Henri Bergson
Questo articolo non è ancora stato tradotto completamente. Se sei in grado, potresti tradurlo tu. Grazie.
center|100px|Premio Nobel
|
Nobel per la letteratura
|
thumb|150px|left|Henri Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (18 ottobre 1859 - 4 gennaio 1941), filosofo francese, fu voce autorevole in patria senza appartenere a nessuna delle principali correnti filosofiche del suo tempo. Ricevette il Premio Nobel per la letteratura nel 1927.
| Indice |
Le sue quattro opere principali
Nacque a Parigi in Rue Lamartine, non lontano dall'Opera. Discendeva da una importante famiglia ebrea polacca, con sangue inglese nel ramo materno. La sua famiglia visse a Londra per alcuni anni dopo la sua nascita ed egli familiarizzò presto con la lingua inglese. Prima di compiere nove anni, i suoi genitori passarono la Manica e si stabilirono in Francia; Henri fu naturalizzato cittadino della Repubblica.
La vita di Bergson fu quella tranquilla e senza grandi eventi di un professore francese, i maggiori punti di riferimento in essa sono la pubblicazione dei suoi quattro principali lavori: il primo nel 1889, l' Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (Trattato sui dati immediati della coscienza), quindi Matière et Memoire (Materia e Memoria) nel 1896, L'Evolution créatrice (L'evoluzione creatrice) nel 1907 e infine Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion (Le due fonti della Morale e della Religione) nel 1932.
Istruzione e carriera
A Parigi dal 1868 al 1878 Bergson frequentò il Lycée Fontaine, ora conosciuto come Lycée Condorcet. Durante quegli anni vinse un premio per un suo lavoro scientifico e un altro, diciottenne, per la soluzione di un problema matematico. Questo successe nel 1877, la sua soluzione fu pubblicata l'anno seguente negli Annales de Mathématiques. Esso è di qualche interesse essendo il suo primo lavoro pubblicato. Dopo qualche esitazione sulla sua carriera, se questa dovesse svilupparsi nel campo scientifico o negli studi umanistici, egli decise per la seconda opzione e a diciannove anni entrò nella famosa Ecole Normale Supérieure. Qui conseguì il diploma di Licence-ès-Lettres, a questo fece seguito quello di Agrégation de philosophie nel 1881.
Lo stesso anno ricevette un incarico da insegnante al Lycée di Angers, la vecchia capitale dell'Anjou. Due anni dopo si stabilì al Lycée Blaise-Pascal di Clermont-Ferrand, capitale del département del Puy-de-Dôme.
L'anno successivo al suo arrivo a Clermont-Ferrand, Bergson diede esempio delle sue capacità nelle scienze umanistiche pubblicando una eccellente edizione di estratti da Lucretius, con uno studio critico del testo e della filosofia del poeta (1884), un'opera le cui ripetute riedizioni sono prova sufficiente della sua importanza nel promuovere lo studio dei classici presso i giovani francesi. Oltre a insegnare e a tenere lezioni universitarie nella regione dell'Auvergne, Bergson trovava il tempo per gli studi personali e la stesura di opere originali. Era impegnato con il suo Essai sur les données immediates de la conscience. Questo trattato fu consegnato, insieme a una breve tesi in latino su Aristotele, per il diploma di Docteur-ès-Lettres, a cui fu ammesso dalla Università di Parigi nel 1889. L'opera fu pubblicata nello stesso anno da Felix Alcan, l'editore parigino, nella sua collana La Bibliothèque de philosophie contemporaine.
È interessante notare che Bergson dedicò questo volume a Jules Lachelier, allora ministro della pubblica istruzione, che era un ardente discepolo di Felix Ravaisson e autore di una piuttosto importante opera filosofica: Du fondement de l'Induction (Sul fondamento della Induzione, 1871). Lachelier tentava di "sostituire ovunque la forza all'inerzia, la vita alla morte e la libertà al fatalismo." (Nota: Lachelier era nato nel 1832, Ravaisson nel 1813. Bergson doveva molto a entrambi questi insegnanti della Ecole Normale Supérieure. Vedere per esempio il suo discorso in memoria di Ravaisson, che morì nel 1900.)
Bergson si era allora stabilito a Parigi; dopo aver insegnato per qualche mese al Collegio Municipale, noto come il College Rollin, ricevette un incarico al Lycée Henri-Quatre, dove rimase per otto anni. Nel 1896 pubblicò la sua seconda grande opera, intitolata Matière et Mémoire. Questa opera, piuttosto difficile ma brillante, investiga la funzione del cervello, intraprende una analisi della percezione e della memoria, portando a una attenta considerazione dei problemi sulla relazione tra corpo e mente. Bergson passò anni di ricerca prima di pubblicare ognuna delle sue tre grandi opere. Questo è specialmente vero per Matière et Memoire, dove egli mostra una familiarità molto profonda con la notevole quantità di ricerche mediche che erano state compiute in quegli anni, per la quale alla Francia è giustamente attibuito un rilevante merito.
Nel 1898 Bergson divenne Maître de conférences presso la sua Alma Mater, L'Ecole Normale Supérieure e fu in seguito promosso al ruolo di professore. L'anno 1900 lo vide professore al Collège de France, dove accettò la cattedra di Filosofia greca, succedendo a Charles L'Eveque.
Al Primo Congresso Internazionale di Filosofia, tenutosi a Parigi dall' 1 al 5 agosto 1900, Bergson lesse un breve, ma importante, articolo Sur les origines psychologiques de notre croyance à la loi de causalité (Sulle origini psicologiche della nostra credenza alla legge della causalità). Nel 1901 Felix Alcan pubblicò un lavoro che era precedentemente apparso nella Revue de Paris, intitolato Le rire (Il riso), una delle più importanti produzioni minori di Bergson. Questo trattato sul significato del "comico" era basato su una lezione che aveva tenuto tempo prima nell'Auvergne. L'analisi di questo lavoro è essenziale per la comprensione delle opinioni di Bergson sulla vita; notevoli sono i suoi passi a proposito del ruolo dell'artistico nella vita.
Nel 1901 Bergson venne eletto alla Académie des Sciences morales et politiques e divenne un membro dell'Istituto. Nel 1903 fu pubblicato dalla Revue de metaphysique et de morale un suo articolo molto importante intitolato Introduction à la metaphysique (Introduzione alla Metafisica), che è utile come prefazione allo studio delle sue tre opere maggiori.
Alla morte di Gabriel Tarde, l'eminente sociologo, nel 1904, Bergson gli successe alla Cattedra di Filosofia Moderna. Dal 4 all'8 settembre di quell'anno era a Ginevra ad assistere al Secondo Congresso Internazionale di Filosofia, dove tenne relazioni su Le Paralogisme psycho-physiologique, o, per citare il suo nuovo titolo, Le Cerveau et la Pensée: une illusion philosophique (Il Cervello e il Pensiero: una illusione filosofica). Una malattia gli impedì di visitare la Germania per assistere al Terzo Congresso Internazionale di Filosofia tenutosi a Heidelberg.
Il suo terzo grande lavoro, L'Evolution créatrice, apparve nel 1907, ed è senza dubbio il più conosciuto e il più discusso. Costituisce uno dei contributi più profondi e originali alla riflessione filosofica sulla teoria della evoluzione. "Un livre comme L'Evolution créatrice," osserva Imbart de la Tour, "n'est pas seulement une oeuvre, mais une date, celle d'une direction nouvelle imprimée à la pensée." (Un libro come L'Evoluzione Creatrice non è solo un'opera ma anche una data, quella di una nuova direzione impressa al pensiero). Nel 1918, Alcan, l'editore, aveva già pubblicato ventuno edizioni, tenendo una media di due edizioni all'anno per dieci anni. A seguito della pubblicazione di quest'opera, la popolarità di Bergson aumentò enormemente, non solo negli ambienti accademici ma anche nel grande pubblico di lettori generici.
Il rapporto con James e il pragmatismo
Bergson arrivò a Londra nel 1908 e rese visita a William James, il filosofo americano di Harvard, che era più anziano di Bergson di diciassette anni e che era attivo nel richiamare l'attenzione del pubblico anglo-americano sul lavoro del professore francese. Questo fu un interessante incontro e troviamo le impressioni di James su Bergson nelle sue Lettere, sotto la data del 4 ottobre 1908. "Un uomo così modesto e senza pretese ma intellettualmente un tale genio! Ho il più fermo sospetto che la tendenza che egli ha messo a fuoco finirà col prevalere, e che la presente epoca sarà una sorta di punto di svolta nella storia della filosofia."
Fin dal 1880 James aveva scritto un articolo in francese per il periodico La Critique philosophique, di Renouvier e Pillon, intitolato Le Sentiment de l'Effort. Quattro anni dopo vi apparvero due suoi articoli: "Mente: Che cos'è una Emozione?" e "Su qualche Omissione della Psicologia Introspettiva". Di questi articoli i primi due furono citati da Bergson nella sua opera del 1889, Les données immédiates de la conscience. Negli anni seguenti 1890-91 furono pubblicati i due volumi dell'opera monumentale di James, I Princìpi della Psicologia, nella quale fa riferimento a un fenomeno patologico osservato da Bergson. Alcuni autori, considerando esclusivamente queste date e trascurando il fatto che l'indagine di James era in corso fin dal 1870 (di cui era stata tenuta traccia di tanto in tanto con vari articoli che culminarono con "I Princìpi"), hanno erroneamente datato le idee di Bergson come antecedenti a quelle di James.
It has been suggested that Bergson owes the root ideas of his first book to the 1884 article by James, "On Some Omissions of Introspective Psychology," which he neither refers to nor quotes. This article deals with the conception of thought as a stream of consciousness, which intellect distorts by framing into concepts. Bergson replied to this insinuation by denying that he had any knowledge of the article by James when he wrote Les données immédiates de la conscience. The two thinkers appear to have developed independently until almost the close of the century. They are further apart in their intellectual position than is frequently supposed. Both have succeeded in appealing to audiences far beyond the purely academic sphere, but only in their mutual rejection of "intellectualism" as final is there real unanimity. Although James was slightly ahead in the development and enunciation of his ideas, he confessed that he was baffled by many of Bergson's notions. James certainly neglected many of the deeper metaphysical aspects of Bergson's thought, which did not harmonize with his own, and are even in direct contradiction. In addition to this, Bergson is no pragmatist—for him "utility," so far from being a test of truth, is rather the reverse, a synonym for error.
Nevertheless, William James hailed Bergson as an ally. Early in the century (1903) he wrote: "I have been re-reading Bergson's books, and nothing that I have read since years has so excited and stimulated my thoughts. I am sure that that philosophy has a great future, it breaks through old cadres and brings things into a solution from which new crystals can be got." The most noteworthy tributes paid by him to Bergson were those made in the Hibbert Lectures (A Pluralistic Universe), which James gave at Manchester College, Oxford, shortly after meeting Bergson in London. He remarks on the encouragement he has received from Bergson's thought, and refers to the confidence he has in being "able to lean on Bergson's authority."
The influence of Bergson had led him "to renounce the intellectualist method and the current notion that logic is an adequate measure of what can or cannot be." It had induced him, he continued, "to give up logic, squarely and irrevocably" as a method, for he found that "reality, life, experience, concreteness, immediacy, use what word you will, exceeds our logic, overflows, and surrounds it."
Naturally, these remarks, which appeared in book form in 1909, directed many English and American readers to an investigation of Bergson's philosophy for themselves. A certain handicap existed in that his greatest work had not then been translated into English. James, however, encouraged and assisted Dr. Arthur Mitchell in his preparation of the English translation of L'Evolution créatrice. In August of 1910 James died. It was his intention, had he lived to see the completion of the translation, to introduce it to the English reading public by a prefatory note of appreciation. In the following year the translation was completed and still greater interest in Bergson and his work was the result. By a coincidence, in that same year (1911), Bergson penned for the French translation of James's book, "Pragmatism", a preface of sixteen pages, entitled Vérité et Realité. In it he expressed sympathetic appreciation of James's work, coupled with certain important reservations.
In April (5th to 11th) Bergson attended the Fourth International Congress of Philosophy held at Bologna, in Italy, where he gave a brilliant address on L'Intuition philosophique. In response to invitations received he came again to England in May of that year, and paid England several subsequent visits. These visits were always noteworthy events and were marked by important deliverances. Many of these contain important contributions to thought and shed new light on many passages in his three large works: Time and Free Will, Matter and Memory, and Creative Evolution. Although necessarily brief statements, they were of more recent date than his books, and thus showed how this acute thinker could develop and enrich his thought and take advantage of such an opportunity to make clear to an English audience the fundamental principles of his philosophy.
The lectures on change, and Bergson's later life
Bergson visited the University of Oxford, where he delivered two lectures entitled La Perception du Changement (The Perception of Change), which were published in French in the same year by the Clarendon Press. As he had a delightful gift of lucid and brief exposition, when the occasion demands such treatment, these lectures on Change formed a most valuable synopsis or brief survey of the fundamental principles of his thought, and served the student or general reader alike as an excellent introduction to the study of the larger volumes. Oxford honoured its distinguished visitor by conferring upon him the degree of Doctor of Science.
Two days later he delivered the Huxley Lecture at Birmingham University, taking for his subject Life and Consciousness. This subsequently appeared in The Hibbert Journal (Oct., 1911), and since revised, forms the first essay in the collected volume L'Energie spirituelle or Mind-Energy. In October he was again in England, where he had an enthusiastic reception, and delivered at University College London four lectures on La Nature de l'Ame.
In 1913 he visited the United States of America, at the invitation of Columbia University, New York, and lectured in several American cities, where he was welcomed by very large audiences. In February, at Columbia University, he lectured both in French and English, taking as his subjects: Spiritualité et Liberté and The Method of Philosophy. Being again in England in May of the same year, he accepted the Presidency of the British Society for Psychical Research, and delivered to the Society an impressive address: Fantômes des Vivants et Recherche psychique (Phantoms of Life and Psychic Research).
Meanwhile, his popularity increased, and translations of his works began to appear in a number of languages: English, German, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Hungarian, Polish and Russian. In 1914 he was honoured by his fellow-countrymen in being elected as a member of the Académie française. He was also made President of the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques, and in addition he became Officier de la Légion d'honneur, and Officier de l'Instruction publique.
Bergson found disciples of many varied types, and in France movements such as Neo-Catholicism or Modernism on the one hand and Syndicalism on the other, endeavoured to absorb and to appropriate for their own immediate use and propaganda some of the central ideas of his teaching. That important continental organ of socialist and syndicalist theory, Le Mouvement socialiste, suggested that the realism of Karl Marx and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is hostile to all forms of intellectualism, and that, therefore, supporters of Marxian socialism should welcome a philosophy such as that of Bergson. Other writers, in their eagerness, asserted the collaboration of the Chair of Philosophy at the College de France with the aims of the Confederation Generale du Travail and the Industrial Workers of the World. It was claimed that there is harmony between the flute of personal philosophical meditation and the trumpet of social revolution.
While social revolutionaries were endeavouring to make the most out of Bergson, many leaders of religious thought, particularly the more liberal-minded theologians of all creeds, e.g., the Modernists and Neo-Catholic Party in his own country, showed a keen interest in his writings, and many of them endeavoured to find encouragement and stimulus in his work. The Roman Catholic Church, however, which still believed that finality was reached in philosophy with the work of Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century, and consequently had made that mediaeval philosophy her official, orthodox, and dogmatic view, took the step of banning Bergson's three books by placing them upon the Index of prohibited books (Decree of June 1, 1914).
In 1914, the Scottish Universities arranged for Bergson to deliver the famous Gifford Lectures, and one course was planned for the spring and another for the autumn. The first course, consisting of eleven lectures, under the title of The Problem of Personality, was delivered at Edinburgh University in the Spring of that year. The course of lectures planned for the autumn months had to be abandoned because of the outbreak of war. Bergson was not, however, silent during the conflict, and he gave some inspiring addresses. As early as November 4, 1914, he wrote an article entitled La force qui s'use et celle qui ne s'use pas (Wearing and Nonwearing forces), which appeared in that unique and interesting periodical of the poilus, Le Bulletin des Armees de la Republique Française. A presidential address delivered in December, 1914, to the Academie des sciences morales et politiques, had for its title La Significance de la Guerre. This, together with the preceding article, has been translated and published in England as The Meaning of the War.
Bergson contributed also to the publication arranged by The Daily Telegraph in honour of the King of the Belgians, King Albert's Book (Christmas, 1914). In 1915 he was succeeded in the office of President of the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques by M. Alexandre Ribot, and then delivered a discourse on The Evolution of German Imperialism. Meanwhile he found time to issue at the request of the Minister of Public Instruction a delightful little summary of French Philosophy. Bergson did a large amount of travelling and lecturing in America during the war. He was there when the French Mission under M. Viviani paid a visit in April and May of 1917, following upon America's entry into the conflict. M. Viviani's book La Mission française en Amérique (1917), contains a preface by Bergson.
Early in 1918 he was officially received by the Académie française, taking his seat among "The Select Forty" as successor to Emile Ollivier, the author of the large and notable historical work L'Empire libéral. A session was held in January in his honour at which he delivered an address on Ollivier. In the war, Bergson saw the conflict of Mind and Matter, or rather of Life and Mechanism; and thus he shows us the central idea of his own philosophy in action. To no other philosopher has it fallen, during his lifetime, to have his philosophical principles so vividly and so terribly tested.
As many of Bergson's contributions to French periodicals were not readily accessible, he agreed to the request of his friends that these should be collected and published in two volumes. The first of these was being planned when war broke out. The conclusion of strife was marked by the appearance of a delayed volume in 1919. It bears the title L'Energie spirituelle: Essais et Conférences (Spiritual Energy: Essays and Lectures). The noted expounder of Bergson's philosophy in England, Dr. Wildon Carr, prepared an English translation under the title Mind-Energy. The volume opens with the Huxley Memorial Lecture of 1911, Life and Consciousness, in a revised and developed form under the title Consciousness and Life. Signs of Bergson's growing interest in social ethics and in the idea of a future life of personal survival are manifested. The lecture before the Society for Psychical Research is included, as is also the one given in France, L'Ame et le Corps, which contains the substance of the four London lectures on the Soul. The seventh and last article is a reprint of Bergson's famous lecture to the Congress of Philosophy at Geneva in 1904, Le paralogisme psycho-physiologique (The Psycho-Physiolgical Paralogism), which now appears as Le Cerveau et la Pensee: une illusion philosophique. Other articles are on the False Recognition, on Dreams, and Intellectual Effort. The volume is a most welcome production and serves to bring together what Bergson wrote on the concept of mental force, and on his view of "tension" and "detension" as applied to the relation of matter and mind.
In June, 1920, the University of Cambridge honoured him with the degree of Doctor of Letters (D.Litt). In order that he may be able to devote his full time to the great new work he was preparing on ethics, religion, and sociology, Bergson was relieved of the duties attached to the Chair of Modern Philosophy at the Collège de France. He retained the chair, but no longer delivered lectures, his place being taken by his noted pupil Edouard Le Roy. Living with his wife and daughter in a modest house in a quiet street near the Porte d'Auteuil in Paris, Henri Bergson won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927.
After his retirement from the Collège, Bergson faded into obscurity, because he was suffering from a degenerative illness. He completed his great new work, Les Deux Sources de la religion et de la Morale, which extended his philosophical theories to the realms of morality, religion and art, in 1935. It was respectfully received by the public and the philosophical community, but all by that time realized that Bergson's days as a philosophical luminary were past. He was, however, able to reiterate his core beliefs near the end of his life, by renouncing all of the posts and honours previously awarded him, rather than accept exemption from the antisemitic laws imposed by the Vichy government. Though wanting to convert to Catholicism, he held off instead and showed solidarity with his fellow Jews by signing the registry books.
A Roman Catholic priest said prayers at his funeral per his request. Henri Bergson is buried in the Cimetière de Garches, Hauts-de-Seine.
| Filosofia |
| Categoria:Storia della filosofia | Categoria:Filosofi | Categoria:Discipline filosofiche | Categoria:Opere filosofiche |
| Portale Filosofia | Progetto Filosofia |
Bergson, Henri
Bergson, Henri
Bergson, Henri