secular and scientific views. However, when Matter and Memory appeared, Bergson was 39 and had yet to become the hugely influential figure he became in the first decades of the 20th century. The first edition carried the subtitle An Essay on the Relationship of Body to Spirit and although this was dropped by the author when revising the text in later editions, it remains a useful introductory statement. For in Matter and Memory, Bergson set out to consider the classic problem of the union of ‘soul and body' by the analysis of memory. He sought to refute the proposition, then very current, that memory, being ‘lodged' in the nervous system, localised in the brain, was therefore material. Bergson rejected this reduction of mind to matter. He considered memory to be deeply spiritual. The first edition explained his approach thus: ‘The brain merely guides memory towards actions in the present. The brain inserts memories into the present, with a view to action. The brain has a practical function. The body is the centre of action. Cerebral lesions do not damage memories or the memory. Such lesions disrupt the practical operations of the brain. Memories cannot become incarnate. They always exist, but they are powerless. In fact, the brain no longer functions as intended, and consequently these memories cannot be used.' In his introduction to the fifth edition of Matter and Memory (1908), used in this recording, Bergson writes, ‘This book affirms the reality of spirit and the reality of matter, and tries to determine the relation of the one to the other by the study of a definite example, that of memory. It is, then, frankly dualistic. But, on the other hand, it deals with body and mind in such a way as, we hope, to lessen greatly, if not to overcome, the theoretical difficulties which have always beset dualism, and which cause it, though suggested by the immediate verdict of consciousness and adopted by common sense, to be held in small honour among philosophers.' Though the next generation of French philosophers such as Merleau-Ponty and Sartre acknowledged the influence of Bergson, his reputation declined after World War II. It was revived in the mid-1960s following the championing of his work by Gilles Deleuze. Bergson's place in 20th century philosophy, and the relevance of his views today, are secure.

Henri Bergson (Author), Michael Lunts (Narrator)

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

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) was the leading French philosopher of the first half of the 20th century. Near the end of his life when he was forced to register with the police in Nazi-occupied France he wrote: ‘Academic. Philosopher. Nobel prize winner. Jew.' He was indeed all these things and many more, being as famous in his lifetime for his political activities, working with US President Woodrow Wilson to found the League of Nations, as for being a member of the Académie française and president of the Society for Psychic Research. Time and Free Will, his doctoral thesis, was published as a book in 1889 and attacks and rejects the mechanistic view of causality described in Kant's version of space and time and proceeds to attempt to define free-will and consciousness by separating space and time. In the process he ascribes temporality to the immediate data of consciousness, or lived time, calling it ‘the duration', la durée. This duration is a key concept in his philosophy. He defines this state as the precondition for the possibility of free will and declares that freedom is mobility. He argues that science cannot measure changes in consciousness qualitatively, only quantitively. His approach is dualistic, expressing a preference for instinct, or intuition, to intellect and characterises intuition as memory rather than perception. In effect he asserts that free will is a fact. For Bergson intuition is experience in action and entering into the thing or state, empathy, is the way to absolute, rather than relative knowledge. His writing is remarkable for his use of striking imagery - his Nobel prize in 1927 was for literature - but in spite of this imagery which he relies on to illuminate his meaning, he was adamant that no fixed image can adequately represent the mobility he refers to, the unending ‘becomings' of life. His influence seemed to fade after World War II with the coming of a new generation of continental philosophers including Jean Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty - existentialists, whose interests lay in responding to Husserlian phenomenology and the thinking of Heidegger. However, there has a been a growing resurgence of interest in his writings because of the acknowledged importance of his ideas to the work of Gilles Deleuze, who found in Bergson's notion of an open society a response to the dominant arguments of phenomenology. Hindu writers have also noted similarities between Bergson's ideas on matter, consciousness, intuition and evolution with Hindu thinking and perspectives. Time and Free Will, translated by F.L. Pogson, is read with customary clarity by Michael Lunts for Ukemi audiobooks.

Henri Bergson (Author), Michael Lunts (Narrator)

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An Introduction to Metaphysics

The basic principles that Bergson articulates, especially his way of thinking about reality as a dynamic process and his view of human beings as creative and evolving, should be helpful to anyone who seeks to go beyond simply dealing with the practical demands of daily life and consider the nature of things. Of special importance is Bergson’s claim that it is both possible and necessary to know from the inside rather than confining our attention to external perspectives and points of view. Intuition is able to get beyond what is relative and place us inside reality. This essay is, as the title says, an introduction. But if we think there is more to a human being — and even to nature itself — than material structures alone, perhaps the time has come to take a fresh look at Bergson’s essay. In 'An Introduction to Metaphysics,' Bergson traces the demise of metaphysics to the failure of both scientific materialism and dogmatism and to the immense success of a kind of pragmatism that promised liberation from the fruitless battles among various schools of philosophy. He also rejects relativism and criticizes the vacuum that is created when philosophers refuse to inquire about the nature of reality. To avoid metaphysics easily leads to a worldview shaped by unexamined ideas and hidden presuppositions.

Henri Bergson (Author), Albert A. Anderson, Alberto De La Rocha, Alberto Ghiraldo (Narrator)

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The Introduction to Metaphysics

The basic principles that Bergson articulates, especially his way of thinking about reality as a dynamic process and his view of human beings as creative and evolving, should be helpful to anyone who seeks to go beyond simply dealing with the practical demands of daily life and consider the nature of things. Of special importance is Bergson’s claim that it is both possible and necessary to know from the inside rather than confining our attention to external perspectives and points of view. Intuition is able to get beyond what is relative and place us inside reality. This essay is, as the title says, an introduction. But if we think there is more to a human being—and even to nature itself—than material structures alone, perhaps the time has come to take a fresh look at Bergson’s essay. In An Introduction to Metaphysics, Bergson traces the demise of metaphysics to the failure of both scientific materialism and dogmatism and to the immense success of a kind of pragmatism that promised liberation from the fruitless battles among various schools of philosophy. He also rejects relativism and criticizes the vacuum that is created when philosophers refuse to inquire about the nature of reality. To avoid metaphysics easily leads to a worldview shaped by unexamined ideas and hidden presuppositions.

Henri Bergson (Author), Albert A. Anderson (Narrator)

Audiobook